Abstract
THE sixth volume of the Memoirs of the Bishop Museum at Honolulu1 continues the publication of Judge Fornander's literary collections. The first portion contains two important papers by native writers on the religion of the Hawaians. One, by Kamakau, contributed to the collection by Dr. W. D. Alexander, describes certain ancient ceremonies of which the principal are those connected with the prenatal development of the royal child, the direction of services to the gods, the catching of the fish ofelu, and the feasts of the year. There are shorter notes on heathen prayers and the ceremonial erection of the heiau or god's house. A much longer paper by the Hawaian author, S. N. Haleole, deals with the functions of the Kahuna, “the priesthood called the Order of Sorcery.” The word in varying forms (tahuna, tahunga, tauna) is used throughout the Eastern Pacific to denote persons possessed of varying degrees of wisdom from priesthood to sorcery, but in the west, in Tonga and Samoa, has become entirely secularised, and there (in the form tufunga) means nothing more than a carpenter or skilled workman.
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RAY, S. The Religion and Origin of the Hawaian People. Nature 105, 628 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105628a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105628a0