12' Tiger shark caught by hand

[csgray]

I have many students whose families go to Christian church every week but still acknowledge their family's amakua and still perform some traditional Hawaiian practices on important occasions. It is a very adaptive culture.

Carol

[Rene]

I think what you fail to understand is that Hawaii and all of it's islands are occupied territory. Just because a land is occupied by, and controlled by a particular corperation, doesn't mean that traditions & culture are done away with, quite the contrary. The resistance is real and the fundamental basis of who the Hawaiian people are will never change. You can lay on the Queen's beach, build resorts on sacred land, dig up and move the bones of our ancestors, disrespect our traditions and outlaw the culture but it will never make it "right", no matter what the duration of the occupation. You have to adapt to survive an occupation but you don't have to lose the core of who you are as a people during that occupation. Sometimes "false cracks" are not really "false". It's the same as if I went to Utah and I walked into a tabernacle and opened a fith of whiskey. How disrespected would the LDS community be? What if I went to the Blackhills of South Dakota and opened a disco on the site of the massacre of wounded knee? What? That happened so long ago, can't you just get past that??it's about respect for others and THEIR beliefs..not yours.

[MarkP]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rene

Hawaiians believe that relatives that have passed on are reincarnated as Sharks. It's a high form of disrespect to catch, hurt or even exploit sharks in Hawaiian culture. Exploitation includes shark cage dive tours. It would be easy to just jump on you for this but I thought I'd share the cultural symbolism of these animals with you. Knowing this now, I hope you can see why so many Hawaiians feel outraged about this issue. I just wish someone had shared this with you sooner so you could more clearly understand "what's the big deal?".

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I only know what I have read, but I have read several times that there were conditions under which Hawaiians killed sharks, so while this may be the truth, it is not the whole truth as I understand it. It is a human foible that we will emphasize certain parts of the truth when it suits us.

[oink]

I do fail to understand that Hawaii and all of it's islands are occupied territory. I do recognize that history includes injustices that were perpetuated by stronger cultures upon weaker cultures throughout history and likely prehistory. I also recognize that from about 1500 injustices were perpetuated against native peoples by European cultures of which Hawaii was one of the later examples. It would be nice to think that the world is done with one culture subjugating another. Hawaii is now a U.S. State and will likely remain so.

I believe the old kapu system and religion was rejected by Hawaii before Christianity and that Christianity filled a void and was readily accepted and embraced.

That Hawaii is part of the U.S. and has adopted Christianity (perhaps less now that before) has no relationship to the desecration of any culture's ancestral or cultural sites. It's just plain wrong under any circumstances.

I do respect most anyone's right to believe as they choose, within reason. I do not wish to offend anyone's true heart felt belief system, even in instances where I think they're wrong, within reason (think taliban).

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[peteadams]

"I believe the old kapu system and religion was rejected by Hawaii before Christianity and that Christianity filled a void and was readily accepted and embraced."

I hope others with deeper knowledge comment here in more detail, but this is clearly wrong. The kapu system was rejected because of Christian missionary efforts, with Queen Ka'ahumanu's conversion and support being the critical driving force.

[csgray]

Actually the kapu system was ended by Queen Ka'ahumanu eating with her nephew who had just become King Kamehameha II shortly before the missionaries arrived. She wanted to hang onto power as regent, which she did for many decades during the rule of both King Kamehameha II and III, and ending kapu allowed her to have a place in running the affairs of the kingdom that was forbidden to a woman under the kapu system. The missionaries arrived shortly afterward and were quick to take advantage of the situation.

There were many unintended consequences of the end of the kapu system, because it was a very complicated set of rules that also controlled land use and resource management, as well as all personal behavior and the relationship between the ali'i and the maka'ainana on the ahupua'a, it was far more than just the religious practices of Hawaii. Think about what would happen if during a time of rapid change we eliminated all the familiar laws and social rules, that is what the end of kapu did to Hawaii.

Carol

[peteadams]

I stand corrected. I remembered that Ka'ahumanu's "free eating" with Liholiho occurred in a meal with foreigners present and assumed they were missionaries. I haven't been able to find an exact date yet, but Kamehameha died in May, 1819 and Ka'ahumanu took over power as regent for Liholiho at that time. Subsequently the free eating ("ai noa") episode occurred but I'm not sure when, perhaps six months later according to one source. With the pillars of Hawaiian society crumbling, due not only to the loss of kapu, but also broader foreigner influence and disruption by traders and whalers, the missionaries arriving in 1820 had a golden opportunity of influence very soon after.