A Class of Experts, Not a Priesthood

The English habit of translating kahuna as priest gets the shape of the office wrong. The word means one who is expert in something, and the somethings were specific. A kahuna kalai waa selected the tree, directed its felling with the appropriate prayers, and shaped a hull that would carry a family's lives; a kahuna lapaau diagnosed and treated with a materia medica of plants and with prayer that was part of the treatment rather than an addition to it; a kahuna kilokilo watched clouds, birds and the sky for what was coming; a kahuna nui conducted the ritual of the luakini temple, which under the direction of ruling chiefs included human sacrifice.

Martha Beckwith's survey of Hawaiian mythology and the genealogical chant Kumulipo both show the classes in operation and show how closely they were tied to rank, the highest kahuna serving the highest chiefs, so that a specialist's accuracy was a political matter as well as a technical one. Training was long, usually inside a family, and knowledge was not published. Because the work was technical, error had consequences read religiously as well as practically, and a specialist who failed lost standing. The office was restricted in the strict sense: not secret for its own sake, but closed because it could only be held by someone who had been taught.