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Ahupua'a

•The main landholding unit in Hawai'i was the ahupua'a, a triangular slice of land running from the mountains in the center of an island down to the seashore.

•The Hawaiians maintained an agricultural system that contained two major classes; irrigated and rain-fed systems.

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Caste System

Ancient Hawaii was a caste society much like that of the Hindus in India. People were born into specific social classes; social mobility was not unknown, but it was extremely rare. The main classes were: Ali'i, Kahuna, Maka'ainana, and Kaua.

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ANCIENT HAWAII

•1810

•During the time Hawaii was a kingdom

•He’au’s began to be built

•Tropical materials being used

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why does Auli'i wear a flower in her hair at all the interviews?? not trying to be rude i'm just curious lol tysm!

In the Hawaiian culture, if you are to wear a flower behind your left ear, you are married and/or unavailable. Wearing a flower on the right side signifies the opposite, that the person in question is single and possibly looking for love.

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Hawaiian Religion

Hawaiian religion encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Native Hawaiians. It is polytheistic and animistic, with a belief in many deities and spirits, including the belief that spirits are found in non-human beings and objects such as animals, the waves, and the sky.

Hawaiian religion originated among the Tahitians and other Pacific islanders who landed in Hawaiʻi between 500 and 1300 AD. Today, Hawaiian religious practices are protected by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Traditional Hawaiian religion is unrelated to the modern New Age practice known as “Huna.”

Deities

Hawaiian religion is polytheistic, with four deities most prominent: Kāne, Kū, Lono, and Kanaloa. Other notable deities include Laka, Kihawahine, Haumea, Papahānaumoku, and, most famously, Pele. In addition, each family is considered to have one or more guardian spirits known as ʻaumakua that protected family.

One breakdown of the Hawaiian pantheon consists of the following groups:

the four gods (ka hā) – Kū, Kāne, Lono, Kanaloa

the forty male gods or aspects of Kāne (ke kanahā)

the four hundred gods and goddesses (ka lau)

the great multitude of gods and goddesses (ke kini akua)

the spirits (na ʻunihipili)

the guardians (na ʻaumākua)

Another breakdown consists of three major groups:

the four gods, or akua: Kū, Kāne, Lono, Kanaloa

many lesser gods, or kupua, each associated with certain professions

guardian spirits, ʻaumakua, associated with particular families

Above image: One side of Puʻukohola Heiau, a Hawaiian temple used as a place of worship and sacrifice.

Prayer

Prayer was an essential part of Hawaiian life, employed when building a house, making a canoe, and giving lomilomi massage. Hawaiians addressed prayers to various gods depending on the situation. When healers picked herbs for medicine, they usually prayed to Kū and Hina, male and female, right and left, upright and supine. The people worshiped Lono during Makahiki season and Kū during times of war.

Histories from the 19th century describe prayer throughout the day, with specific prayers associated with mundane activities such as sleeping, eating, drinking, and traveling. However, it has been suggested that the activity of prayer differed from the subservient styles of prayer often seen in the Western world:

“..the usual posture for prayer – sitting upright, head high and eyes open – suggests a relationship marked by respect and self-respect. The gods might be awesome, but the ʻaumākua bridged the gap between gods and man. The gods possessed great mana; but man, too, has some mana. None of this may have been true in the time of Pāʻao, but otherwise, the Hawaiian did not seem prostrate before his gods.”

Heiau, served as focal points for prayer in Hawaiʻi. Offerings, sacrifices, and prayers were offered at these temples, the thousands of koʻa (shrines), a multitude of wahi pana (sacred places), and at small kuahu (altars) in individual homes.

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… ‘Hawaii Before Statehood, 1959’ image series from Life magazine

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JUSTICE FOR MAUNA KEA

By Anne Keala Kelly - Indian Country Today - Dec 3, 2018

Five weeks ago, the Hawaii State Supreme Court voted to validate permits for construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. Plaintiffs requested reconsideration of the decision, but were turned down by the court last Thursday. A nine year-long legal challenge appears to be over.

Hawaiians are, understandably, disappointed. And more than ever, we are questioning the efficacy of asking a system premised on stealing justice from us to give some of that justice back. How do we contend with the fact that we are conditioned to submit to settler-colonial laws while simultaneously attempting to protect sacred spaces when these matters are diametrically opposed? These aren’t easy things to mull. Neither is what to do about the court’s ruling. Because as the Indigenous People who hold that mauna sacred, no matter what that system says or does to us, we cannot allow them to put shovels in the ground.

Now, we are forced to consider other paths to protecting the mauna, alternatives for how to proceed. Anger and frustration about the state always ending up on the sunny side of the legal street it paved should be shed right now. In place of that we need the courage and will to exert political agency beyond the state, starting with the Kapu Aloha thing to do.

