Hawaiian religion


Hawaiian religion encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of 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 other animals, the waves, and the sky.
Hawaiian religion originated among the Tahitians and other Pacific islanders who landed in Hawaii 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".

Beliefs

Deities

Hawaiian religion is polytheistic, with many deities, most prominently 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:
Another breakdown consists of three major groups:
One Hawaiian creation myth is embodied in the Kumulipo, an epic chant linking the alii, or Hawaiian royalty, to the gods. The Kumulipo is divided into two sections: night, or pō, and day, or ao, with the former corresponding to divinity and the latter corresponding to mankind. After the birth of Lailai, the woman, and Kii, the man, the man succeeds at seducing and reproducing with the woman before the god Kāne has a chance, thereby making the divine lineage of the gods younger than and thus subservient to the lineage of man. This, in turn, illustrates the transition of mankind from being symbols for the gods into the keeper of these symbols in the form of idols and the like. The Kumulipo was recited during the time of Makahiki, to honor the god of fertility, Lono.

''Kahuna'' and ''Kapu''

The kahuna were well respected, educated individuals that made up a social hierarchy class that served the King and the Courtiers and assisted the Maka'ainana. Selected to serve many practical and governmental purposes, Kahuna often were healers, navigators, builders, prophets/temple workers, and philosophers.
They also talked with the spirits. Kahuna Kūpaiulu of Maui in 1867 described a counter-sorcery ritual to heal someone ill due to hoopiopio, another’s evil thoughts. He said a kapa was shaken. Prayers were said.
Then, "If the evil spirit suddenly appears and possesses the patient, then he or she can be immediately saved by the conversation between the practitioner and that spirit."
Pukui and others believed kahuna did not have mystical transcendent experiences as described in other religions. Although a person who was possessed would go into a trance-like state, it was not an ecstatic experience but simply a communion with the known spirits.
Kapu refers to a system of taboos designed to separate the spiritually pure from the potentially unclean. Thought to have arrived with Pāao, a priest or chief from Tahiti who arrived in Hawaii sometime around 1200 AD, the kapu imposed a series of restrictions on daily life. Prohibitions included:
Hawaiian tradition shows that Aikapu was an idea led by the kahuna in order for Wākea, the sky father, to get alone with his daughter, Hoohokukalani without his wahine, or wife, Papa, the earth mother, noticing. The spiritually pure or laa, meaning "sacred" and unclean or haumia were to be separated. Aikapu included:
's account of Freycinet's travels around the world from 1817 to 1820.
Other Kapus included Mālama Āina, meaning "caring of the land" and Niaupio. Tradition says that mālama āina originated from the first child of Wākea and Hoohokukalani being deformed so they buried him in the ground and what sprouted became the first kalo, also known as taro. The Hawaiian islands are all children of Papa, Wākea and Hoohokukalani so basically meaning that they are older siblings of the Hawaiian chiefs. Second child of Wākea and Hoohokukalani became the first Alii Nui, or "Grand Chief". This came to be called Niaupio, the chiefly incest to create the "godly child".
Punishments for breaking the kapu could include death, although if one could escape to a puuhonua, a city of refuge, one could be saved. Kāhuna nui mandated long periods when the entire village must have absolute silence. No baby could cry, dog howl, or rooster crow, on pain of death.
Human sacrifice was not unknown.
The kapu system remained in place until 1819.

Prayer and ''heiau''

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:
Heiau, served as focal points for prayer in Hawaii. Offerings, sacrifices, and prayers were offered at these temples, the thousands of koa, a multitude of wahi pana, and at small kuahu in individual homes.

History

Origins

Although it is unclear when settlers first came to the Hawaiian Islands, there is significant evidence that the islands were settled no later than 800 AD and immigration continued to about 1300 AD. Settlers came from the Marquesas, Tonga, Samoa, Easter Island, and greater Polynesia. At some point, a significant influx of Tahitian settlers landed on the Hawaiian islands, bringing with them their religious beliefs.
Early Hawaiian religion resembled other Polynesian religions in that it was largely focused on natural forces such as the tides, the sky, and volcanic activity as well as man's dependence on nature for subsistence. The major early gods reflected these characteristics, as the early Hawaiians worshiped Kāne, Kū, Lono and Kanaloa.

