The Polynesian Family System in Ka'U, Hawai'I

By E. S. Craighill Handy

Book Id: WPLBN0002096975
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 26.14 MB
Reproduction Date: 5/19/2011

Title:	The Polynesian Family System in Ka'U, Hawai'I
Author:	E. S. Craighill Handy
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Auxiliary Sciences of History, Hawaiian Education
Collections:	Authors Community, Education
Historic Publication Date:	2000
Publisher:	Department of Education

Member Page:	Hale Kuamoʻo Hawaiian Language Center
Citation APA MLA Chicago S. Craighill Hand, B. E. (2000). The Polynesian Family System in Ka'U, Hawai'I. Retrieved from http://www.self.gutenberg.org/

Description
The island of hawaii dominated the culture of the northernmost of the polynesian groups, even before the high chief kamehameha conquered the other islands and formed a united kingdom in the first decade of the nineteenth century. This truly great warrior, diplomat and ruler was born in kohala, but was reared, trained and toughened for his mission in ka-u, the southern and most rugged district of hawaii, where his mother, the high chieftainess kekui-a-poiwa, isolated herself to protect her child against the enmity of rival claimants to highest rank and power. The cultural dominance of hawaii was doubtless a consequence of size, richness of forests and soils, diversity of environmental conditions and hence variety and quantity of population. The dynamic temperament of the old polynesian stock of the “big island,” as it is affectionately called today, was probably partly a consequence of the grandeur of the scene, where the great ocean and the pacifics greatest volcanoes respectively formed the outlook and the background of every locality in which hawaiians of hawaii were born and reared, lived and loved and hated, laboured, planted, hunted, fished, played, fought and worshipped. Its active vulcanism certainly had a dynamic effect on the culture of this island, and may be presumed to have affected directly the organisms that were the folk who lived intimately with and within and upon the stupendous earth-drama of lava eruptions accompanied by seismic and meteorological disturbance, and the explosive seething of forest and ocean when the molten rivers of pahoehoe (flowing lava) and steaming smoking aa (crumbling cooling rubble) poured or crept seaward from pits and vast fissures on the slopes of mauna loa. Within the life spans of my colleague, mrs. Pukui, and of her mother and grandmother, dwelling in ka-u, that land has been the scene of eight great flows that have crept from mauna loas barren uplands, through forests and over the inhabited plains, four of them plunging into the sea.