For everyone’s sake, we must kindly, directly urge Gordon Moore and the TMT Corp to take the telescope to Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands. Spain has established its own astronomy industry there, having long ago erased the Indigenous People of that place during their colonial heyday. No one will protest against it there. And it will still be powerful enough to reach back far enough in time to talk-story with God Almighty. They’ll just have the conversation in Español instead of English.

And if being polite doesn’t work, we move onto the next option, something our Maori cousins used recently to stop Brazil’s oil giant, Petrobras, from exploration off Aotearoa’s East Coast. It’s called “brand assault.” It involves, as the name implies, damaging corporate and industry brands.

Before going into what some of that might look like, it’s worth pointing out to Hawaii taxpayers that attempts to build the TMT will cost much more than the $1.4 billion we keep hearing. That project will bleed money, just like the Honolulu rail, only worse. The TMT Corp won’t be digging any ordinary hole in that mountain. Their hole will be, in astronomy’s vernacular, a black hole.

Why?

The most obvious expense will be a militarized police force sent to arrest hundreds, maybe thousands of Hawaiians spread out over many months, possibly years. Then there’s the cost to process and incarcerate a steady flow of Hawaiians who will make every inch of that project a miserable venture by blocking it physically, even if we have to do so at the pointy end of a gun.

Don’t expect the TMT’s funding entities to lose sleep over that expense, though, because it won’t be their money making that one-way trip into the aforementioned hole. The state will continue to invoice taxpayers for those costs, even while selling them a lie about how that money-sucking hole in the mauna is good for the economy. Truth is, many millions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent just to secure those permits to build.

But let’s get back to the practice of brand assault. There are a number of places where this fits nicely, but I’ll just focus on two, beginning with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. It will be the brand assault heard ‘round the world. Like the billionaire version of the Big Bang, or the cautionary tale of what happened when billionaire, Gordon Moore, wanted his own Mount Rushmore. But instead of the slave masters and Indian haters carved into the sacred Black Hills like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Gordon Moore’s Hawaiian hating version is the TMT carved into the sacred Mauna Kea.

For the duration, Hawaiians and our Indigenous allies will be at every conference and professional event anyone related to Gordon Moore’s foundation attends, preceded by multi-lingual press releases, internet blasts on social media, and more. We are already at the United Nations and every Indigenous Peoples and Environmental conference out there. Whenever we and our supporters across the globe speak to, and are interviewed about destruction of Indigenous world, colonization, and threats to the environment, the first thing we will do is call out Gordon Moore as the hypocrite he is. The mission statement of his foundation claims to foster “environmental conservation.” Apparently, Gordon Moore’s idea of what to do with a conservation district that contains a fresh water aquifer is to build a toxic telescope on top of it.

The second site of confrontation is the precious tourism industry. People wept over lost revenues from Tutu Pele’s recent work. And tour companies charging $200 and up for a ride to the summit whined when Hawaiians protested in 2015. Imagine if a few of us actually decided to intentionally damage the industry. How long would it take to end all tours to the summit? A full-blown brand assault on the “Aloha State” fantasy would cost millions, maybe even billions. And all we’d do is tell the truth about our experience, about what the state and the University of Hawaii and Gordon Moore and the TMT Corp are doing to the Hawaiian people’s most sacred site.

Then again, the state might assault its tourism brand for us, when countless images of Native Hawaiians being hauled off to jail dominate local, national, and international news.

No one wants to do any of what I’m describing, by the way. We’d much rather say “adios” and “vaya con dios” with choke amounts of aloha! And, yet, here I am, already going for it in this commentary. And I will Face Book, Tweet, email and text this as soon as it shows up online.

The state’s court kicked the Hawaiian case to the curb, but that only signifies an end to the state sanctioned approach. Now we must take the fight to them.

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Hawaiian Duolingo Vocabulary #3

Polite Expressions

Akua - God/Godess

Ke akua pū - God be with you/Blessings

Iesū - Jesus

Iesū pū - Jesus be with you

hui ʻana - meeting

Mahalo ka hui ʻana - Thank you for the meeting

Mahalo kēia hui ʻana - Thank you for this meeting

auē - oh

E kala mai - Forgive me

Auē, e kala mai - Oh, forgive me

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Aloha Poke Co, stop appropriating Native Hawaiian culture!

“Aloha Poke Co is a Midwest based restaurant that has aggressively threatened Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) families with legal action for the use of the word “Aloha” in their business or social media. Not only are they capitalizing on an Indigenous traditional dish that they have no rights to, but they also have the gall to try and bar our own people from using a word in our language that has deep cultural meaning and symbolism. A language that up until 1987 was illegal in schools in Hawaii.

