A little Polynesian culture

Last week, I took my fifth trip to Hawaii but my first actual "vacation" to the islands. I think this was also Belinda's fifth trip so we are "veterans" among the Hawaiian tourists.

We speak the language of tourists very well. We know to say "Aloha" for hello and "Mahalo" for thank you. We know that "Pupus" (pronounced poo-poos) are appetizers and "Pipis" (pronounced peepees) is beef. That "Luau" is a feast but "lua" is a toilet. That entrances to toilets  read "Wahines" and "Kanes" instead of Men's and Women's. Luckily, there are often drawings on the entrances as well.

One of the most important things to know about the islands is how isolated they are -- sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They are about 3,000 miles away from the west coast of the United States, and yet they are closer in distance to the United States than any other large land mass.

The islands are considered part of "Polynesia", which also includes other islands in the Pacific including Easter Island off the coast of South America and New Zealand, which is near Australia. There are about 1,000 islands in the Pacific that make up Polynesia. Since it would take months and lots of dollars to see all the islands, a simple way to get a flavor for the different islands is to visit the Polynesian Cultural Center on the east side of Oahu.

The Center is part of the Brigham Young University in Hawaii, so a lot of the people you see there are attending college from the various islands, such as Tonga, Tahiti and Samoa.

It's hard to know where the people that settled these various islands came from originally. Were they originally Asian or from South America? One things for sure, they were an adventuresome bunch to take to their homemade sail boats and float for thousands of miles on the high seas. How they ever survived is beyond  me.

Still, there are some similarities between the various cultures, which leads me to think that there must have been some trade between the islands. Perhaps a trader landed in Fiji after a stay in Hawaii. He would remember that he saw the hula dancers and might suggest that Fiji natives take up the dance as well. But since he has a poor memory, he can't remember all the movements or the color of their garments so they improvise.

Thus it comes to us today that the dancers from the various islands all have sort of the same dances but with different hand gestures, hip shakes and costumes.

Another thing to remember is that at the same time George Washington was commanding the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War against Britain, a war chieftan by the name of Kamehameha was leading his invaders with clubs and torches and burning the little grass shacks and chasing the natives over cliffs as he united the islands under his command. A statue of King Kamehameha stands across the street from the present day capitol of Hawaii in downtown Honolulu.

In 1778, the English explorer Captain Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands and promptly named them the Sandwich Islands. So in 1866 when Mark Twain visited paradise, he called them the Sandwich Islands. However, eventually the native name of Hawaii became the prominent moniker.

After Cook came the missionaries who decided the natives needed to dress better so they gave them white shirts to wear. The natives didn't like the blandness of the white shirts and painted strikingly beautiful designs on them that were the forerunners of today's "Aloha" shirts.

There are many other unusual stories about the islands, including the role of the Dole family -- known for their pineapple plantations -- into persuading the United States to make Hawaii the 50th state in 1959.

Today, a visit to Hawaii will acquaint you with people from throughout the world. A bus trip from Waikiki to a Luau will include people from the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan....to name a few. There is no majority race in Hawaii. Everyone is a minority.

The U.S. has several military bases on the islands so you can also meet a lot of people in the service as well. They will be from all 50 states -- and I think they all enjoy their stay in the islands.

So practice up your Alohas and Mahalos, and save up for a trip to paradise. We've been to the islands in the summer and winter and there is no difference in temperature, the amount of daylight, etc. It's always nice in the islands. The flowers, the people and the natural beauty all welcome you to a wonderful get-away.