The Big Kahuna!!

December 3rd, 2007
· by admin · Filed Under: Hawaiian Potpouri · History of Hawaii

Have you ever heard the term “Big Kahuna”? Have you ever wondered exactly what it meant to be a Kahuna? It’s a common Hawaiian term that most people have heard at least once. The term was popularized by Hollywood in surfing movies….They would refer to the best surfer on the beach as the “Big Kahuna”. I decided to research the Kahuna so that we could become familiar with the origin of the word and the history of the Kahuna.

I looked up the term in Roget’s Thesaurus and found the following: Big enchilada, big gun, boss, chief, head honcho, influential person, leader, person in charge, top dog, VIP, big cheese. These are the terms we associate with the Kahuna, but I still wanted to find the origin of the word/term Kahuna. I did a little research and found an amazing article on a website called Aloha International. The article is written by Serge Kahili King. There is a small summary of the Kahuna below; written by Serge; to view the entire article go to http://www.huna.org/html/kahuna.html

Brief Historical Survey of Kahunas

They were experts of old Hawaii, experts in religion, health, crafts, science, psychology, and magic
“Kahuna” was a title, like M.D. or Ph.D., and additional descriptive words were used to designate the field of expertise.
Just as the modern use of the word “doctor”by itself is generally taken to mean a medical doctor, so the use of “kahuna” by itself generally designated a priest or healer
They underwent intensive and extensive training before being recognized as experts in their field, either by their teacher or by the community.
Some Kahunas were experts in many fields.
They were attuned to the spiritual side of their expertise as well as to the material side.
They could be male or female.
Under the Monarchy the term “Kahuna” began to be used for foreigners who were recognized experts in their fields, especially for ministers and health professionals.

So what have we learned??? Kahunas were well-respected, well-learned, men and women. I was personally very surprised to find out that women were also Kahunas!! We have to give “props” to the ancient Hawaiian culture for recognizing women as intelligent leaders!! Pretty amazing for the 1800’s!