KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS: Promoting and maintaining Hawaiian culture
Kamehameha Schools is a group of 31 private schools with three main campuses located on the islands of O’ahu, Hawaii and Maui. Educating students from preschool through twelfth grade, Kamehameha Schools’ admissions policy favours applicants with Native Hawaiian ancestry. It was founded in 1887 by the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the Kamehameha line, who left her estate - about 9% of the total acreage of Hawaii...
HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE: A new lease of life for a dying tongue
Olelo Hawaii, the Hawaiian language, is said to be one of the world’s oldest living languages. Although it is one of the two official languages in the state of Hawaii, it is considered endangered as it is spoken by just 8,000 of the 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians. The decline in native Hawaiian speakers is the result of an almost century-long ban on the Hawaiian language in schools following the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. Families...
HULA DANCING: A sacred ritual that evolved into commercial entertainment
Hula is a traditional Hawaiian dance accompanied by Hawaiian music or singing. Most of us have seen images of sun-kissed hula dancers swaying their hips in grass skirts, but do you know about the origins of this art form? Legend has it that hula began when Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes, wanted her sisters to entertain her with song and dance. Nowadays, it is a popular form of entertainment for tourists at luaus and is...
THE ANCIENT ART OF SURFING: Riding ancient waves
Surfing is an Ancient Hawaiian tradition and one of the oldest sports still practiced in the world. Wave-sliding - he’e nalu - was a popular pastime in Hawaii long before the arrival of Europeans. Rather than considering it an extreme sport for adrenaline junkies, Ancient Hawaiians revered the art of surfing and made it an important part of their culture. They made their own board shapers and carried out a sacred ritual on the trees from which they ...
NATIVE HAWAIIANS: More than meets the eye
Did you know that Hawaiian pizza and pineapples don’t actually come from Hawaii? And those fun, flowery garlands used to welcome visitors to the islands? They are called lei and were traditionally used by chiefs as a symbol of peace agreements.
In fact, beyond the wave of Hawaiian clichés lies a rich yet little-known Hawaiian culture. Known as ‘kanaka maoli’, Native Hawaiians are descendants of the original Polynesian navigators who sailed to H...
THE HOKULEA VOYAGING CANOE: Sailing in the wake of the ancestors
Meaning “Star of Gladness” in Hawaiian, the Hokulea is a double-hulled sailing canoe that was built in 1975 to re-create historic voyages and preserve ancestral culture. Since there were no existing examples of ancient voyaging canoes, artist Herb Kane based the design on drawings from the time of Captain Cook and other early explorers of the Pacific. Launched by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, the full-scale replica has made a to...
POI: An ancient superfood pounded to perfection
Poi is a nutritious Hawaiian superfood made from the corn of the taro plant. Traditionally, Hawaiians viewed poi as a life-giving and sacred food. A popular feature of Hawaiian luaus, poi was their staple starch, used to accompany a lomi-lomi salmon or pork dish. The potato-like taro, or kalo in Hawaiian, is first cooked then peeled before being hand-pounded on a wooden board into a greyish-purple substance called paiai. When water is added and the pai...
Daniel Anthony
Raised on the coasts of Waianae, a surfers’ paradise on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Daniel Anthony is a food sovereignty activist who has made promoting and preserving ancestral Hawaiian culture his raison d’être. Wearing nothing but a malo – a traditional Hawaiian loincloth – Daniel gives workshops and public demonstrations on poi, a sacred Polynesian staple food made from the taro plant, or kalo as it’s known in Hawaiian. His passion is teaching people about the history ...
