Hula In Hawaiian Culture

Hula Hula in broadened dictionary knowledge is a dance performed by Hawaiian women, characterized by six basic steps, undulating hips, and gestures symbolizing or imitating natural phenomenon or historical or mythological subjects. Hula to Hawaiian culture is not just a dance; it is a cultural practice for Hawaiian in a language of expression by body movement. Hula teachers (kumu) believe that every movement within the hula dance has its own saying or its own meaning. It is another way of speaking but through your body movements. Hula should be taught in school as a mandatory elective for graduation because it is one of Hawaii’s main cultural aspects and everyone should respect and know its importance. Heather Greene is a freelance writer and journalist, living

Hawaiians believed that Laka was demanded by her sister Pele to dance hula, then she started swaying gracefully to the sound of the wind and the ocean. After then “hula was practice as a sacred dance of a goddess and nature” (5). Every time hula is being dance, each movement that a dancer moves tells a story to anything, and it might be a surrounding, weather, or the changing of the tide. Hawaiian elders believe that the main purpose for hula is to “pass down their traditions, their history, and their religion to the coming generations to honor deity, local chiefs and important community members (6)”. Hula was a very sacred dance, it was taught that they only dance hula on special occasions. One of the special occasions that Hawaiians danced hula was back in the 1800s when the missionaries came to Hawaii. The Hawaiians performed their hula dance as a way of giving respect to them but Captain Cook and the missionaries took it as a disgrace to the Hawaiians because they considered hula, sinful. Hula was then banned from being performed because the missionaries felt that hula is keeping people performing their daily lives, which is the need to support for family or oneself. However, the reign