*Which is correct? Hawaii, or Hawai'i? Either is acceptable, but in the Hawaiian language, they always include the okina, which is supposed to look like a reverse apostrophe and indicates how to pronounce the word correctly, with a little pause for the last "I."
It's thought there were people living on the Hawaiian islands (called the Kingdom of Hawaii) since about the year 400 and probably earlier. An explorer named James Cook 'discovered' the islands in 1778, although Spanish explorers may well have been there in 1542. Hawaii had its own Polynesian religion which included gods and goddesses, and was ruled by kings -and one queen- down through the years.
Until people from the outside the islands arrived, there were approximately 300,000 native Hawaiians living there. Once white men came to settle there, they began to grow sugar cane on large farms, and there was need for huge numbers of workers. As has always been the case, people from other countries came to make money, in this case from Japan, China, and the Phillipines. As other people settled in the area, the native Hawaiians diminished to 24,000 by 1920.
Missionaries came to convert the islanders to Christianity, and since it was such a long journey by ship, most missionaries simply stayed. As the number of white people increased, their political control of the islands increased as well. Not allowing people of Asian or Hawaiian descent to vote made their takeover much easier, and finally they overthrew the traditional Hawaiian government in 1893. In 1898, the United States declared Hawaii one of its territories. In 1959 it became a state. The last monarch of Hawaii was Queen Lili'uokalani, who was forced out in 1893. She was the first and only queen of Hawaii, there had only been kings till that point. Read about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili%CA%BBuokalani
The Hawaian language is different than many others; for instance, all words end in a vowel, and there are only 13 characters in it (12, and an expression mark like a dash or apostrophe). There was no written language until people from outside the islands arrived. Since outside settlers had overtaken the islands, the native language began to dwindle until immersion schools (where students are immersed in a culture or language) began in the 1980s.
From Wikipedia:
Hawaiians had no written language prior to Western contact, except for petroglyph symbols. The modern Hawaiian alphabet, ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi, is based on the Latin script. Hawaiian words end only[52] in vowels, and every consonant must be followed by a vowel. The Hawaiian alphabetical order has all of the vowels before the consonants,[53] as in the following chart.
| Aa | Ee | Ii | Oo | Uu | Hh | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Pp | Ww | ʻ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | /e/ | /i/ | /o/ | /u/ | /h/ | /k~t/ | /l/ | /m/ | /n/ | /p/ | /v~w/ | /ʔ/ |
Traditional Hawaiian dance is called Hula, specifically Hula Kahiko or Hula Auauno, and is performed by both men and women for a number of reasons, such as honoring the gods, telling stories, or acknowledging a volcano. Hand and arm movements illustrate the lyrics of the song. Learn more about traditional Hawaaian dances here:
https://dance.lovetoknow.com/types-dance/traditional-hawaiian-dances
Lava flowing down a hillside
- Hawaii has several volcanoes, and the ones currently considered active are:
- Haleakal
- Maunalo
- Kilauea-active since 1983
- Maunake
- Liohi-active since 1996
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