Hawaii Locals Share What They Need Vacationers to Know About Their Historical past and Tradition

It’s possible you’ll suppose you understand Hawaii. However there’s extra to those gorgeous islands than white-sand seashores and breezy palm bushes. 

Past the surf breaks and world-class sunsets, Hawaii has a posh story. Navigators had been born right here. There’s an unmatched reverence for the land. It is a spot as soon as—and nonetheless—full of warriors, working arduous to combat for his or her cultural preservation. And as our visitors share, Hawaiian tradition isn’t simply alive on the islands—it touches the far corners of the world, too. 

On this week’s episode of Misplaced Cultures: Dwelling Legacies, we’re exploring Hawaii by way of the voices of cultural practitioners, historians, and lecturers, together with Evan Mokuahi Hayes, a Hawaiian historian who returned to the islands seeking therapeutic. He discovered it, unexpectedly, in a taro patch.

“Hawaii has this stunning approach of, even when you don’t have anything to present, it’ll meet you there,” he shares on the episode. “It has a approach of therapeutic damaged components of you, primarily, and filling these empty areas.” 

That connection to ʻāina—to land and Earth—runs deep for a lot of. As Dr. J. Uluwehi Hopkins, a professor of Hawaiian historical past, explains on the episode, “We’ve got cosmogonic genealogies … that say we grew proper out of the land right here, that the land itself is our ancestors.” The result’s a worldview constructed on stewardship, not possession.

That view was nearly shattered within the late 1700s, when Western contact reshaped the islands’ political and non secular landscapes. 

“Our Hawaiian chiefs wished to kind a authorities that different nations would respect and due to this fact work together with in an equal approach,” Hopkins explains. “And the Hawaiian folks really did not need land possession, however the authorities enacted it as a result of they realized that if we established land in a approach that had an proprietor, if one other overseas energy got here and took us over, they needed to respect the landowners.” 

This episode additionally explores the arrival of American missionaries within the nineteenth century, the rise of the sugar trade, and the unlawful overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani. “She crafted this actually fantastic, sensible response during which she says, ‘I’ll yield my authority till the U.S. president realizes the illegality of his personal minister,’” Hopkins shares. 

By way of all of it, Hawaiian tradition has endured, particularly in hula. “Hula is precisely what folks see,” says Hokulani Holt, a kumu hula, or instructor of the artwork of hula. “It’s the visible illustration of the phrases that you’re listening to. You can not have hula with out phrases.” Holt provides, hula shouldn’t be merely a efficiency; it’s historical past in motion. 

To get to know Hawai‘i on a brand new stage, take heed to this week’s episode of Misplaced Cultures: Dwelling Legacies. It is accessible now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Participant FM, or wherever you get your podcasts.