Hawaiian Studies

This course introduces students to modern Hawaiian canoe voyaging through a beginning examination of the science and narratives of ancient voyaging, the history of the modern revival of voyaging, and the Hawaiian navigator’s toolkit.

In this class students will learn various beginning traditional hula interpretations. Students will be taught the basic footwork and hand gestures of traditional hula accompanied by chanting, Ipu Heke (double gourd) or Pahu (drum). Students may also be required to make accompanying instruments like Ipu (smaller single gourd), Kala‘au (sticks), ‘Ili‘ili (stones), and Pū‘ili (split bamboo), and learn accompanying oli (chants) under the direction of the class Instructor. Students will be taught different historical aspects of specific hula, associated hula mythology, ali‘i (chiefly) genealogies, plants and place names.

Continuation of HWST 130. In this second class, students will learn intermediate traditional hula interpretations. Foot work and hand gestures of traditional hula will be reinforced accompanied by chanting, Ipu Heke (double gourd) or Pahu (drum). Students will be exposed to chants, and pule of traditional and ceremonial protocols related to the discipline of hula. Students may also be required to make accompanying instruments, like Ipu (smaller single gourd), Kala‘au (sticks), ‘Ili‘ili (stones), and Pū‘ili (split bamboo) under the direction of the class instructor. Students will be taught different historical aspects of specific hula, associated hula mythology, ali‘i (chiefly) genealogies; plants, and place names.

This course expands on the traditional Hawaiian kalo growing knowledge covered in the first class to include the ecology of wetland kalo systems, focusing on traditional loʻi techniques, and the integration of nutrient flow analysis through the ahupuaʻa and nutrient management practices for lo‘i kalo. Additional emphasis is placed on both scientific and practical approaches. Cooking and eating are used throughout the course to demonstrate linkages between kalo and human nutrition and wellbeing. The course will consist of a mixture of lecture and hands-on field experience.

An introduction to beginning Hawaiian protocol(s) and chant. Students will learn types of chants, voice quality, modes of chanting, and their basic elements of place chants at an introductory level.

This course provides an introduction to the study of Polynesian religions through an exploration of the oral traditions of Hawaiʻi, Aotearoa (New Zealand), French Polynesia (Tahiti et al .), and Samoa among others. In this class, students will gain a foundational understanding of important religious themes that permeate Polynesia. Main themes include but are not limited to deities’ forms & functions, cosmogonies, etiologies, and belief-regulated practices. Additionally, a portion of the semester will focus on belief narratives as vehicles for the transmission of knowledge and the significance of contemporary representation and self-representation of Polynesian religion and culture. This class will use comparative analysis between Hawaiian religion and the religious traditions of Aotearoa, French Polynesia, and Samoa to identify the fundamental concepts needed to understand Polynesian religions and explore how they are interconnected and interwoven into the fabric of our lives today. (Cross-listed as REL 217)

Kamehameha I, also known as Paiʻea, Ka Naʻi Aupuni, and Kaiwakiloumoku is the most famous Hawaiian in history. This course will look at the rise to power of Kamehameha I, as he consolidated all of the islands under his control establishing the Hawaiian Kingdom. We will examine his genealogy and chiefly family relations including, his most famous exploits and battles, the olelo noʻeau (wise sayings) related to his life, and the cultural and political legacies he has left Hawaiʻi.

This course focuses on the Hawaiian Kingdom era covering two major historical periods: the first from 1810 until 1893; the second from 1893 to the present. This course focuses primarily on the first historical period, allowing the legal, political, and economic conclusions from that era to inform and provide for us a continuity into the second historical period. Major topics addressed in this course are: unification; the Hawaiian Constitutions; recognition and nationhood in 1843; feudal and allodial land systems; the Hawaiian economy; the Hawaiian monarchs; the occupation of the Hawaiian Islands; issues and methods of de-occupation; historical, political, legal, and economic global contexts.

This course is a study of film & literature created by Native Hawaiians and other Indigenous peoples; especially to focus on the situational and cultural impetus from which these texts were created.

Survey of gods, ‘aumakua, kupua, mythical heroes, heroines, and their kinolau as the basis of traditional Hawaiian Metaphor. This course will investigate and analyze oral and written Hawaiian literary sources.

Wahi Pana: Mythology of the Landscape, is designed to illuminate Hawaiian intelligence regarding the geographic features of these islands. Students will undertake a basic study of the natural sciences from a Western/modern perspective. They will then look at various Hawaiian chants and epic tales to explore the connections with indigenous knowledge forms found in a Hawaiian worldview. Cross-cultural comparisons are made with the goal of bringing forth specific, physical information about important Hawaiian places. Students will gain cultural awareness of their surroundings through the bridging of geography and the mythology studied, thus creating a more Hawaiian sense-of-place in our community.