Sex & Society In Ancient Hawaii...

 

Sex & Society In Ancient Hawaii... (info taken from articles published by the sociology department of the University Of Hawaii)

"You'll know "le'a" as your ancestors did. It's natural. It's beautiful and satisfying. And, it's just lots of fun!" --- Mary Kawena Pukai.

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In pre-world-contact Hawaii sex and all social relations between people were considered to be natural and normal, and casual, not something to be backward about or ashamed of in any way. The Hawaiian ancient religion had no concept of "original sin," and so the Hawaiians were flabbergasted and, at first, even rather amused by the up-tight mores and the extreme religious strictness of the missionaries sent to their islands. They thought the missionaries very strange, in that they seemed obsessed with sex, yet terrified and repelled by it. 

To the Hawaiians sex and everything that led up to the actual act was to be enjoyed, not something to be ashamed of and, especially, not to be closely regulated. They felt no shyness about nudity, which was considered practical, healthful, normal and beautiful, especially in a very warm climate. They surfed the waves on their surf boards joyously, and totally nude, since wet bodies dried quickly, without the chafing of sodden clothing, --- even if it was only bark cloth (tapa) loin coverings, or wrappings.

By the way, in the pre-contact Islands sexually transmitted diseases were totally unknown; they simply didn't exist. (Common diseases known in the rest of the world absolutely ravaged the isolated Hawaiians. For instance, measles was a deadly scourge among the Hawaiians, who had no natural immunity.) 

Royal incest was practiced and seen as necessary to insure the highest "mana," or power of the kings and queens of their race. Brother and sister mating was ritually done among the "Ali'i Nui," the cherished royalty of the Islands, for the supreme benefit of all the People, to create the most pure human "vessels" for communicating with the gods, and to insure mana, or a rain of spiritual blessings, and that there would always be a human conduit to their deities. (Naturally, this too horrified the missionaries.) In addition to the fact that after the royal sacred mating, and marriage was preformed the Ali'i Nui brother and sister couple were free, according to Hawaiian society practices, to take other wives and other husbands of their choice, often multiple mates. (The missionaries were, once again, absolutely scandalized by this also.)

The hula, the traditional dance, done by both men and women, was a graceful and sincere expression of Hawaiian culture. But, missionaries saw this slow, sensual swinging of the hips and the rest of the body as disgraceful and sinful. They sought to stamp out the hula wherever they saw it performed. 

Madame Pele, the Hawaiian fire goddess, little mother of volcanoes, was a much loved deity in the Islands when the missionaries arrived. Of course, they considered Pele to be as sinful as her worshippers. And, of course, the missionaries tried to stamp her out. And, to also destroy the worship of Kane, Ku, Lono, and Kanaloa --- the principal Hawaiian gods.

So sad, --- when James Cook first came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1820 there were about 400,000 Hawaiians. Less than fifty years later, there were approximately 140,000. Today, it is very, very rare to find a person with almost pure native Hawaiian blood. Most Hawaiian natives are a mixture of Hawaiian, Oriental and Caucasian heritage. 

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(For a fascinating, beautiful, thoroughly researched and vastly entertaining look at Hawaii, even from it's very beginning, with the geological formation of the islands, I give my highest rating - ***** to James Michener's huge and marvelous novel: "HAWAII".)