Explanation of Hawaiian Culture (live, pit bulls, military)

[Koale]

Can someone, please, explain to me what all this 'Culture' is that everyone in the Hawaii Forum continually talks about? I lived on Hawaii and Maui for 8 years and, truly, could not determine the
so-called culture from just everyday sloven existence.
Thanks in advance,
Koale

[Kokoleka1]

Cluture is just another word for way of life. History. Customs. Language is normally a very important part of culture. The way how people interact with one another. The values they hold up. The traditions.Language (and I mean the olelo Hawai'i or even Pidgin) normally is an important, integral part of a culture. There is a lot of things I would consider part of the Hawaiian culture.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Kaole, not sure I understand your question when you refer to "everyday sloven existence". "Sloven" means, per the Merriam Webster Dictionary, "one habitually negligent of neatness or cleanliness especially in personal appearance". Are you inferring that posters on this forum can't tell the difference between a description of the Hawaiian culture and someone solven in appearance?

Good description, Kokoleka1.

[bardos]

Originally Posted by Koale

Can someone, please, explain to me what all this 'Culture' is that everyone in the Hawaii Forum continually talks about? I lived on Hawaii and Maui for 8 years and, truly, could not determine the
so-called culture from just everyday sloven existence.
Thanks in advance,
Koale

Hawaiian culture for me invades all my senses. Personally, when I'm on Maui, I can breathe it... it's in the air. Hard to miss.

[thejackalope]

People are referring to "local" culture, not Hawaiian culture. That's why you see stickers that say "Respect da culture" with pictures of pit bulls and chickens. They are referring to dog fighting and chicken fighting, which obviously aren't Hawaiian traditions

[hotzcatz]

As in any civilization, it's a tapestry of different cultures. In Hawaii we have multi-layers of cultures although most of them are layered over the Hawaiian culture. From what I've heard, originally, Hawaii was settled by Micronesians. Then the Polynesians showed up and wiped them out although some folks have theorized that's where the tales of Menehune have come from. So, since the Micronesians were pretty much abolished, their culture was too. The Polynesians were here for generations and generations, happy and things were great and they became the Hawaiians.

Then - again, this is from what folks have told me - a Samoan priest showed up and made the kapu system as well as the ali'i system. That's when a lot of the rules and regulations showed up among the Hawaiian culture, or at least, so I've been told. There was contact with some of the European nations and one of the Hawaiians, Kamehameha, learned about cannon. He was then able to take over as head chief over all the islands except Kauai and became the first Hawaiian king. When he died, his favorite wife, Kaahumanu was regent for the young king Kamehameha II. (He had another name other than Kamehameha II, but I forget it at the moment. Google is your friend should you want to find out). Kaahumanu didn't like all the rules the Hawaiians lived under and ate with the young king which broke one of the major kapu rules and the whole heavens didn't fall on her. There was a period of time when the priests were being set down and the kapu rules thrown out. However, the kapu rules were just thrown out, they weren't replaced. You'd think folks would realize a good thing when it happened, but they were used to rules. So, at this point in time, the first Christian missionaries arrived. Their rules, while in our eyes were rather prim and somewhat draconic towards women among other things were better than life under the kapu system so Kaahumanu encouraged them. The missionaries did teach everyone to read, at one point the Hawaiian population was about 100% literate.

For just under 100 years, the Hawaiian royalty reigned. However, Kalakaua had given away some of the rights of the royalty to the merchant class and there had also been the great Mahele where the land that had been all owned by the royalty was dispersed to the people. There had also been a lot of diseases which wiped out a lot of the Hawaiian population base and a lot of newcomers had been imported to Hawaii. A lot of them were brought over to work in the sugar fields since the Hawaiians were sensible people and didn't see any reason to work for food and shelter when food and shelter were basically free. However, if you wanted money for European things, then you had to do something other than fish, grow taro and hunt pigs. Then King Kalakaua died and Queen Lilioukalani took over and started taking back the Royal rights which had been given to the merchants. They rounded up some military types and had a rebellion and took over the palace and imprisoned the queen. She sent to Washington to tell them to make their people behave because she didn't want to go to war with the US and it was just a few people causing problems. Unfortunately, the US government was having a crisis at the time (it was either between elections or someone had gotten shot, I forget exactly what), in any case, by the time the US government got itself together enough to answer the Queen's letter too much time had passed so they just decided to keep the Hawaiian kingdom. Then we had about five decades of being a Territory and then Hawaii became an official state in 1958. So, that's the Hawaiian side of things, more or less.

Layered over that is the cultures of all the imported people and the amalgamation when they've merged together. We had a lot of Chinese folks brought in to work sugar. We had a lot of Japanese folks as well as Filipino folks brought in to work sugar. Each of them have their own culture as well as the culture when all of them merged with the Hawaiian culture. The merged cultures are pretty much called 'local culture' which is a different and distinct thing from Hawaiian culture or any of the original imported Japanes/Chinese/Filipino/etc. cultures. We are now getting a lot of Micronesians coming in because the US military wrecked their islands (Bikini atoll among others) as well as rising sea water is making their islands submerge. They will add their own layer to the whole culture of things here.

So all of that is the history of how we got to where we are in these Hawaiian Islands. It explains why you take your shoes off at the door, why elders are respected, why ohana is important, etc. etc. Of course, it's entirely possible for folks to move here and not pay any attention to any of it, I guess they can go shop at mainland chain stores, eat food imported from elsewhere and ignore Hawaii nei. Those folks generally don't stay in Hawaii, though.

[KaraBenNemsi]

One is history, the other are simply habits. Mixing both is politics.

[bardos]

Hmmm, politics? I always thought politics was the entertainment wing of the Military-Industrial Complex. Then again I could be mistaken.