Makahiki

The Makahiki season is the ancient Hawaiian New Year festival, in honor of the god Lono of the Hawaiian religion.

It is a holiday covering four consecutive lunar months, approximately from October or November through February or March. The focus of the season is a celebration of the bounty of the land. In antiquity, many religious ceremonies occurred during this period. Commoners stopped work, made offerings to the chief or aliʻi, and then spent their time practicing sports, feasting, dancing and renewing communal bonds. During the four lunar months of the Makahiki season warfare was forbidden which was used as "a ritually inscribed means to assure that nothing would adversely affect the new crops."

Today, the Aloha Festivals (originally Aloha Week) celebrate the Makahiki tradition.

Festivities

The Makahiki festival was celebrated in three phases. The first phase was a time of spiritual cleansing and making hoʻokupu, offerings to the gods. The Konohiki, a class of chiefs that managed land, provided the service of tax collector, collected agricultural and aquacultural products such as pigs, taro, sweet potatoes, dry fish, kapa and mats. Some offerings were in the form of forest products such as feathers. The Hawaiian people had no money or other similar medium of exchange. These were offered on the altars of Lono at heiau - temples - in each district around the island. Offerings were also made at the ahu, stone altars set up at the boundary lines of each community.