Native Hawaiian Storytelling

Keeping Tradition Alive: Native Hawaiian Storytelling Stories are ageless they encompass centuries of ancient wisdom. They ignite imagination, spark the old and create new memories for multiple generations. Stories are used to record and pass down history, legacy and tradition. In order to keep alive the identity of any given people stories are passed on through many forms, they stamp a seal of existence. Stories are used to teach, the lessons, values, and the beliefs of the society they speak about they express the soul of the people.
All over the world each culture has its own way of recording and passing on its history and traditions. Many indigenous cultures use storytelling to record and pass on lessons, events, and milestones to the
This art form is used to preserve the ways of the people, in this way hula is a continually evolving traditional dance form. Today it reflects and embodies over 300yrs of cultural mixture. The western view of dance combined with the foreign people’s inability to appreciate the poetic flow of the native language has simplified the dance to a more literal and ordered vocabulary hand movements and gestures. (We Dance for Knowledge) Hula was originally mostly a men’s dance. Male dancers were overshadowed by the western world’s views and concepts of gender and sexuality. Men were taught to dance along with the martial arts of warfare in the ancient times. It was a Euro American missionary ban in Hawaii that forbade the public practice of hula for years. Because to the sensual movements were seen by the foreign visitors as sexual even though they weren’t sexualized. Traditional female dancers wear the pāʻū, (wrapped skirt). Dancers might also wear lei, headpieces (leipo'o), necklaces, bracelets, and anklets (kupe'e)), and other adornments. The men wore a malo, (loincloth) made of many yards of tapa. As well as various accessories similar to the women. Today these costumes very and are worn in greater variations of styles and colors. Ancient hula was used as way to pray to the gods for example, after prayers to the forest gods had been chanted the materials needed for the lei that would be worn for a performance would be gathered. One the performance was done the lei and tapa worn were believed to be instilled with the sacredness of the dance were not to be worn again. And placed on the small altar to the goddess Laka as offerings. Many dances were considered a religious performance in dedicated to or in honor of a god or goddess. Even a slight error would invalidate the performance, which could be a forewarning of bad luck