Hawaiian & Pacific

Native Hawaiians are Polynesian peoples who navigated thousands of miles of open ocean to settle the Hawaiian archipelago, likely arriving from the Marquesas Islands around 1000-1200 CE. They developed a complex society organized around the ahupua'a land division system, the kapu (taboo) social code, and a rich mythology centered on deities like Pele (volcano goddess), Kane (creator god), Ku (war god), and Lono (fertility god). Hawaiian chants, hula, and oral traditions preserve genealogies stretching back dozens of generations. The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and subsequent American annexation disrupted but did not destroy these traditions. A Hawaiian cultural renaissance beginning in the 1970s has revitalized language, navigation, hula, and ceremonial practice.