Latest news with #LostCultures:LivingLegacies
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
3 Hawaii Locals Share What They Want Travelers to Know About Their Culture
In this week's podcast episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies, we journey to Hawaii to explore the deep roots and living traditions of Kānaka Maoli, the Native Hawaiian may think you know Hawaii. But there's more to these stunning islands than white-sand beaches and breezy palm trees. Beyond the surf breaks and world-class sunsets, Hawaii has a complex story. Navigators were born here. There's an unmatched reverence for the land. It's a place once—and still—filled with warriors, working hard to fight for their cultural preservation. And as our guests share, Hawaiian culture isn't just alive on the islands—it touches the far corners of the world, too. In this week's episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies, we're exploring Hawaii through the voices of cultural practitioners, historians, and teachers, including Evan Mokuahi Hayes, a Hawaiian historian who returned to the islands in search of healing. He found it, unexpectedly, in a taro patch. 'Hawaii has this beautiful way of, even when you have nothing to give, it will meet you there,' he shares on the episode. 'It has a way of healing broken parts of you, essentially, and filling those empty spaces.' Related: 18 Basic Hawaiian Words and Phrases That connection to ʻāina—to land and Earth—runs deep for many. As Dr. J. Uluwehi Hopkins, a professor of Hawaiian history, explains on the episode, 'We have cosmogonic genealogies ... that say we grew right out of the land here, that the land itself is our ancestors.' The result is a worldview built on stewardship, not view was almost shattered in the late 1700s, when Western contact reshaped the islands' political and spiritual landscapes. "Our Hawaiian chiefs wanted to form a government that other nations would respect and therefore interact with in an equal way," Hopkins explains. "And the Hawaiian people actually didn't want land ownership, but the government enacted it because they realized that if we established land in a way that had an owner, if another foreign power came and took us over, they had to respect the landowners." This episode also explores the arrival of American missionaries in the 19th century, the rise of the sugar industry, and the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani. 'She crafted this really wonderful, brilliant response in which she says, 'I will yield my authority until the U.S. president realizes the illegality of his own minister,'' Hopkins shares. Through it all, Hawaiian culture has endured, especially in hula. 'Hula is exactly what people see,' says Hokulani Holt, a kumu hula, or teacher of the art of hula. 'It is the visual representation of the words that you are hearing. You cannot have hula without words.' Holt adds, hula is not merely a performance; it is history in movement. To get to know Hawai'i on a new level, listen to this week's episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies. It's available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Player FM, or wherever you get your podcasts. Read the original article on Travel & Leisure
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Travel + Leisure
4 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Travel + Leisure
3 Hawaii Locals Share What They Want Travelers to Know About Their Culture
You may think you know Hawaii. But there's more to these stunning islands than white-sand beaches and breezy palm trees. Beyond the surf breaks and world-class sunsets, Hawaii has a complex story. Navigators were born here. There's an unmatched reverence for the land. It's a place once—and still—filled with warriors, working hard to fight for their cultural preservation. And as our guests share, Hawaiian culture isn't just alive on the islands—it touches the far corners of the world, too. In this week's episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies , we're exploring Hawaii through the voices of cultural practitioners, historians, and teachers, including Evan Mokuahi Hayes, a Hawaiian historian who returned to the islands in search of healing. He found it, unexpectedly, in a taro patch. 'Hawaii has this beautiful way of, even when you have nothing to give, it will meet you there,' he shares on the episode. 'It has a way of healing broken parts of you, essentially, and filling those empty spaces.' That connection to ʻāina —to land and Earth—runs deep for many. As Dr. J. Uluwehi Hopkins, a professor of Hawaiian history, explains on the episode, 'We have cosmogonic genealogies ... that say we grew right out of the land here, that the land itself is our ancestors.' The result is a worldview built on stewardship, not ownership. That view was almost shattered in the late 1700s, when Western contact reshaped the islands' political and spiritual landscapes. "Our Hawaiian chiefs wanted to form a government that other nations would respect and therefore interact with in an equal way," Hopkins explains. "And the Hawaiian people actually didn't want land ownership, but the government enacted it because they realized that if we established land in a way that had an owner, if another foreign power came and took us over, they had to respect the landowners." This episode also explores the arrival of American missionaries in the 19th century, the rise of the sugar industry, and the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani. 'She crafted this really wonderful, brilliant response in which she says, 'I will yield my authority until the U.S. president realizes the illegality of his own minister,'' Hopkins shares. Through it all, Hawaiian culture has endured, especially in hula. 'Hula is exactly what people see,' says Hokulani Holt, a kumu hula, or teacher of the art of hula. 'It is the visual representation of the words that you are hearing. You cannot have hula without words.' Holt adds, hula is not merely a performance; it is history in movement. To get to know Hawai'i on a new level, listen to this week's episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies . It's available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Player FM, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Travel + Leisure
14-05-2025
- Travel + Leisure
T+L's Award-winning Podcast Returns for Season 2—and It's Taking Listeners From Bermuda to Norway
Travel + Leisure 's award-winning podcast, Lost Cultures: Living Legacies , is back with an all-new season filled with episodes highlighting the people who make some of our favorite travel destinations so special and culturally rich. Hosted by T+L's associate editorial director, Alisha Prakash, season two takes listeners on a multi-episode trip through communities whose histories continue to shape the world today. Last season, we heard from cultural experts in New York City's Lower East Side, once the epicenter of immigrant America, and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, where the Maya still preserve millennia‑old rituals. We ventured to Egypt to learn more about the Nubians, traveled to Louisiana for a bit of Creole backstory, met the mysterious "painted people" known as the Picts—a once-prominent tribe in Scotland that nearly disappeared from history books—shared a conversation with the Taino people of the Caribbean, and sailed to the remote Rapa Nui (also known as Easter Island) to discover how islanders carry their ancestors' legacy forward. Each episode features engaging conversations with archaeologists, chefs, artists, and local stewards who are working hard to ensure their cultures live on forever. We're expanding our reach in season two, spotlighting more celebrated and little-known cultures. First stop: Bermuda. "Bermuda's living legacy is its people. I think we are pretty special," Dr. Kristy Warren, a Bermudian and professor at the University of Lincoln in England, shares in the episode. "There aren't many of us in the world, and we seem to be able to punch above our weight. We show up in all sorts of areas of life and across the world." From there, we set our sights on Hawaii to meet the Kānaka Maoli, the ultimate ocean navigators, then on to Norway, where the Indigenous Sami await. Then, it's off to Asia to explore the Baghdadi Jewish community of India, back to the U.S. for a conversation with the Indigenous Narragansett community in Rhode Island, and more. Each episode delves into the heart of why we're having these conversations in the first place: What can we learn about a place when we explore the histories of those who once lived there, and live there still? So, go ahead, toss on your headphones, and stay tuned for new episodes each week, with our first episode premiering May 21 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Player FM, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and everywhere podcasts are available.
