MONUMENTALITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY IN PRECONTACT HAWAII

Changes in temple labor investment and sacrificial offerings indicate that the rise in religious authority of the Hawaiian chiefly hierarchy correlates with an increase in political centralization and the inten sifying role of the chief as divine intermediary through time. Initial ly, temples were small public courts akin to traditional Polynesian sh rines used to reaffirm genealogical ties. During a period of interneci ne warfare and political instability and conflict in the 15th century A.D., temples became extremely large, a practical symbol of the burgeo ning power of elites as they used ritual labor obligations to reaffirm chiefly genealogical relationships and enhance class cooperation. Aft er island unification in the 16th century, chiefly religious activity shifted to sacrificial ceremonies and the consumption of surplus goods and food-stuffs as a result of status competition. By the time of Eur opean contact in the 19th century, divinely sanctified rituals associa ted with war and levying taxes were instituted to enhance the status a nd power of the paramount chief through personal displays of material wealth. The Hawaiian case appears to follow a common trajectory among complex societies, where religious authority is increasingly expressed through the political economy, and serves as a contextual model of a complex chiefdom undergoing rapid political stratification.