Thursday, May 3, 2018

Vol VII No. 701 Part 1b



Hawaiian OLA
The iconic sound of the Pū can be heard from over two miles away. It carries echos of a practice kept alive over many generations by knowledgeable practitioners... throughout Hawaiian history.
Traditionally, according to ancient practice, blowing the Pū would announce the arrival of Aliʻi, accompany ceremonial chants, and be used throughout hula festivals and the Makahiki season.
The sound, which varies in volume based on technique more than breath, invokes positive mana and harkens blessings from the natural world.
Often, the Pū is called in the four directions and is commonly used during the day, as sounding the shell past sunset is thought to awaken unwanted forces.
When the Pū is called, and the number of times it is blown, both hold significance. For instance, ancient ocean travelers would use the Pū to call to neighboring island shores in order to ask for and receive permission to land.
Today the Pū is used in a variety of settings, including traditional instances as well as the opening of Hawaiʻi’s state legislature. As its use in Hawaii continues to evolve, we’d like to send gratitude to the many people keeping the culture and tradition alive by preserving and teaching its ceremonial use.
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You and Chad Ryan Lopaka Downey became Facebook friends.
3 YEARS AGO TODAY
5 YEARS AGO TODAY
That's all for May 2.
Here are some more memories that we hope you like.
Study: Number of Innocent People Sentenced to Death Much Higher Than Thought
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/04/29-1

REMEMBER THIS THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE SAYS HAWAIIANS ARE ANTI-SCIENCE - http://FreeHawaii.Info
Mother Nature Network - January 22, 2013 - Brian Nelson
The prevailing theory about the "rediscovery" of the American continents used to be such a simple tale.
Most people are familiar with it: In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Then that theory was complicated when, in 1960, archaeologists discovered a site in Canada's Newfoundland, called L'Anse aux Meadows, which proved that Norse explorers likely beat Columbus to the punch by about 500 years.
Now startling new DNA evidence promises to complicate the story even more. It turns out that it was not Columbus or the Norse — or any Europeans at all — who first rediscovered the Americas.
It was actually the Polynesians.
All modern Polynesian peoples can trace their origins back to a sea-migrating Austronesian people who were the first humans to discover and populate most of the Pacific islands, including lands as far-reaching as Hawai`i, New Zealand and Easter Island.
Despite the Polynesians' incredible sea-faring ability, however, few theorists have been willing to say that Polynesians could have made it as far east as the Americas.
That is, until now.
Clues about the migration patterns of the early Polynesians have been revealed thanks to a new DNA analysis performed on a prolific Polynesian crop: the sweet potato, according to Nature.
The origin of the sweet potato in Polynesia has long been a mystery, since the crop was first domesticated in the Andes of South America about 8,000 years ago, and it couldn't have spread to other parts of the world until contact was made.
In other words, if Europeans were indeed the first to make contact with the Americas between 500 and 1,000 years ago, then the sweet potato shouldn't be found anywhere else in the world until then.
The extensive DNA study looked at genetic samples taken from modern sweet potatoes from around the world and historical specimens kept in herbarium collections.
Remarkably, the herbarium specimens included plants collected during Capt. James Cook’s 1769 visits to New Zealand and the Society Islands. The findings confirmed that sweet potatoes in Polynesia were part of a distinct lineage that were already present in the area when European voyagers introduced different lines elsewhere.
In other words, sweet potatoes made it out of America before European contact.
The question remains: How else could Polynesians have gotten their hands on sweet potatoes prior to European contact, if not by traveling to America themselves?
The possibility that sweet potato seeds could have inadvertently floated from the Americas to Polynesia on land rafts is believed to be highly unlikely.
Researchers believe that Polynesian seafarers must have discovered the Americas first, long before Europeans did.
The new DNA evidence, taken together with archaeological and linguistic evidence regarding the timeline of Polynesian expansion, suggests that an original contact date between 500 CE and 700 CE between Polynesia and America seems likely.
That means that Polynesians would have arrived in South America even before the Norse had landed in Newfoundland.
The findings show that the technological capabilities of ancient peoples and cultures from around the world should not be underestimated, and that the history of human expansion across the globe is probably far more complicated than anyone could have previously imagined.

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