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Acculturation in Hawaiian Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2019

Adrienne L. Kaeppler*
Affiliation:
Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
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Extract

Dance in Hawaii, before the coming of the Europeans, was an extension of poetry that honored the gods and chiefs, in the form of stylized visual accompaniment. Trained under the religious restrictions imposed by Laka, patron goddess of the hula, dancers were often part of the retinue of chiefly households. Hula schools (halau hula) were under the tutelage of a kumu hula (hula teacher) who was a kahuna (priest). Schools and hula troupes were subsidized by chiefs who maintained them for their own entertainment and the enhancement of their prestige. The main function of the hula was to honor the gods and to praise the chiefs and their ancestors in this highly stratified society.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 By the International Folk Music Council 

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References

Footnotes

1. This paper was presented at the International Folk Music Council Conference in Jamaica, August 27 - September 3, 1971.Google Scholar

2. Johannes C. Andersen. Maori Music with its Polynesian Background. Polynesian Society Memoir 10, 1933; Adrienne L. Kaeppler, “Music in Hawaii in the Nineteenth Century.” Die Musik-kulturen Asiens und Afrikas im 19 Jahrhundert. Köln (in press).Google Scholar

4. David Malo. Hawaiian Antiquities (Moolelo Hawaii). Translated from the Hawaiian by Dr. Nathaniel B. Emerson. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1951.Google Scholar

5. See, for example, Ka Nupepa Ku ‘oko'a. Google Scholar

6. Some of these are preserved in the Bishop Museum; others are the guarded treasures of individual families.Google Scholar

7. Ancient Hawaiian Music. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1926.Google Scholar

8. Translation by Mary Kawena Pukui.Google Scholar

9. Place name of the home of Queen Emma's real mother, Kekela.Google Scholar

10. Place name.Google Scholar

11. Her adopted father.Google Scholar