Sorcery is using spirits to gain power over people or situations.  It played a central role in the lives and dynamics of the Native Hawaiians.  When Kamehameha was consolidating his power in the islands it was important that he secured all the sorcery gods that were worshipped by the ruling chiefs and set up god houses and keepers for them. 

Sorcery was practiced through a fetcher, which was an image that was thought to be possessed by the spirit of an ancestor or some force of nature.  The bones of a dead family member might be used in the same way.  The goal was to bring the energy of the god to the keeper of the talisman.  A body might be dedicated to a god or animal and then take on that shape.  It would then go on to serve as an aumakua, or protective guardian, to the family.  An aumakua would punish the enemies of the family it served and bring good things to them, but they also had to remember not to neglect its worship or it might rain vengeance upon them.

Spirits could also inhabit a living person.  When this happened, the person was referred to as an akua noho, or sitting god, and was treated as a god during the time of their possession.  When the spirit was sent out to inflict injury on others that’s when the sorcery began.  Bits of a body or chips off a wooden image were prized as still possessing mana, or energy.  Laws were passed forbidding sorcery, but the secrecy it was then practiced in only increased the intrigue and fear it generated.

Related to the schools of sorcery, were those the healers, or herb doctors.  Many of these doctors believed that diseases were caused by sorcery.  Lono-puha was the first to practice healing through medicinal herbs.  The kahunas who came after him learned to diagnose illness by laying out pebbles in the outline of a man.  They matched up the afflicted body parts with the corresponding pebbles and offered prayers to the aumakua of healing.

Jolene, who was living in the tent in Puna, told me about a craft fair that was happening across the street that night.  Her and one of the residents of the hostel, a retired teacher named Virginia, were going.  It had not been a very social trip so far, basically just me alone, looking for uncluttered stretches of beach to play the ukelele on.  This night, then, I thought I’d join them, so made my way across the street when the band was scheduled to play.  They were late.

About a half hour after the music was supposed to begin, a car pulled up and a man with long hair and sunglasses shaped like two little stars got out.  The soundman was frustrated and let him know if the rest of the band wasn’t right behind him, they wouldn’t be getting on the stage that night.  One by one the other band members began to appear, lugging their instruments with them.  It was a pretty informal affair.  The music was Jah-waiian, a mixture of Hawaiian and reggae.

Hilo is not a big place.  I’d been there enough times to recognize a few of the characters who make up the counterculture.  One guy passed by on a skateboard.  I knew he had his own recording studio and performing arts spot.  Another guy, a comedian, I’d seen at a few open mics in the past.  He called himself the California Raisin because he is so bald, wrinkled, and brown.  I’d played at one of the open mics he was at and it had not gone well at all.  All you could hear were big drops of his sweat hitting the floor.

After looking at some of the art and hitting up a kava bar, I wandered over to the Big Head Tavern, where someone told me they were having Hawaiian music.  The two guys playing there were also operating on island time, meaning running a half hour late.  Once they got started, they were just two local boys playing slack key, needing to jump up and high-five each other after every song. 

Sitting there watching them play, made wish we never would’ve moved from Hawaii, that I’d grown up surfing and playing the ukelele.  I could’ve been playing in a band and married to a hula girl by now.  Could that still happen?  Maybe.  I’d need to gather up a ton of mana energy and still get lucky on top of that.  It would also help if I didn’t look so homeless.  That might be a good start.