The root base of aloha are the words ALO and HA. Alo means presence, or as some kupuna have described it, recognition. HA means the breath of life. Therefore when we as Kanaka Maoli say “Aloha” we are recognizing being in the presence of another person’s breath of life. To threaten suit to Kanaka Maoli families who are simply trying to practice their generations old culture and feed the community? So that you can profit off of a culture and a people that are not yours to sell? That is what we call HEWA.

We as Kanaka Maoli also stand in solidarity with the Algonquin peoples who are the First Peoples of Chicago and were driven from the land by settlers. This is still pertinent because not only do the Algonquin people still live and struggle today, we know from the struggles of working class Chicago peoples that Aloha Poke Co is a part of a progressive wave of gentrification, commodification, and cultural appropriation that is criminalizing and driving out poor and people of color from the urban core.

We understand because half of our own people cannot afford to live in Hawaii due to the cost of living. We as Kanaka Maoli and all those who ally with us seek not only to be free from oppression, but to be free from the use of our culture in the oppression of others. As we struggle to cease the exploitation of our people, lands, culture and foods, so also do we refuse to have our language and culture participate in the gentrification of the homes of our allies abroad.

We call upon Aloha Poke Company, LLC to “cease and desist” from the use of the words “Aloha”, “Aloha Poke” and “Poke” from all current and future businesses. We understand that this will come at some cost to you, but we think that cost to a multi-million dollar company is comparable to the cost that you have asked these small families to suffer when you have demanded they remove theirs.

Mahalo nui loa, (not copywrited, still not yours to have)

The Kanaka Maoli peoples and ALL OUR relatives.“

~Kalamaoka'aina Niheu

Sign the petition here.

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Stuff has been getting to me lately so I want to show you guys an authentic hula performance. It’s just so annoying to see people do some stupid hollywood version of the hula when it is such an important part of the culture, and so much goes into it. Those costumes and head pieces and leis were probably all made by the dancers themselves, and in a halau being in sync is vital, and the night before a performance they all have to braid their hair and then brush it out right before the performance to get it that way- they all have to look the same, in appearance and choreography. And that hollywood version of the outfit is so stupid, look at these beautiful outfits. So much work and love and pride goes into this dance and then people mock it and the culture. I just wish people cared more.

There was a commercial on TV where these two white girls put a “little hula girl” dance figurine on the dashboard of their car, and it’s just so urgh. Frustrating. Nobody would put a little Mexican figurine in a sombrero on their dashboard (but I did just watch a Party City commercial selling “Mexican” decorations and sombreros for Cinco De Mayo like come on guys). And that new “Aloha” movie coming out- starring all white actors on the Hawaiian islands, doing nothing that has to do with Hawaii, just using it as a prop. And all these rich white people travelling to Hawaii for funsies then coming back saying, “I loved Hawaii, the hotel was beautiful, but those natives are so mean, they are only nice if you are paying them for something” Hm I fucking wonder why- maybe because their land was taken from them and now they are forced to work in these swanky hotels while they live in squalor and have to perform their own sacred cultural dances for these rich tourists’ entertainment. This rant got longer than I wanted so I’ll end it there.

Just please stop mocking the Hawaiian culture.

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Hawaiian Religion

Hawaiian religion encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Native Hawaiians. It is polytheistic and animistic, with a belief in many deities and spirits, including the belief that spirits are found in non-human beings and objects such as animals, the waves, and the sky.

Hawaiian religion originated among the Tahitians and other Pacific islanders who landed in Hawaiʻi between 500 and 1300 AD. Today, Hawaiian religious practices are protected by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Traditional Hawaiian religion is unrelated to the modern New Age practice known as “Huna.”

Deities

Hawaiian religion is polytheistic, with four deities most prominent: Kāne, Kū, Lono, and Kanaloa. Other notable deities include Laka, Kihawahine, Haumea, Papahānaumoku, and, most famously, Pele. In addition, each family is considered to have one or more guardian spirits known as ʻaumakua that protected family.

One breakdown of the Hawaiian pantheon consists of the following groups:

the four gods (ka hā) – Kū, Kāne, Lono, Kanaloa

the forty male gods or aspects of Kāne (ke kanahā)

the four hundred gods and goddesses (ka lau)

the great multitude of gods and goddesses (ke kini akua)

the spirits (na ʻunihipili)

the guardians (na ʻaumākua)

Another breakdown consists of three major groups:

the four gods, or akua: Kū, Kāne, Lono, Kanaloa

many lesser gods, or kupua, each associated with certain professions

guardian spirits, ʻaumakua, associated with particular families

Above image: One side of Puʻukohola Heiau, a Hawaiian temple used as a place of worship and sacrifice.

Prayer

Prayer was an essential part of Hawaiian life, employed when building a house, making a canoe, and giving lomilomi massage. Hawaiians addressed prayers to various gods depending on the situation. When healers picked herbs for medicine, they usually prayed to Kū and Hina, male and female, right and left, upright and supine. The people worshiped Lono during Makahiki season and Kū during times of war.

