This post is edited right here to add that, at the original time of posting this, I was apparently misinformed about the open-closed status of Hawaiian culture. I apologize for this misunderstanding, as was pointed out to me by joshicy. Read more here. While this is a grievous error for which I am profoundly sorry, I hope that you read this, learn something more about Hawaiian culture, and understand that the intent of this post was to emphasize how matters of cultural appropriation and respecting the boundaries of closed cultures are extremely important and serious.
I apologize again for my errors and poor communication in this post. If you have anything you would like to add, please feel free to let me know at needmorepluralism.
So I know that the basic message of this has already been said, but I really have to say this. This is very, very important to me. As someone with a passion for the Hawaiian culture and religion, I need y’all - Anon, and everybody - to understand that, unless you are a native Hawaiian, you need to stay out of their culture - and most especially stay out of their religion.
Things are about to get real personal from me, so hold on to your hats.
Historically speaking, the native Hawaiians have kind of been shat on a lot by white foreigners. (And I say “white foreigners” not to imply that y’all are white foreigners, but because white people aren’t the only people to have visited Hawai’i. I need to distinguish that I’m talking about a particular group here.) Their Kingdom - which had been officially recognized as an independent nation with its own monarchy by the US 50 years earlier - was overthrown and then annexed by the US in the 1890s. After that, a law was passed that made it illegal to speak the native language in schools or the government. This seriously happened, along with pressure from foreigners (often Christian missionaries) to suppress many aspects of their culture, especially their arts - the most prominent example being hula (which is a major method of transmission of culture between people, pretty much on par with the language in their culture in terms of importance).
And I need everyone to understand how serious that is. Their ways of teaching the younger generations their culture - through language and arts - was pretty much taken away from them. This isn’t a joke. When white foreigners first reached the Hawaiian islands, there were 500,000 native speakers of their language. By cutting the language out of major parts of life, the number of its speakers was significantly diminished. After all, why speak a language you can’t use in important situations? People usually don’t. They’ll drop a useless language and learn the useful one - and only teach that to their children.
As of 2008 there are only 2,000 native speakers of the Hawaiian language. Do you need some perspective? There are 340 million native speakers of English. The 30th most spoken language of the world - #30 - is Thai, which has 20 million speakers. 2,000 is nothing. So when I say tell you that their language is on the brink of death, I mean it. I am not exaggerating. But, hey, if you want to feel better about this, you can add the 8,000 or so people who speak Hawaiian, but not as their first, primary language. That means there are about 10,000 people who can speak the language at all. That makes it so much better, doesn’t it? Read that last sentence with intensely bitter and angry sarcasm. Because it doesn’t make it better.
It doesn’t. There are 1.42 million people living in Hawai’i today. That’s 1,410,000 more people that live in Hawai’i than there are speakers of the Hawaiian language in the whole world.
The health of a culture is reflected in the health of their language - it is the clearest, most obvious sign. We know that destroying a language and can destroy a culture. When a language dies, no one can truly and fully communicate it’s culture to another person. There are always things that are untranslatable, subtleties and nuances that can make all the difference in the world. And the loss of those things means the culture can no longer be truly transferred. Not unless it was meticulously recorded before the death of the language. And, let’s be honest, no one was interested in meticulously preserving native cultures until very recently in history, after so much damage had already been done. In the case of the Hawaiians, their language and culture barely survived the invasion of European settlers and the US overthrow of their Kingdom. Their entire culture was pushed to the brink of destruction. Am I getting that point across to you? Do you understand the depth of meaning in that statement? Do you understand how serious that is?
Their entire culture was pushed to the brink of destruction.
You know what really is great, though? There’s a revival of their culture. More Hawaiian natives are becoming interested in their culture. And that is so wonderful. There are people trying to bring their language and their culture back from that brink of death. Yes. Yes
But a lot of foreigners are making that really hard for them. Religion, in particular, is a huge deal here. Have you ever heard of Huna? You know, “the ancient healing and spiritual shamanism of ancient Hawaii”? It’s pretty popular. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be part of the magical religion of that beautiful island paradise known as Hawai’i?
