Posts: 2,466
Threads: 316
Joined: May 2008
What do Hawaiians (or anyone else) do when they go up Mauna Kea to practice their religion/worship/rites? Do they build a Heiau and bow down before it and chant? Is hula done up there? Do they worship from afar? What has anyone done up there for the past hundred years? Anything?
Why is Mauna Kea sacred? Is it because it’s the tallest mountain on the island? Is it sacred because some said in the past “This mountain shall now be sacred.”?
I’ve asked people and no one seems to have anything specific, just vague generalities.
Why aren’t the other mountains just as sacred? Is it because they wiggle and get hot sometimes?
Puna: Our roosters crow first
Puna: Our roosters crow first
Posts: 11,061
Threads: 754
Joined: Sep 2012
What has anyone done up there for the past hundred years?
If you mean Mauna Kea summit, Mauna Kea Access Road was built in 1964. Prior to that one can only imagine how many people walked and climbed to the peak for religious ceremonies.
Also, in earlier times, from Wikipedia:
* a kapu (ancient Hawaiian law) restricted visitor rights to high-ranking ali#699;i.
* In pre-contact times, natives traveling up Mauna Kea were probably guided more by landscape than by existing trails, as no evidence of trails has been found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Kea
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
Posts: 14,122
Threads: 424
Joined: Aug 2012
Why is Mauna Kea sacred?
I can think of 1,400,000,000 reasons.
Posts: 278
Threads: 18
Joined: Jan 2014
On a visit many years ago to Imiloa I heard legends of Lake Waiau adjacent to the summit which I have visited several times. There, for me, a kama aina haole was an extreme sense of quiescence and spirituality. I could intuit the presence of the goddesses of snow and ice. I get that it is a sacred place. Below is a link to some of that lore. I personally do not feel that telescopes to search the universe are desecration to the sacredness of the summit. After all one could make the case that the Polynesians who first traversed the vast expanse of unknown ocean to reach these sacred islands were quintessential astronomers and that they would revere exploration of their guiding stars and the universe, but also I comprehend that celestial entities are more accessible in such places.
http://www.mauna-a-wakea.info/maunakea/A...waiau.html
Posts: 1,101
Threads: 71
Joined: Jan 2009
quote:
Originally posted by Amrita
On a visit many years ago to Imiloa I heard legends of Lake Waiau adjacent to the summit which I have visited several times. There, for me, a kama aina haole was an extreme sense of quiescence and spirituality. I could intuit the presence of the goddesses of snow and ice. I get that it is a sacred place. Below is a link to some of that lore. I personally do not feel that telescopes to search the universe are desecration to the sacredness of the summit. After all one could make the case that the Polynesians who first traversed the vast expanse of unknown ocean to reach these sacred islands were quintessential astronomers and that they would revere exploration of their guiding stars and the universe, but also I comprehend that celestial entities are more accessible in such places. http://www.mauna-a-wakea.info/maunakea/A...waiau.html
So you got the silly willies, so should a multinational telescope be denied?
Cheers,
Kirt
Posts: 278
Threads: 18
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 10,288
Threads: 345
Joined: Apr 2009
I can give an account of one occasion of people going up to practice "religion" although it was a few years ago.
A large group was allowed to stay at Hale Pohaku, a place funded by the observatories, to acclimate before a solstice celebration near the summit of Mauna Kea. The staff and observatories were happy to allow them to stay at Hale Pohaku the night before to allow their bodies to get used to the altitude before they headed up to welcome the sunrise the next morning on the summit ridge.
There were no problems other than one person who suffered from altitude sickness during the evening. I helped administer emergency oxygen (because I knew where it was) and helped that person recover. My advice was for them to get down to sea-level as soon as possible, it's the only cure for altitude sickness, but they were unwilling as were her family and friends. OK, that's fine, but stayed with her until I was confident enough to feel she would be OK for the rest of the night.
This was not fun, a few people gave me stink-eye. I assume it was because a haole was helping an old Hawaiian woman, but I would have done the same thing for anyone. Some said their thanks but not many and think some may have been in a little bit of shock about how quickly the woman's health deteriorated. But there were so many that just ignored what was going on.
In any case, it worked out well in the end, but it showed to me that there are some people here who think race is more important than helping each other.
Aloha is something that is not uniquely Hawaiian - it's only the word that's Hawaiian, not the thought.
Posts: 10,288
Threads: 345
Joined: Apr 2009
Kirt - Amrita is not your target. I thought her post was excellent and I share many of Amrita's experiences and thoughts when I'm on the mountain.
Posts: 1,101
Threads: 71
Joined: Jan 2009
quote:
Originally posted by Amrita
No Kirt, I support TMT.
Yes. I was out of line.
Kirt
Posts: 1,179
Threads: 7
Joined: Jul 2012
all evidence is post 1966...
when the road was made....
there is ZERO evidence on Mauna Kea of established walking trails made by precontact Native Hawaiians... unlike on Mauna Loa, even with its 34 lava flows in last 220 yrs...
very few natives reached the summit, because of the strict kapu placed on it... they wouldnt even try...
the only evidence of precontact humans being up there above the tree line was the very old adz quarry...
post contact, not a single explorer could round up a guide to go above the tree line...
read all about it... via botanist James Macrae, Archibald Menzies, David Douglas, and Wm Ellis, Joseph Goodrich, Robert Dampier etc.
fwiw Queen Emma (John Young's grand daughter), made it to the summit to bath in Lake Waiau in 1881...
******************************************************************
save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha
******************************************************************
save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha
