"Who are you to tell us our history?" Kultur och religion i ... - Anpere

easy thing to make such a law, but it is a mother’s duty to guard it from being violated, & to
form in her children fixed habits of doing, as they are required – A thing, that follows of
course, is that they are never left to the care of natives after reaching the age of prattling –
No intercourse whatever should subsist between the children and the heathen – On this
point I am very particular – Establishing a loose system here, & I should say with every
body else, send children to America, & no matter how soon.
Our yard is capacious, surrounded & divided by stone wall 6 feet high – As few doors as
possible, as the natives are like children, ready to press through every gap. 485
Lucy Thurston hade som mål att kombinera alla rollerna, dvs. som mor, missionär och
lärare. Hon bedrev missionsverksamhet i form av möten för hawaiianska kvinnor där
medlemstalet ökade från 70 medlemmar 1827 till 2600 medlemmar 1830. 486
Hula – inte enbart dans
Companies of singing and dancing girls and men, consisting of many hundreds, met the
processions in different places, encircling the highest chiefs, and shouting their praise in
enthusiastic adulations. The dull monotonous sounds of the native drum and calabash, the
wild notes of their songs in the loud choruses and responses of the various parties, and the
pulsations, on the ground, of the tread of thousands in the dance, reached us even at the
Missionary enclosure. But they felt hearth with saddening power; for we had been
compelled already from our own observations, as well as from the communications of
others, necessarily to associate with the exhibitions of unrivalled licentiousness, and
abominations which must for ever remain untold.
I can never forget the impressions made upon my mind, the first few nights after coming to
anchor in the harbour, while these songs and dances were in preparation by rehearsal and
practice. With the gathering darkness of evening, thousands of the natives assembled in a
grove of cocoa-nut trees near the ship; and the fires round which they danced, were scarce
ever extinguished till the break of day, while shouts of revelry and licentiousness, shouts of
which are heard only in a heathen land, unceasingly burst upon the ear. 487
Något som upprörde missionärerna var hawaiiansk hula, eller dans, som de översatte det
med. Förutom att de menade att hula vara en onödig och tidskrävande sysselsättning som
hindrade elever från att gå i skola, samt att utföra vad de ansåg vara ett normalt och
anständigt arbete, ansåg de dessutom att hula var sexuellt provokativ. Fokus lades nämligen
övervägande på hawaiianernas fysiska rörelser, främst höftrörelserna, som ansågs vara
utmanande med betoning på det sexuella. I brev och rapporter från missionärerna finns
tydligt starka känslor kring hula och missionärerna uttrycker i starka ordalag hur de
485 Brev: Lucy G. Thurston till William Goodell, den 16 oktober, 1829. MsL/HMCS. Brevet är
rubricerat: ”My Dear Cousin and Brother”.
486 Thurston 1934: 103. Lucy Thurston berättar vidare hur hon kombinerade familj och arbete:
“Mr. Thurston is entirely devoted to works of more private character. I am the housekeeper,
the mother, and the domestic teacher. What time I can redeem from family cares I give to our
native females. Twenty-six hundred have been gathering into our Friday meetings. This society
is in a very flourishing state. As I cannot see them all at our house, I teach them by proxy,
selecting from the most intelligent ones a class of teachers to come under my instructions.
When night closes upon me, and there is a suspension of maternal and domestic duties, I take
my chosen season to meet the natives. I pass from a hushed nursery to the long dining room,
where a table is extended for the accommodation of twenty-five. It is lightened up and the
women are in their seats.“
487 Stewart 1828: 120.
112