Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii

Valeri presents an overview of Hawaiian religious culture, in which hierarchies of social beings and their actions are mirrored by the cosmological hierarchy of the gods. As the sacrifice is performed, the worshipper is incorporated into the god of his class. Thus he draws on divine power to sustain the social order of which his action is a part, and in which his own place is determined by the degree of his resemblance to his god. The key to Hawaiian society—and a central focus for Valeri—is the complex and encompassing sacrificial ritual that is the responsibility of the king, for it displays in concrete actions all the concepts of pre-Western Hawaiian society. By interpreting and understanding this ritual cycle, Valeri contends, we can interpret all of Hawaiian religious culture.

Valerio Valeri (1944–98) was an Italian anthropologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii, published by the University of Chicago Press.