Early Hawaiian religion

As an indigenous culture, spread among eight islands, with waves of immigration over hundreds of years from various parts of the South Pacific, religious practices evolved over time and from place to place in different ways.
Hawaiian scholar Mary Kawena Pukui, who was raised in Kaʻū, Hawaii, maintained that the early Hawaiian gods were benign. One Molokai tradition follows this line of thought. Author and researcher Pali Jae Lee writes: "During these ancient times, the only 'religion' was one of family and oneness with all things. The people were in tune with nature, plants, trees, animals, the ‘āina, and each other. They respected all things and took care of all things. All was pono."
"In the dominant current of Western thought there is a fundamental separation between humanity and divinity.... In many other cultures, however, such differences between human and divine do not exist. Some peoples have no concept of a ‘Supreme Being’ or ‘Creator God’ who is by nature ‘other than’ his creation. They do, however, claim to experience a spirit world in which beings more powerful than they are concerned for them and can be called upon for help."
"Along with ancestors and gods, spirits are part of the family of Hawaiians. "There are many kinds of spirits that help for good and many that aid in evil. Some lie and deceive, and some are truthful... It is a wonderful thing how the spirits of the dead and the ‘angels’ of the ʻaumākua can possess living persons. Nothing is impossible to god-spirits, akua."

Contemporary

died in 1819. In the aftermath, two of his wives, Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani, then the two most powerful people in the kingdom, conferred with the kahuna nui, Hewahewa. They convinced young Liholiho, Kamehameha II, to overthrow the kapu system. They ordered the people to burn the wooden statues and tear down the rock temples.
Without the hierarchical system of religion in place, some abandoned the old gods, and others continued with cultural traditions of worshipping them, especially their family ʻaumākua.
Missionaries arrived in 1820, and most of the alii converted to Christianity, including Kaahumanu and Keōpūolani, but it took 11 years for Kaahumanu to proclaim laws against ancient religious practices:
, 2009
Although traditional Hawaiian religion was outlawed, a number of traditions typically associated with it survived by integration, practicing in hiding, or practicing in rural communities in the islands. Surviving traditions include the worship of family ancestral gods or aumākua, veneration of iwi or bones, and preservation of sacred places or wahi pana. Hula was outlawed at one time as a religious practice but today is performed in both spiritual and secular contexts.
Traditional beliefs have also played a role in the politics of post-Contact Hawaii. In the 1970s the Hawaiian religion experienced a resurgence during the Hawaiian Renaissance. In 1976, the members of a group "Protect Kahoolawe Ohana" filed suit in federal court over the use of Kahoolawe by the United States Navy for target practice. Charging that the practice disturbed important cultural and religious sites Aluli et al. v. Brown forced the Navy to survey and protect important sites, perform conservation activities, and allow limited access to the island for religious purposes. Similarly, outrage over the unearthing of 1,000 graves dating back to 850 AD during the construction of a Ritz-Carlton hotel on Maui in 1988 resulted in the redesign and relocation of the hotel inland as well as the appointment of the site as a state historic place.
Since 2014, an ongoing series of protests and demonstrations have been taking place on the Island of Hawaii in the United States regarding the choosing of Mauna Kea for the site location of the Thirty Meter Telescope. These protests have been known as the Thirty Meter Telescope Protests. Mauna Kea is considered by some Hawaiians to be the most sacred mountain of Native Hawaiian religion and culture. Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners have repeatedly failed in court to prove that these practices predate 1893, which is the threshold for protection under Hawaii State law. Protests began locally within the state of Hawaii on October 7, 2014 but went global within weeks of the April 2, 2015 arrest of 31 people who had blockaded the roadway to keep construction crews off the summit. On July 14, 2019, an online petition titled
"The Immediate Halt to the Construction of the TMT telescope on Mauna Kea" was posted on Change.org. The petition has gathered over 100,000 signatures.
Along with the surviving traditions, some Hawaiians practice Christianized versions of old traditions. Others practice it as a co-religion.
In the 1930s, non-Hawaiian author Max Freedom Long created a philosophy and practice he called "Huna". While Long and his successors have misrepresented this invention as a type of ancient, Hawaiian occultism, it is actually a New Age product of cultural misappropriation and fantasy, and not representative of traditional Hawaiian religion.