Guest Post- City of Refuge, Hawaii by Rebecca
Travel always fills me with lot of energy and kind of gives a fresh perspective of people, places and things. It most of the times is the best rejuvenating experience and brings back a person refreshed and recharged with lots of memories for life. Traveling allows us to discover facts about a place which are sometimes unknown or lesser known.
Here is a post on Hawaii by Rebecca from Where to this time and it’s totally worth a read
In Hawaiian culture, the City of Refuge or Pu’uhonau was a place where no blood could be shed. If someone had broken a law and they reached this refuge, they were protected and avoided certain death. Then they were absolved by a priest and freed to leave. Defeated warriors and non-combatants could also find refuge here during times of battle.
Some of the laws, or kapu, in old Hawaii, that resulted in a death sentence included:
• a common person couldn’t get close to the chief
• couldn’t walk in the chief’s footsteps
• couldn’t touch the chief’s possessions
• couldn’t let his shadow fall on the chief’s palace grounds
• women couldn’t eat foods reserved for offerings to the gods
• they couldn’t prepare meals for men (I don’t know why any woman would want to break that law, rotfl!)
• couldn’t eat with the men
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