Except that it’s bullshit. “Huna” (which is in no way related to the word kahuna, as practitioners would have you believe) was invented by this asshole guy named Max Freedom Long in the mid-1900s. Basically,this foreign white guy went to Hawai’i and was like, “Hawaiian religion is so cool! I wanna do that!” And then when he was told no by the natives, he just made up his own shit about metaphysics and philosophy, slapped some Hawaiian words on it, and called it ~~the healing and spiritual beliefs of the Ancient Hawaiians!!!~~ But it’s not. It’s obviously based in New Thought and Theosophy - very distinctly not Hawaiian things.
Do you think Huna is Hawaiian religion? Do you see their Gods through this lens? Stop. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong to view this subject through the lens of a white American man who thought misappropriating a native culture was an acceptable response to being told that he was not allowed to participate in it after his people went in and fucked their whole culture up - officially, on paper - around the time of his birth and throughout his whole lifetime. I’m so ashamed to even live in the state and that he was born in.
And what about the culture? I mean, what do you [person who is reading this] know about Hawai’i? Were you even aware that their Kingdom was overthrown by the United States before you read this post? Is your understanding of “Hawaiian” steeped in tiki culture? Do you see Hawai’i as a tropical paradise, imagine yourself with fruity drinks in coconut shells, served from exotically decorated tiki bars, that you drink while watching half-naked hula dancers in grass skirts swing their hips for your pleasure, the joyous sounds of a luau in the background? That sentiment is so wrong it makes me nauseous. Literally - it literally made me nauseous to type that. If that’s what you think, just, stop. That’s so wrong. (Do you even know anything about luaus?) Do you think of the native Hawaiians - historically- as gentle, peaceful, nature-loving stewards of the land? Stop it. If these kinds of things are your understanding, you don’t know jack shit.
But, okay. Maybe you [the reader] do know some stuff. You know about the historical interaction between Hawai’i and the US. I mean, you’ve heard of Lili’uokalani. You know how isolated the Hawaiian islands are, right? You can point to them on an unlabeled map, right? You know how the people got to the islands in the first place, right? You understand their seafaring skills and knowledge of the stars, right? You know about their class system, right? You know a whole bunch about tapu, right? You know about kahunas, right? You know their cultural values, their cuisine, their holidays, their fishing and farming skills, their art forms, their calendar - right?
And you [the reader] know about the struggles of native Hawaiians in the modern day, right? You’ve heard of Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, you know about her - I mean, you’ve seen the documentary, right? You’ve even read works by Mary Kawena Pukui, and any number of Native Hawaiian writer, right? You know how they’retrying to revive their culture, right? You know about Mauna Kea, you know what’s happening there right now, you know why this matter is important, right? You understand the impact of intense tourism in their country and on their culture, right?
And, obviously, you [the reader] know some stuff about their Gods, right? You know the myths of the Akua, right? You know their names and their kinolau, right? You know how to honor them, their preferred offerings, how to ma a ki’i for each, who was worshiped at what type of heiau, what prayers to make and when, what actions would dishonor them, right? You know how to honor your ‘Aumakua, right? You understand mana, right?
Or did you just read about the Gods on Godchecker?
Do you understand why cultural appropriation (and misappropriation) is so important? It’s because most closed cultures exist under the very real threat of extinction, and cultural appropriation contributes to that. Need an example?
Remember earlier, when I was talking about the near-destruction of the Hawaiian language and culture? All of the cultural and religious (miss)appropriations and abuses here are a really big deal, and are heavily contributing to that, now, modern day, real time. Remember how the number of native speakers of the language is so small? As language reflects cultural health, the number of native cultural practitioners is small. There’s that revival thing - yes, good! But when these young people go to look into their culture, to learn it and participate in it, they run into the aforementioned bullshit - the tiki culture and the Huna, things like the image portrayed by the tourism industry (which you could write a book about and still not fully understand). And they might not know the difference, because they weren’t raised in their native culture, because their parents weren’t, because it was taken away from their grandparents and great grandparents by the same people who are feeding them the aforementioned bullshit. And so they start practicing that instead of their native culture. And that lowers the number of native cultural practitioners. And that’s a big deal for a culture so small. That has the potential to kill it.
And I’m not joking, I’m not speaking hypothetically. I have read conversations between Hawaiians on Huna is Not Hawaiian about this very topic - about people who discover the fake copy of their culture, only to later learn that it was all wrong.
Believe me, Readers - and believe me, Anon. I know how “cool” the Hawaiian Gods are. I know because I can look up at my bookshelf and pick out the hundreds of dollars’ worth of books I own and have read. I know because I’ve spent days and weeks and months of my life trying to understand them, trying to understand their people, trying to find the truth underneath this thick coating of appropriative bullshit. I understand a lot of the things I asked if you understood above. And I know that my knowledge is nothing. I know, despite all that I’ve learned, that I still know practically nothing. I have barely even scratched the surface. I do not know enough to practice Hawaiian religion and culture without contributing to the bullshit, without misappropriating it and disgracing it. Do you?
And I know because five years ago, when I first discovered them, their impact on me was so profound, I connected with them so deeply, that I gave up converting to Judaism when I was already half way through so that I could pursue worshiping them. I know because - as much as I love and respect and admire the Theoi (which is a lot) - I have never in my life been so profoundly impacted by any other gods or myths. (And that’s coming from someone who studies anthropology with an emphasis in religion and spirituality, who reads textbooks on world religions for fun.) I have been, profoundly, moved to tears by certain mele and hula. I have felt Lono in the rain and winds. I have seen Hina in the moon.
And, yeah, I understand that it sucks that you can’t be a part of that because of your race and ethnicity. I understand that so well. I have so much love and respect for the Akua. I have so much love and respect for Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian people. I understand how painful it can be to become so attached to something like that, only to realize that you can’t have it. The day I first realized I had no business there shook me to my core, devastated me, hurt more than anything else I’ve ever experienced in life. I can’t even describe it. I tried to - my journal entry for that day is made of inklines blurred with tears and shaking hands - but I can’t. It’s an unfathomable pain and loss that, if you haven’t felt, you’ll never understand.
And it hurts every time I buy a new book. (I can’t participate, but I can still learn, sill educate others as best I can and point them to accurate resources.) It hurts every time I learn a new Hawaiian word. (I can’t be a part of the culture, but I can try to learn the language, to be one more speaker who has to die for it to die.)
And it hurts every time I think of an Akua instead of a Theoi - because I am overstepping my boundaries with one, and taking away from the rightful worship of another.
See, the thing is, if you care about yourself, you can’t do that to yourself. Don’t make my mistake. Don’t get attached to something you can never have.
And if you truly care about the Akua and their people (because they come together; you cannot separate them, you cannot have one and not the other), you can’t force your way into participation. You can’t just pick a few things up and half-ass it. If you can’t live in Hawai’i, and go to an actual native Hawaiian, and have them accept you, and have them teach you their ways willingly and truly, then you have no business trying to participate. The only thing you will end up doing is making yourself miserable, and disgracing and disrespecting yourself and their culture and their Gods.
And this goes for any closed culture. Most closed cultures have situations frighteningly similar to this. That is why respecting closed cultures and their boundaries is such a big deal.
You have no business worshiping their Gods within their context, and if you try to do so outside of their context you are contributing to the destruction of their culture and beliefs, which I’m sure would earn you the wrath of the Deities you’re trying to worship.
Stay away from their culture. Stay away from their religion and spirituality.
You have no right to participate.
tl;dr No. It is not okay to “look into” the Hawaiian Deities. If you are not Hawaiian, you have no right to participate in Hawaiian culture or religion, or worship their Gods. Doubly so if you aren’t even willing to read this fucking post about why.
p.s. I’m sorry if this came across as rude or condescending or arrogant. I’m just very passionate about this, and it makes me so askdhskdahflsdkahfkdasjfhkjsdakfjh.
Also, I’m sorry if I said anything stupid or ignorant. As I said, I know nothing. If any Hawaiians would like to correct me on anything I said, please, please do! I would greatly appreciate it!
edited for grammar because i apparently suck at that
