Native Hawaiian Creation Story : Excerpts from a Voyage of Rediscovery
https://archives.anglican.ca/link/article31479
- Author
- Hopkins, Charles G. Kamohoali'i (Charles Gordon Kamohoalii), 1931-2008
- Material Type
- Journal Article
- Journal
- First Peoples Theology Journal
- Date
- 2001 September
- Material Type
- Journal Article
- Journal
- First Peoples Theology Journal
- Date
- 2001 September
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- Page
- 60-75
- Notes
- "If all of humanity is embodied in the created order as Paul would have us believe, then how communities within the human family choose to relate to the Creator must be based on who they are, where they are, and how the Creator chooses to reveal himself to them. Therefore the result is a diverse human family with a variety of ways to relate to their Creator. All attempts to remove that diversity by trying to have all communities relate to their Creator in the same way goes against the will and purpose of God, who according to St. Paul allows each human community to search for him, grope for him and find him `for her is not far from each of us'" (p. 60). "So according to Paul, the Creator of the world revealed himself to the indigenous people of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. The response of the natives of Hawai'i nei to this Divine revelation was a belief system which reflected who they are as an ocean people on an isolated archipelago in a semi-tropical zone in the middle of the largest ocean in the world" (p. 61). "Unlike the Western perspective where historical fact is the factor which lends credibility, our traditional stories are as important and credible to us now as when they were first told because they are a source of truth. A Westerner may pursue the quest for a historical Jesus. But a native Hawaiian would never ask, `What can we know about an historical Pele ?'" (p. 61.) The author gives a thorough description of Hawaiian religion and culture before western contact. "What has been described to this point is an account of the beginning and early history of our spiritual voyage as Native Hawaiian Christians, our Sacred History. We can call it our Old Testament because it is the Covenant our ancestors made with the Creator in response to the revelation they received. And it is our ancestors' culture that provided the context in which response became a belief system. Because today our spiritual voyage is devoid of the right cultural context, what we can do today to correct this shortcoming on this voyage of rediscovery us to take from the traditional belief system those elements that are spiritual foundation of Native Hawaiian culture and make them integral parts of our spiritual voyage today, for we are what we were" (pp. 73-74).
- Author is a Native Hawaiian and an Episcopal priest.
- Subjects
- Christianity and culture - Hawaii
- Christianity and culture - Episcopal Church
- Hawaiians - Religion
- Hawaiian mythology
- Hawaiians - First contact with Europeans
- Creation - Religious aspects
- Location
- General Synod Archives