Māhū

Māhū ('in the middle') in Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) and Maohi (Tahitian) cultures are third gender persons with traditional spiritual and social roles within the culture, similar to Tongan fakaleiti and Samoan fa'afafine,[1] Kāne (men) who have sexual relationships with men are Aikāne.

In the pre-colonial history of Hawai'i, Māhū were notable priests and healers, although much of this history was elided through the intervention of missionaries. A surviving monument to this history is the four so-called "wizard" stones in Waikiki, which commemorated four important Māhū healer priests from the early history of Hawaii.[2] Hawaiian historian Mary Kawena Pukui mentions twelve male supernatural beings called papa pae māhū, said to be "hermaphrodite" healers from Kahiki, the ancient homeland of Hawaiians. [3]

According to māhū kumu hula Kaua'i Iki:

Māhū were particularly respected as teachers, usually of hula dance and chant. In pre-contact times māhū performed the roles of goddesses in hula dances that took place in temples which were off-limits to women. Māhū were also valued as the keepers of cultural traditions, such as the passing down of genealogies. Traditionally parents would ask māhū to name their children.[4]

When painter Paul Gauguin first came to Tahiti he was thought to be a māhū, due to his flamboyant manner of dress for the times.[5] His 1893 painting Papa Moe depicts a māhū drinking from a small waterfall.[6]

Missionaries to Hawai'i introduced homophobic and transphobic biblical laws to the islands in the 1820s; under their influence Hawai'i's first anti-sodomy law was passed in 1850. These laws led to the social stigmatization of the māhū in Hawai'i. Beginning in the mid-1960s the Honolulu City Council required trans-women to wear a badge identifying themselves as male. [7]

In American artist George Biddle's Tahitian Journal (1920–1922) he writes about several māhū friends in Tahiti, of their role in native Tahitian society, and of the persecution of a māhū friend Naipu, who fled Tahiti due to colonial French laws that sent māhū and homosexuals to hard labor in prison in New Caledonia.[8] Rae rae is a social category of māhū that came into use in Tahiti in the 1960s, although it is criticized by some māhū as an abject reference to sex work.

During World War II, māhū and gender bending peoples of the South Pacific were encountered by American men and women in the U.S. military and helped influence the beginnings of gay liberation. Māhū and fa'afafine of Samoa and other queer cultures of the Pacific began organizing from the 1980s, as māhū and queer Pacific Islanders were beginning to receive international recognition in various fields.

In the early 2000s, the word mahuwahine was coined within the māhū community: māhū (in the middle) + wahine (woman), similar to Samoan fa'a (the way of) + fafine (woman/wife).

Notable contemporary māhū, or mahuwahine, include activist and kumu hula Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, Hokuleʻa Borofsky, Amelia Rachel, "'Gender Identity Disorder' to Go the Way of Homosexuality", in The Atlantic. Oct 29, 2012. Accessed Dec 7, 2017.</ref> kumu hula Kaumakaiwa Kanaka'ole, and kumu hula Kaua'i Iki; and within the wider māhū LGBT community, historian Noenoe Silva, activist Ku‘u-mealoha Gomes, singer and painter Bobby Holcomb, and singer Kealii Reichel.

See also

References and sources

  1. ↑ Perkins, Robert (October 2013). "Like a Lady in Polynesia: The Māhū of Tahiti, the Fa'a Fafine in Samoa, the Fakaleiti in Tonga and More"". GenderCentre.org.au. Petersham, NSW, Australia: The Gender Centre. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  2. ↑ 1907. James Boyd. Traditions of the Wizard Stones.
  3. ↑ Mary Kawena Pukui. Place Names of Hawaii, 2nd Ed. 1974. University of Hawaii Press.
  4. ↑ Kaua'i Iki, quoted by Andrew Matzner in 'Transgender, queens, mahu, whatever': An Oral History from Hawai'i. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context Issue 6, August 2001
  5. ↑ Llosa, Mario Vargas. "The men-women of the Pacific". Tate.org.uk. Tate Britain. Archived from the original on 6 March 2015.
  6. ↑ Stephen F. Eisenman. Gauguin's Skirt. 1997.
  7. ↑ Zanghellini, Aleardo. "Sodomy Laws and Gender Variance in Tahiti and Hawai'i". Laws.
  8. ↑ Biddle, George. "Tahitian Journal".

  • Eisenman, Stephen F., (1999). Gauguin's Skirt. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0500280386.
  • Matzner, Andrew (2001). O Au No Keia: Voices from Hawai'i's Mahu and Transgender Communities
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