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THE debate over the carved ki'i made by art students at Waianae High School and the ever-growing controversy concerning the Kawaihae (Forbes Cave) treasures taken from Bishop Museum cry out for an explanation that makes some sense. When do Hawaiian
artifacts become sacred?The Waianae students claim their ki'i, which was erected in front of the school, is not a sacred or religious object, but a work of art. A minister from a nearby church disagreed, however, claiming that the totem was a symbol of ancient Hawaiian religion and violated the separation of church and state. School administrators ordered the ki'i taken down.
The Bishop Museum objects were found in a Kawaihae cave around the turn of the century. Recently, the museum, in accordance with a federal law on native burial objects, turned over the cave treasures to a burial group apparently to reinter in the caves. These items were once used as sacred or religious objects, and now they are being claimed by some as artistic treasure belonging to the Hawaiian people. So what is a "sacred" or "religious" Hawaiian object?
HO'OMANA is the closest word to describe what best can be translated as religious or religion as used in David Malo's manuscript, "Ka Moolelo Hawaii." Malo was one of the earliest Hawaiians to discuss Christianity and traditional religious beliefs. He was well-qualified for the task as he had been trained, prior to the establishment of Christianity in the islands, as a court genealogist or historian.Ho'omana is derived from the root word mana, which is not such an easy word to translate into modern concepts. Many anthropologists have written whole studies attempting to do so. Suffice it to use what is given in the Pukui-Elbert "Hawaiian Dictionary," that mana is "supernatural or divine...miraculous power." The prefix ho'o is described as "causative," that is "to do" or "to make happen," or perhaps, in this case, to "imbue with" mana.
Ho'omana was not the "worship of idols" or just "religious rites and ceremonies" as some think it should be, for Malo states that "wooden and stone images (that were) carved by hand, were just points of reference for the actual form of the god in the heavens when that person considered the god as his. Thus, if the god was of the heavens, then the image was made to be like the heavens."
AND "Then the priest seized the food and offered it up to the heavens and not to the image, because it was believed that the god dwelled in the heavens. The image was only a representation (of the god) as it stood before all those gathered."
The implication of this ancestral voice is that carved wooden objects are simply carved wooden objects. Their spiritual power comes when they are made or imbued with "mana" through constant prayer, worship and offerings. These items become religious objects when people become engaged in these activities.
A little modern-day history lesson might help: During Kalakaua's reign the statue of King Kamehameha I was finally erected. The original was lost at sea off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. There was a young man who came to the statue of the king and laid some offerings and bowed down to it. Was this a sacred and religious object?
No, the newspapers of the time treated the young man, as most of urban Honolulu did, as a harmless nut.
There are many objects around Honolulu on government property, and using the criteria of those claiming the students' carving to be sacred, then those objects too might have to be taken down.
On the Manoa campus of the University of Hawaii there is a large stone image named after one of the Hawaiian goddesses. There are also several murals depicting Hawaiian gods and mythological persons on the walls of campus buildings. And on the grounds of the Army Museum at Fort DeRussey stand several carved ki'i laid out as they would have stood on a traditional temple.
Our vision is tinted so that we look at Hawaiian religion as we do any other religion today, and for most people that is from a Christian reference. This is a very natural bias as our curiosity toward other religions is based upon our own religious experiences and beliefs.
However, if the vision we use is for religious conversion, then the comparisons we make are not made for the sake of understanding, but to either validate or to condemn the other experiences and beliefs.
As for the treasures of the Kawaihae cave, they were once indeed "sacred and religious" objects when there were people to imbue them with mana, prayers, chants and offerings. When the chiefs, who rightly had the authority and power to do so, ended those religious activities, the objects reverted to being wood and stone.
It appears from news reports that the power of the objects has been reawakened. This is evident from the dire warnings given by the traditional healer Henry Auwae in his plea that the objects be left with the museum to "protect" people from harm and from the insinuation that the deaths of two people close to this controversy are directly related to the objects becoming once against sacred or full of mana.
BEFORE the witch hunt for "pagan" art work on public property becomes either hysteria or laughably hysterical, and before the "Exhibition House of the Kamehamehas" -- and that is the literal translation of the Hawaiian name for the Bishop Museum -- is emptied of its treasures, let us recognize the need for a better standard of what these objects were and truly are, based upon actual cultural information rather than contemporary imagination.
Malcolm Naea Chun, Hawaiian author and translator, is
cultural specialist at the Queen Liliuokalani Children's Center.
