"Raindrops revised"

I was three years old. Outside my Washington apartment was a swing-set. But it was raining. My cabin fever had set in, so I asked Mom if I could play outside. After a five-minute debate on the conditions outside, she let me go. With my shoes on, out the door I went. The world was dripping with emerald and dew. At the swing-set was a boy. I stopped and waited, remembering that it was polite to wait, to be invited. He then looked at me and garbled, “You going to swing or what?” Immediately I was on the swing next to him, my legs performing in a pendulum motion.Just then, the boy looked above my head in horror. I lifted my head and saw a huge, ugly spider. I slid off the swing, and like a knight, he crushed that spider with a stick. Tearing at the web, the silk enveloped the stick like cotton candy. After saving my life from the spider, he dashed home. Hot on his heals, I cried, ”Come back my hero!: My first crush was not long lived. After a quick chase, he slipped into his apartment, locked the door and stuck his tongue out at me.

This memory foreshadowed my future. To this day, I am terrified of spiders and I still do not have luck with the men. I suppose the moral of this memory is “Along came the spider that sat down beside her, and she frightened that poor boy away.”

Kanikanihia’s Love Versus God’s Law

In the event that a new culture comes into another culture’s territory faces a challenge with drastic changes. Experiencing new cultures, using scare tactics to sway lives, and teaching new ideas all curve an ancient culture. All these, combined with receiving an award such as eternal life with God transformed an entire Hawaiian village. The movie “Hawaii” showed how all these processes changed an entire culture. Occurrences such as this have happened several times throughout history.
One way to influence a culture can happen through experience. The only way to understand the culture can come about when one lives like a native. One cannot comprehend an entire race based on previous assumptions. Reverend Abner assumed that all Hawaiians had savage ways and did not understand anything intellectual. He found out, when living amongst the natives, the people simply did things in a different manner, and did not contain any savagery. Abner and his followers landed on the shore to an excited and welcoming crowd. Women and girls hopped on the American boat and greeted the newcomers, (all mostly shirtless). This happened like an everyday thing for the Hawaiians. They had always had a welcoming bone in their bodies that the New Englander’s viewed as “savage”. Reverend Abner viewed this as taboo, and managed to find a way to convert the Hawaiian’s into Christians using their thought processes.
This has occurred so many times throughout history. When the English settles in North America, they had a goal to change the Native’s ways in social and religious aspects. If they resisted the change, they were killed. They either had to change or die from resisting. The English folk had grown up in a different world, one that they saw as “correct”. In order to achieve “correctness”, people had to accept Christianity as the prime religion, they had to own land, and they had to obtain an important role in society at some point. The Native Americans certainly had nothing to do with Christianity, they refused to own land, because all land was meant to share, and yes, they did have prominent members in their tribes, but not prominent members in societies. This had to change, because the English settlers would simply not have it. To explore a culture unlike ours can bring about change in the person’s perception in other people. Abner, with his ways set in stone, still managed to understand that he could not change an entire culture. But he continued to teach his ways, only to those who wanted to listen. If Abner had acted like the English settlers, an entire culture would have almost died out.
Another way to sway a culture comes through scare tactics. Reverend Abner seemed to have this mastered and alarmed many followers with fear. He flat out told the Hawaiians that if they did not believe in Christianity, they would forever fry in eternal damnation, taunted by the Devil himself. The Hawaiians could not practice their old ways, such as carrying out incest, worshipping multiple Gods, or even wearing small clothing amounts, for if they did, they would die and go to Hell.
At around the same time in history, many settlers in the United States had made their rounds, trying to convert all Native Americans to the “American” way, or they would be forced to. With events such as the Trail of Tears, Natives got shoved around for who they were. The settlers in America had a plan for expanding the land, but the Natives acted as a pustule on the plan. The pesky Natives had to get moved somewhere in order to move to the west. Natives had to be moved to new places in order to make room for expansions. If they converted, they could live through all the turmoil, but if they did not, they would be moved.
Manipulation can also come from teaching. People can teach anyone with an open mind pretty much anything. Abner and his colleagues used education to teach the younger, Hawaiian children God’s word through storytelling and average, everyday reading and arithmetic. The children, easy to persuade, had an effortless time compared to their elders, for they had open minds. If applied to today, children from all over can obtain information that others from different backgrounds feed them. Telling a youngster something mind-boggling can make that child believe it. God’s word and the Bible stories amazed the Hawaiian children; therefore they deemed God and the Bible as real.
Abner and his associates managed to do some good for the Hawaiians. When the sailors came along, they acted in a raunchy manner and raped a few girls. Their ocean life did not proved their sexual needs, so when set loose on an island full with women, they could not help themselves. Abner wiped those ideas from the sailor’s minds. He explained with force how wrong rape was, and convinced the Hawaiian women to no longer flaunt their stuff for these sailors.
Abner also inspired his wife, Jarosha, to have more sympathy toward children. With the baby with the spotted face’s birth, tradition held that these babies had a curse. This meant that it had to die. Jarosha and her people were not use to this idea, and convinced the Hawaiians to allow these babies to live, despite their birth defects. Jarosha saved several kids from death.
Cultures do influence other cultures through drastic changes. “Hawaii” proved this as obvious. Reverend Abner may have influenced a culture, but the culture also influenced him. Abner learned to have an excepting heart, even if it took his wife dying to make that happen. He had learned to embrace people with God, rather than scare them with God. The Hawaiians accepted the Americans with open arms and taught the Americans the same idea. “Hawaii”, once again, modeled how culture can win over another culture.