Hawaiian religion encompasses the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of Native Hawaiians.
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.
Hawaiian religion is polytheistic, with many deities, most prominently Kāne, Kū, Lono and Kanaloa 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. Traditional Hawaiian religion is unrelated to the modern New Age practice known as Huna.
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
More information: Hawaii Magazine
One Hawaiian creation myth is embodied in the Kumulipo, an epic chant linking the aliʻi, 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 Laʻilaʻi, the woman, and Kiʻi, 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, the literal meaning of kiʻi, 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.
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 (Common People). Selected to serve many practical and governmental purposes, Kahuna often were healers, navigators, builders, prophets/temple workers, and philosophers.
Pukui and others believed kahuna did not have mystical transcendent experiences as described in other religions. Although a person who was possessed (noho) 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 Pāʻao, a priest or chief from Tahiti who arrived in Hawaiʻi sometime around 1200 AD, the kapu imposed a series of restrictions on daily life. Prohibitions included:
-The separation of men and women during mealtimes, a restriction known as ʻaikapu
-Restrictions on the gathering and preparation of food
-Women separated from the community during their menses
-Restrictions on looking at, touching, or being in close proximity with chiefs and individuals of known spiritual power
-Restrictions on overfishing
Hawaiian tradition shows that ʻAikapu was an idea led by the kahuna in order for Wākea, the sky father, to get alone with his daughter, Hoʻohokukalani without his wahine, or wife, Papa, the earth mother, noticing. The spiritually pure or laʻa, meaning sacred and unclean or haumia were to be separated. ʻAikapu included:
-The use of a different ovens to cook the food of male and female
-Different eating places
-Women were forbidden to eat pig, coconut, banana, and certain red foods because of their male symbolism.
-During times of war, the first two men to be killed were offered to the gods as sacrifices.
More information: Deseret
Other Kapus included Mālama ʻĀina, meaning caring of the land and Niʻaupiʻo. Tradition says that mālama ʻāina originated from the first child of Wākea and Hoʻohokukalani 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 Hoʻohokukalani so basically meaning that they are older siblings of the Hawaiian chiefs.
Second child of Wākea and Hoʻohokukalani became the first Aliʻi Nui, or Grand Chief. This came to be called Niʻaupiʻo, the chiefly incest to create the godly child.
Punishments for breaking the kapu could include death, although if one could escape to a puʻuhonua, 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.
The kapu system remained in place until 1819.
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.
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 (the god of the sky and creation), Kū (the god of war and male pursuits), Lono (the god of peace, rain, and fertility) and Kanaloa (the god of the ocean).
Kamehameha the Great 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 aliʻi converted to Christianity, including Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani, but it took 11 years for Kaʻahumanu to proclaim laws against ancient religious practices.
More information: Green Global Travel
from the union of Papahānaumoku and Wakea,
Earth mother and sky father, and who have lived
in these islands for over 100 generations,
will always have the moral right to the lands of Hawaii
now and forever, no matter what any court says.
Lilikalā K. Kame'eleihiwa
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