Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp

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Indigenous Researcher and Writer

Tag: Hawaiian culture

Hawaiian Meme: ʻAumākua

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Jun 9, 2018
The Term "Makaʻāinana"

Makaʻāinana is the Hawaiian term often translated as “commoner”. But actually thatʻs a misnomer because in English a commoner is someone without rank or title and who were neither clergy nor noble. That is based on European social stratification going back to the Greeks and Romans. In Hawaiian, makaʻāinana is in fact a protected class and — read more

Jun 9, 2018
Recognizing Hawaiian Women in Hawaiian History

In reflecting on the way that many local women are dismissed in Hawaiian history and culture discussions by outsiders and even at times by our own men in the Hawaiian community, maybe this is be a wake up call in understanding and revisiting the way women are thought of in history in general but in — read more

Jun 9, 2018
Hawaiian Fisher Women and Divers

In ancient Hawai’i, the Hawaiian men usually were the ones that hunted, planted, harvested, cooked and fished. There were, however, roles in each of the above too for women. For example, when it was time to plant, women were present and handed over the seed or taro corn to men. The belief was that things — read more

Jun 9, 2018
The Palaka and the Labor Movement

The Hawaiian word palaka comes from the English word “frock”. Some say it comes from the English word “block” as in block print or checkered. When the American missionaries came to Hawai’i in 1820, this pattern was known to them as rubbish cloth and used for frocks, rags, kitchen curtains and table cloths. The first written — read more

Jun 9, 2018
Menstruation through the Lens of Hawaiian Culture

One of the negative impacts that Westernization and colonialism brought to Hawaiʻi was the way we understand women in Hawaiian culture. Take for example a womanʻs menses. There are several terms for a womanʻs menstruation. Hanawai, kahe, maʻi (wahine), heʻe koko, wai, wai ʻula, wai o ka wahine, waimaka lehua. We tend to think of — read more

Jun 9, 2018
Broken but Beautiful

When Hawaiians of old broke a bowl, they did not discard it. Instead, they mended it using another type of wood and shaped it in the form of a fish (known as the pewa design) or a butterfly (known as the lepelepe o Hina design) as part of the mending process. The more it was — read more

Feb 25, 2014