Table of Contents
Foreword. Xv -- List Of References. Xx -- I. The Dispersed Community. 1 -- The Community. 2 -- Land And Sea. 4 -- Households. 5 -- Kauhale (Dwellings). 7 -- Disintegration. 15 -- Conclusion. 16 -- Ii. The Physical Environment. 18 -- Terrain. 20 -- Theseasons. 23 -- Iii. The Legendary Setting. 27 -- The Volcano Goddess. 29 -- Her Clan. 29 -- Her Benign Younger Sister. 30 -- Lono The Thunderer. 31 -- Ku The Erect. 32 -- Kane The Procreator. 33 -- Kanaloa, Lord Of Ocean. 34 -- Names That Confer Status. 35 -- Forms. 35 -- Sharks. 35 -- Caterpillar. 37 -- Bitter Gourd. 38 -- Psychic Aspect Of Community Relationship. 39 -- Iv. The Kinship System. 40 -- Table I. Kinship Terms, Hawaiian And Maori. 42 -- Relationship. 42 -- Grandparents And Grandchildren. 44 -- Blood Tie. 48 -- Husband And Wife. 51 -- Paternity. 52 -- Adoptive Platonic Marital Relationship. 54 -- Plural Mating. 56 -- Critique Of Morgans Interpretation. 60 -- The Punaluan Family. 60 -- Blood And Engrafted Relationships. 65 -- Sons And Daughters, Nephews And Nieces. 65. Brothers, Sisters And Cousins. 66 -- Parents, Uncles And Aunts. 67 -- Relationship Through Marriage. 69 -- Fostering And Adoption. 71 -- Categories Of Friendship. 73 -- V. The Life Cycle. 75 -- Conception, Gestation And Birth. 76 -- The Umbilicus And Navel. 78 -- The Placenta. 78 -- Infanticide. 79 -- Sacramental Feast For The First-Born. 80 -- Feast For Bearers Of Gifts To The First-Born. 83 -- Eulogistic Chants As Gifts. 84 -- Anniversary Feasts. 86 -- The Fontanel. 86 -- Infants Diet. 87 -- Nursing And Weaning. 88 -- Teething. 89 -- Infancy And Early Childhood. 90 -- Beauty Modelling. 91 -- Treating Latent Organic Disorders. 92 -- General Physiotherapy. 92 -- The Genitalia. 93 -- Subincision. 94 -- Entering The Mens House. 95 -- Naming. 98 -- Showing Off Favourites. 101 -- Exhibition Feast. 102 -- Feast For Blessing Products Of Craftsmanship. 102 -- Feast For Workers. 103 -- Feast Of Welcome. 104 -- Feast For Helpers. 105 -- Betrothal And Marriage. 105 -- A New Home. 111 -- Sickness And Death. 115 -- Vi.The Psychic Phase Of Relationship. 116 -- Experience. 117 -- Larger Meaning Of Relationship. 117 -- Relationship Through Ancestral Spirits. 120 -- Spirits As Mates. 120 -- Animal Affinities. 122 -- Natural Phenomena And Genera As Multiple Forms -- Of Ancestral Beings. 122 -- Dreaming. 126 -- Spirits Speaking Through Mediums. 132 -- Evil Work Of Mediums. 135 -- Spirit “Sending”. 136 -- An Example Of Beneficent Mediumship. 137 -- Prayer. 138 -- Sickness. 142 -- Death And The Leap Into The Spirit World. 146 -- Controlled Spirits. 146 -- Physical Remains And Life Of The Sprit. 151 -- The Death Feast. 153 -- The Memorial Feast. 157 -- Order. 160 -- Family Characteristics. 160 -- Marriage And Mating. 161 -- Man And Wife. 163 -- Children. 164 -- Fostering. 168 -- Affection. 168 -- Greeting. 171 -- Inviting. 172 -- Wailing. 173 -- Home. 173 -- Parent And Provider. 174 -- Food Production And Preparation. 176 -- Lending A Hand. 177 -- Ancestors And Oldsters. 179 -- The Kapu In The Family. 181 -- Obligation 182 -- Offense And Forgiveness. 184 -- Politeness And Hospitality. 185 -- Admonitions. 187 -- Bad Manners And Inhospitality. 188 -- Manners In Eating. -- 192 -- Wisdom. 193 -- Status And Prestige. 135 -- Genealogies. 196 -- Sayings Of The Alii. 198 -- Status. 198 -- Rectitude. 200 -- The Alii And The People 202 -- The Outcaste Class. 204 -- Hoopau Pono (Finis). 205 -- Perspective. 207 -- Geology. 207 -- Prehistoric Perspective. 210 -- The Ethno-Botany Of Ka-u In Historic Perspective. 212 -- The Colonists Land. 222 -- Their Subsistence Economy. 222 -- The Endemic Wilderness Retreats. 224 -- “Discovery”. 225 -- Captain James Cook. 225 -- First Missionary Description. 226 -- Ka-u Missionized. 229 -- Ka-u In The forties. 231 -- The Shifting Human Scene. 232 -- Political Changes. 233 -- Fundamental Cultural Changes. 235 -- Foreign Impact. 236 -- Epidemics. 237 -- Disasters. 239 -- Dislocations. 240 -- The Changing Face Of Nature. 242 -- The Lands Are Apportioned. 244 -- Sugar. 245 -- The Labour Scene. 246 -- The Economic Scene. 248 -- Turn Of The Century. 249 -- Mid-Century . 250 -- Envoi. 252 --