Practicing Hoʻomana Under American Occupation Marie Alohalani Brown We are not Americans…. We will die as Hawaiians, we will never be Americans.” — Haunani-Kay Trask, 1993 Given the Hawaiian people’s religious-political history, “America” and “religion” are potentially divisive topics for Kanaka ʻŌiwi (a.k.a. “Hawaiians”). While some ʻŌiwi are proud to be American, others refuse to think of themselves as such and reject Americanism. As for “religion,” today’s Kanaka fight for their right to practice their traditional beliefs and belief-related practices, the correct and traditional term for which is Hoʻomana, in the face of Christian-inflected religious bias and under the hegemony of a largely Christian nation, the United States. This article has two parts. The first offers an overview of the religious-political history of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the injustices that continue to affect Kanaka. The second considers the resurgence of Hoʻomana, specifically in connection with recent efforts to protect Mauna Kea, a sacred mountain on Hawaiʻi Island. RELIGIOUS-POLITICAL HISTORY FROM 1819 TO 1959 In November 1819, Liholiho, King Kamehameha II, was persuaded by fellow aliʻi (members of the ruling class) to abolish the state religion—a religious-social-cultural-political system that permeated and regulated every aspect of Hawaiian existence and that had been in place so long that it was accorded a [End Page 97] mythic origin.1 While some Kanaka were overjoyed to be free of a system that imposed many laws, the infractions of which sometimes carried a death sentence, others were either disoriented or dismayed after the only religion they had known was abolished. Religion-related structures and objects were destroyed throughout the islands, and anyone who refused to comply with the edict was persecuted and even killed.2 Not all aliʻi agreed with the king’s choice, however, which resulted in the 1819 battle at Kuamoʻo between the aliʻi who backed Liholiho’s abolition and those who were against it. The latter were defeated and many of them died.3 On March 30, 1820, five months later, during the ongoing religious-social-political upheaval that followed Liholiho’s edict, the first US Protestant missionaries arrived in Hawaiʻi. Liholiho gave them permission to remain in the islands for one year, but as it turned out, they were never asked to leave.4 Other missionaries came to Hawaiʻi to continue their work. At the behest of Kaʻahumanu, one of the aliʻi who had urged Liholiho to abolish the state religion, many Kanaka— but not all—embraced Christianity.5 Despite the king’s edict and Kaʻahumanu’s desire that all Kanaka become Christians, ardent practitioners secretly continued to pass on their beliefs and belief-related practices in their families or professions. This continuity is supported by substantial and conclusive evidence taken from missionary journals and letters from 1810 on, from Hawaiian-language newspapers published between 1834 and 1948, from scholarly treatises by missionary descendants, from ethnologies carried out in the early 1900s, from interviews with elders from the 1950s to the 1970s, and from social-service research from the 1960s to the 1970s.6 [End Page 98] Kanaka have been subjected to historical injustices at the hands of missionaries (since April 1810) as well as their descendants and hostile settlers who overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy (January 17, 1893). The US, illegally and against the will of the ʻŌiwi population, first annexed an independent nation (July 12, 1898) for their empire-building endeavors and then made it their fiftieth state on August 21, 1959. Today’s ʻŌiwi continue to suffer from and cope with the aftermath of these historical traumas caused by a white minority who are driven by religious and racial bias and, in many cases, covet political power to support their capitalist aims.7 The physical, spiritual, and intellectual violence Kanaka have experienced because of this history include demographic collapse because of introduced diseases, land dispossession, the destruction of cultural and natural resources, the desecration of sacred sites, loss of language, culture, and identity from imposed assimilation and blood quantum laws, reduction to stereotypes, cultural appropriation, religious discrimination, sexual objectification, marginalization in our own homelands...
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Sep 21, 2022
Sophia Burnett 
Open Access