Histories from the 19th century describe prayer throughout the day, with specific prayers associated with mundane activities such as sleeping, eating, drinking, and traveling. However, it has been suggested that the activity of prayer differed from the subservient styles of prayer often seen in the Western world:

“..the usual posture for prayer – sitting upright, head high and eyes open – suggests a relationship marked by respect and self-respect. The gods might be awesome, but the ʻaumākua bridged the gap between gods and man. The gods possessed great mana; but man, too, has some mana. None of this may have been true in the time of Pāʻao, but otherwise, the Hawaiian did not seem prostrate before his gods.”

Heiau, served as focal points for prayer in Hawaiʻi. Offerings, sacrifices, and prayers were offered at these temples, the thousands of koʻa (shrines), a multitude of wahi pana (sacred places), and at small kuahu (altars) in individual homes.

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Pacific Islanders have, for the most part, ignored this whole trend, Correa says. “But seeing your ancient gods or your ancestors in a bar somewhere far from where you are — I think that can be hard.”

Seeing his Hawaiian culture commodified and turned into kitsch can feel invalidating, he adds. “Really at the root of it, it’s exploitation,” he says. “It’s ignoring the real lives, the real culture and the real problems that we do face.”

Tiki bars can also feed into the idea that the islands are just a place to vacation or escape, he says, when in fact, Pacific islanders have real concerns — like climate change threatening their homeland, and their traditional ways of living.

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On July 28th, a Hawaiian activist named Kalamaokaaina Niheu appeared in a Facebook Live video to discuss a “disturbing message” that she had received in her in-box that morning. It was about Aloha Poke Co., a restaurant chain based in Chicago that specializes in fast-casual versions of poke, a traditional Hawaiian dish made of chunks of seasoned raw fish. Niheu, who represents Hawaii in the Pacific Caucus at the United Nations and lives in Honolulu, had been hearing from Hawaiian business owners who had received cease-and-desist letters from the Chicago company, claiming that it had trademarked the phrases “Aloha” and “Aloha Poke,” and that any food business using those words in its name was infringing on its federal trademark.

To Niheu and other kanaka maoli—native Hawaiians—Aloha Poke Co.’s claim was ludicrous: How could a business, let alone a non-Hawaiian one, claim a right to something as fundamental to Hawaiian culture as the word “aloha”?

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Erasure Rhetoric

To The Hawaiians

You found Hawaii because of the stars…you claim Hawaii as your ancestral home because the stars led you there.

You claim the mountain Mauna a Wākea is sacred to you. Then you must know that All mountains are sacred, as All places are sacred. Earth is sacred.

No person is entitled to the Earth. No place is more sacred than any another place. Do not fight for “your” mountain. It is not your mountain. Hawaii is not your Island. No one is special here, no one is entitled to the Earth. If you hold these beliefs then this kind of thinking only divides us.

The stars the observatories study, these are the same stars that led your forefathers to Hawaii, these are the same stars your ancient Ohana studied, these stars are our original ancestral home and now the rest of the World is seeking to follow these same stars, to learn from them. The human family has lost their way.

Brothers and sisters of Hawaii, ancient Mariners and Navigators of The Milky Way, show the people the way home. Please share the sky with all of humanity. Show us how to follow the star path, it is your way, your gift, your ancient tradition.

The above is a transcript from a post that was shared on my facebook feed.  Comments such as these serve to erase Hawaiian identity and sovereignty.  This is the same type of political rhetoric that people use to claim “all lives matter” instead of “black lives matter,” that “we are all humans” while ignoring the privilege they have and oppression that different humans face, often at the same hands that claim this “we are all the same” thought.  The people that make these statements come from a place of privilege, erasing and devaluing cultural importance in a land that they occupied, taking away Hawaiian autonomy.  Do not fall into this rhetoric.  It is not right for them to apply this erasure rhetoric when their western ways are what holds division in place; they cannot pick and choose what issues they are being affected by, and they most certainly cannot feel as though they are being denied a right others have when they are in positions of power.  Do not let someone who is privileged in their western cultural ways, whose influence spans the world, tell you that you must share with them, for they are not entitled to it.

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“Onboard this East Coast leg is a 12-member crew, a mix of veteran native Hawaiian navigators and young, lean apprentices who have taken time off their jobs as pro surfers, educators and executives for the chance of a lifetime: sailing for weeks on a 61-foot catamaran-style canoe in the open ocean. And the promise of returning with a stronger sense of themselves.“

“Now, she’s on a journey to make history, traversing the globe by wayfinding — an ancient Polynesian skill that requires memorizing hundreds of stars and where they rise and set on the ocean horizon. She has already crossed 26,000 miles of ocean and still has a year left to go.“

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The Meaning Behind Hula (Smithsonian Magazine)

Paul Theroux’s Quest to Define Hawaii