HAWAIIANS RECLAIM THEIR CULTURE TO KEEP IT ALIVE

Today, The Grandma is reading an interesting report about Hawaiian culture while The Stones are resting after some days of hard work studying English grammar.

For the past three centuries Hawaiian culture has been attacked by the cultures of immigrant groups from places such as China, Japan, the Philippines, and, of course, the U.S.

As early as the 1820s, cultural conflict led to the prohibition of the hula, which is a way of dancing and chanting in praise of the Hawaiian gods, among them Kane, the creator; Lono, god of harvests;and Ku, the god of war, regarded by Christian missionaries as pagan. By the time Hawaii became a state in 1959, its culture had been seriously eroded.

Many Hawaiians were angered as they had to prove that they had at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood to  receive  land  grants.  This  lead  to  an insurgent  movement  in  favor  of  land  for  all  Kanaka Maoli, Original People, no matter how little native blood they had.

Hawaiians resented the fact that in the new state the language continued to be forbidden in schools, and were enraged at the high crime rates and poor health standards.

Although  the  Hawaiians  never  lost  their  voice,  only  in  the  past  two decades  have  people started  paying  close  attention  to  them.  Today  the  old term  'part  Hawaiian'  is  considered derogatory,  and  of  the  1.2  million people  living  in  the  islands,  almost  250,000  identify themselves as 'native Hawaiian', wholly or in combination with another ethnic group.

More information: The Culture Trip

The 1970s saw four main expressions of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance: the recovery of the island of Kaho’olawe, the return of voyaging, the 'Battle of the Bones', and the revival of traditional hula.

The U.S. military had been using the small island of Kaho’olawe as a bombing target since 1941,  despite  the  fact  that  it  contains  some  2,000  archaeological  sites.

In  the  late  1970s  the bombing  provoked  anger,  demonstrations  and occupation  of  this  uninhabited  island,  which since 1990 has been set aside for the preservation of Hawaiian culture. The  1970s  also  saw  the  revival of  voyaging  in  the  ancestral  way,  sailing  the  Pacific  intraditional canoes.

Hawaiian voyaging had ended in the 14th century but the art of navigating and  the  ancient  methods  of  reading  the  stars  still  existed  on  remote Pacific  islands.  Pius Piailug,  'Mau',  has  brought  back  the  art  of  crossing the  Pacific  following  the  stars,  and  aproud  culture  of  voyaging  that teaches  discipline  and  self-steem  has  grown  up  around Hawaiian canoes.

The so-called 'Battle of the Bones' erupted in the mid-1980s when a Ritz-Carlton hotel was proposed at Honokahua on a burial ground. Protests were so strong that in 1989 the planned hotel was moved back to preserve the sanctity of the site, and new laws were passed to prevent buildings from desecrating ancient Hawaiian sites.

Hula is a symbol of the Hawaiian people. It is a performance of storytelling, chanting andstamping, by one person or in groups. It is entertainment as well as a formal way of greeting visitors  and  of  praising  events  and  places.  It teaches  Hawaiian  language,  history,  genealogy and spirituality. To most natives, hula was life, so it was not surprising that mothers used to teach hula to their daughters before they could walk.

More information: Cultural Survival

 

The history of the United States is a history
of settler colonialism-
the founding of a state based on
the ideology of white supremacy,
the widespread practice of African slavery,
and a policy of genocide and land theft.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz