Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A
kahuna
was a highly skilled person whose advice was sought before any major pro-
ject was undertaken, such as building a house, hollowing a canoe log, or even offering a
prayer.
Besides this priesthood of
kahuna,
there were other
kahuna
who were not
ali'i
but com-
moners. The two most important were the healers (
kahuna lapa'au
) and the black magi-
cians (
kahuna 'ana'ana
). The
kahuna lapa'au
had a marvelous pharmacopoeia of herbs
and spices that could cure more than 250 diseases common to the Hawaiians. The
kahuna
'ana'ana
could be hired to cast a love spell over a person or cause his or her untimely
death.
The common people were called the
maka'ainana,
“the people of land”—the farmers,
craftspeople, and fishers. The land that they lived on was controlled by the
ali'i,
but they
were not bound to it. If the local
ali'i
was cruel or unfair, the
maka'ainana
had the right
to leave and live on another's lands. The
maka'ainana
mostly loved their local
ali'i
much
like a child loves a parent, and the feeling was reciprocal. All
maka'ainana
formed exten-
ded families called
ohana
who usually lived on the same section of land, called
ahupua'a.
Those farmers who lived inland would barter their produce with the fishers who lived on
the shore, and thus all shared equally in the bounty of land and sea.
A special group called
kauwa
was an untouchable caste confined to reservations. Their
origins were obviously Polynesian, but they appear to have been descendants of castaways
who had survived and become perhaps the aboriginals of Hawai'i before the main migra-
tions. It was
kapu
for anyone to go onto
kauwa
lands, and doing so meant instant death. If
a human sacrifice was needed, the
kahuna
would summon a
kauwa,
who had no recourse
but to mutely comply. To this day, to call someone
kauwa,
which now supposedly means
only servant, is still considered a fight-provoking insult.
HAWAIIANS TODAY
Many of the Hawaiians who moved to the cities became more and more disenfranchised.
Their folk society stressed openness and a giving nature but downplayed the individual
and the ownership of private property. Ni'ihau, a privately owned island, is home to about
160 pure-blooded Hawaiians, representing the largest concentration of them, per capita, in
the islands. The Robinson family, which owns the island, restricts visitors to invited guests
only.
The second-largest concentration is on Moloka'i, where 2,700 Hawaiians, living mostly
on 40-acre
kuleana
of Hawaiian Home Lands, make up 40 percent of that island's popu-
