page_title: Hewahewa
section_title: Introduction of Christianity
hierarchical_section_title: Hewahewa / Biography / Introduction of Christianity
caption_attribution_description: Polski: List od Hewahewa do Mikamalena [Mr. Levi Chamberlain] z dnia 27 czerwca 1830 English: Letter from en:Hewahewa to Mikamalena [Mr. Levi Chamberlain] to affirm his ongoing faith in God, dated July 27, 1830.
context_page_description: Hewahewa was a Hawaiian religious leader who served as kahuna nui of King Kamehameha I and his successor Kamehameha II. Hewahewa was a powerful figure in the royal court of Hawaii and played a major role in the abolition of the kapu system, the decline of the native religion of Hawaii, and the introduction of Christianity to the Hawaiian Kingdom.
context_section_description: In 1820, Christian missionaries arrived on the island. Many members of the Hawaiian nobility, including Hewahewa, eventually converted to Christianity; multiple sources note the introduction of Christianity filled the spiritual void left by the dissolution of the kapu system. According to some sources, Hewahewa had predicted the arrival of a new god from the sea in the days before the first missionaries arrived in the islands.
  As the Christian faith spread throughout the Hawaiian islands, Hewahewa remained supportive of many of the new faith's systems of belief; rather than the traditional Hawaiian deities, he thanked Jehovah for food during a feast in place and composed a chant to worship the new god. Hewahewa remained supportive of free eating; he ate alongside women and later resigned his office as kahuna. Hewahewa's dialogue with the missionaries also persuaded the powerful chiefess Kapiʻolani to adopt the Christian faith.
  Though the decline of the Hawaiian religion had decreased Hewahewa's influence as a spiritualist, he remained important in the Hawaiian Kingdom into the 1830s. As an old man, he was called upon by Kamehameha III in an attempt to restore the native Hawaiian faith but Hewahewa persuaded the king to abandon the effort. Hewahewa was also known for exhibiting signs of alcoholism.
  According to reports in the contemporaneous Ke Kumu Hawaii and the Sandwich Island Gazette, Hewahewa died on February 16, 1837, at his home in Waimea, Oahu. He was ill for four months before his death and had asked his friends to pray for his salvation. There is, however, some discrepancy about his date of death; in 1893, Nathaniel Bright Emerson, who was born 1839, remembered Hewahewa "as a silent and wrinkled old man, who lived in a retired valley in Waialua, Island of Oahu, about the year 1848".
caption: Letter written on July 27, 1830 from Hewahewa to Mikamalena (Levi Chamberlain) to affirm his ongoing faith in God
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