Huna

For the Indian Hunas see Hephthalite

Huna is the name that spiritualist entrepreneur Max Freedom Long gave his version of Hawaiian spiritualism. He claimed to have learned a secret tradition from Hawaiian friends while working as a school teacher in Hawai‘i. He founded the Huna Fellowship in 1945 and, starting in 1948, published a series of books on Huna that are still in print.

Victor Anderson, the founder of the Feri Wicca or Vicia tradition of Wicca also claimed to know Huna, to be a kahuna, and to speak Hawaiian [1]. He was active during the last half of the 20th century.

Another practitioner of Huna is Serge Kahili King, who established the One Order of Huna International in 1973 and has also published a series of books on Huna.

Long, Anderson, and King had and have a great many followers and imitators, who publish, offer seminars, and do spiritual counseling, healing, and massage.

Neither Long, Anderson, nor King were ethnic Hawaiian, and their followers have generally been non-Hawaiian as well. Native Hawaiians and academic experts generally dismiss huna as New Age mythology.

In Hawaiian, huna simply means "secret". It does not seem to have been used, as King uses it, for a tradition of esoteric learning. In Pukui and Ebert's Hawaiian Dictionary, it is cited in compounds like lua huna, meaning "secret cave". It may have been chosen because it seems to be part of the word kahuna, which is widely used in English to mean "Hawaiian sorcerer". Often the Western conception of other peoples is that they are primitive, irrational, and child-like, but also have mystical powers. The English use of kahuna fits this pattern. However, in the Hawaiian language, the term kahuna is used for priests and sorcerers, but also for any professional or learned person. A doctor, a lawyer, or a skilled canoe-builder could be a kahuna.