Template:Nhsc-v1-228

From GrassrootWiki
Revision as of 03:51, 15 April 2006 by Jennifer Wada (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search

resurrection of Christ as demonstrable by the written record of the gospel and effect their belief strictly by faith. The Hawaiian Christian is therefore more primarily affiliated with his church, and so far as his native Hawaiian beliefs are concerned, simply keeps them separate as it suits him, or as in other cases, will work them into home rituals combining Christian and Hawaiian forms of worship with no fear that they may be violating either tradition.

Animism and Animatism as Primary Facets of Hawaiian Religious Belief

Animism is the belief in spirits, and as we have demonstrated, Hawaiian religion rests upon a basic belief in "spirits and the spirit world. These spirits (‘uhane) are also the gods (akua) in the ranking hierarchy of guardian gods (‘aumakua) who protect the family from harm and who answer all kinds of trouble calls from their family ('ohana) patrons. Thus a patron deity is an akua when called upon by a group of workers, but when turned to by the family for help is called an ‘aumakua. Both the akua as "gods" and the ‘aumakua as "ancestral guardian gods" are ‘uhane (spirits).

We can classify these spirit gods as ancestral spirits (‘aumakua) ranging from the recent deified departed dead in the family, or the ancestral spirit gods (akua) who have never known mortal existence except in instances when they occupy human bodies for visits to earth and who are true spirits, or those who are god-like in that they have never experienced human death. These immortal spirits are those, then, with the greatest supernatural power (mana), and as they are called upon through prayer and ritual, they impart their mana to human beings. Men receive more of this power than women do, and chiefs more than commoners.

Mana is the "animating" force in all life forms and in all forms of universal energy. Since the source of this power is from the spiritual to the material world, it follows that the material world flows from the spiritual into concrete being, and ma is the conduit of its intelligent, cognitive thought, whereby understanding or knowledge of its existence perseveres through corporeal life and back again into spiritual life. Thus Hawaiian religion evinces a dependency between belief in spiritual entity (‘uhane) residing in man and ancestral gods ('akua, ‘aumakua), in man as living god (kupua or "demigod"), and belief in the psycho-dynamic force of life-energy and power existing in a direct flow to all of creation; that is, animism and animatism; man's life and all life in the creation being but a manifestation of the animating force of spiritual energy and power.

Inasmuch as nature is, however, both animate and inanimate, it can be asked how inanimate nature demonstrates, in its dormancy, spiritual energy, and how Hawaiian belief in mana as residual, in all of creation's forms, handles the resolution between animation and inanimation? It is simple. "Life," in Hawaiian thought, is not restricted to animated, corporeal life (ola), because "life" as emerging invigoration is spirit (ea) in both inanimate and animate forms. mana is either dormant and residual in the inanimate forms of life or energy (if we see mana as "potential" energy) and also dynamic and active in the animate forms of life (or "kinetic" energy). Light is not living (ola), but it is a manifestation of the great akua god Kane-ka-'onohi-o-ka-la (Kane-eyeballof- the-sun). So light is masculine, and an expression of mana as it emanates from the sunlight to man on earth for his use. Light as the inner

-p228-