Kānaka Maoli: Native Hawaiian People and Identity

Kānaka Maoli are the Indigenous Polynesian people of Hawaii, descended from voyagers who settled the Hawaiian archipelago from eastern Polynesia approximately one thousand years ago. They are the original people of these islands: their language, culture, spiritual practices, and relationship to the land shaped everything that makes Hawaii distinctively Hawaiian. Understanding who Kānaka Maoli are, and what they have endured and built, is essential to understanding Hawaii honestly.

Who Kānaka Maoli are

Kānaka Maoli (true people, real people) is the term preferred by many Native Hawaiians for themselves. The term Kānaka ʻŌiwi (people of the bones, meaning people rooted in this land) is also used. The word Hawaiian is widely accepted and used in legal and political contexts. What matters most is the word's meaning: the people whose ancestors have belonged to this land for a thousand years.

Native Hawaiians are federally recognized as an indigenous people of the United States under the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act and several other statutes, though they do not have the same political status as federally recognized Indian tribes. The question of that status is part of the ongoing sovereignty discussion.

Population and demography

The population of Native Hawaiians collapsed catastrophically after Western contact in 1778. Epidemics of measles, smallpox, cholera, and influenza, combined with social disruption, reduced the Hawaiian population from an estimated 300,000 or more at contact to fewer than 40,000 by 1900. This population decline, driven by introduced disease, is one of the most severe in the documented history of any indigenous people.

Recovery has been slow but real. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 data counted approximately 690,000 people who identified as Native Hawaiian alone or in combination with other races. Of this number, roughly 140,000 live in Hawaii; the majority of Native Hawaiians now live on the U.S. mainland, primarily in California, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. This diaspora reflects both historical displacement and economic pressure.

Language and cultural revival

ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian language, was banned in schools from 1896 onward and was on the verge of extinction by the mid-twentieth century. Fewer than 50 children were growing up speaking Hawaiian as their first language in the early 1980s. The language revival effort, beginning with the Pūnana Leo immersion preschool program established in 1984, has brought the language back to thousands of speakers across the islands.

Today Hawaiian is an official language of the State of Hawaii alongside English. Hawaiian-medium public schools educate students from preschool through high school. The University of Hawaii at Hilo offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in Hawaiian language and literature. The revival of language has gone hand in hand with the revival of hula, traditional navigation, voyaging, kapa-making, and other practices of the Hawaiian Renaissance.

Sovereignty and self-determination

The political question of Hawaiian sovereignty centers on the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the subsequent annexation of Hawaii by the United States. In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed the Apology Resolution (Public Law 103-150), acknowledging that the overthrow was illegal and that Native Hawaiians never relinquished their sovereignty. The resolution did not restore sovereignty or provide a remedy.

Native Hawaiian organizations hold a range of positions on what self-determination should mean, from full independence to nation-within-a-nation status similar to recognized tribes. The U.S. Department of the Interior published a rule in 2016 establishing a process for a government-to-government relationship between the U.S. and a reorganized Native Hawaiian governing entity. The process remains ongoing and contested.

For visitors, the important thing is awareness: Hawaii is not simply a tropical vacation destination. It is the homeland of a living Indigenous people whose history, language, and land relationships are present everywhere in the islands. Treating that with respect is the starting point for any meaningful visit.