Haumaka

Haumaka (:, Hau Maka), officially the Great Confederation of Haumaka (: ,Te Hanau Nui a Hau Maka) is a country in the Chehou Islands, west of Cheongju in the Eastern Ocean, and culturally part of Haegye. It consists of three main landmasses - from north to south, the islands of Kainga Nui, which contains the majority of Haumaka's area and population, Kavai (: Kawais), and Rekohu - along with a number of smaller islands. Haumaka directly borders Kumucachi by sea.

It is a member of the Congress of Nations and the Jangjip Council.

Etymology
Hau Maka was originally a personal name, that of the prophet who dreamed the location of the islands and instructed Tu'u ko Iho to find them in the Haumakan founding legend; as a result the first Haegyean settlers named their new home Te Kainga o Hau Maka, "the plot of land of Hau Maka", which was eventually shortened to simply Hau Maka (and usually rendered as one word in other languages). The first part of the original name was preserved in the name of the largest island of Haumaka, Kainga Nui ("big plot of land"), after Haumaka as a whole and Kainga Nui in particular eventually ceased to be seen as synonymous. Other archaic names or poetic names for Haumaka include Mata Ki te Rangi, "eyes toward the sky", and Te Pito o te Henua, "the navel of the world" or "the end of the world".

The original Vaiteka name for Haumaka is unknown, although some historians have suggested that Kawais, the Vaiteka name for Kavai meaning "island of stones", may have originally referred to Kainga Nui or to the archipelago as a whole.

Vaiteka period
The earliest inhabitants of the islands that now make up Haumaka were the, a who arrived in the archipelago perhaps ten thousand years ago. They lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle (with the exception of cultivating potato gardens) based out of their traditiona  canones, mostly around the coasts, with the interior only sparsely populated.

Early period
Between 800 and 1000 CE, a wave of settlers arrived from the vicinity of Kealekekua. Though fewer in number, they were more technologically advanced than the Vaiteka, introducing agriculture and livestock. Over the next few centuries, the Polynesians’ population grew rapidly and they subjugated and assimilated the Vaiteka, who only survived as an independent culture on the smaller island of Kavai. The Polynesians divided the island into a number of clan territories, which then coalesced into two larger confederations dividing the island.

Moai-building period
By 1200, the northern confederation had grown more powerful from its control of the lucrative trade with the other Chehou Islands and obtained the vassalage of the southern confederation (as well as Kavai), establishing a unified kingdom. The royal period from 1200-1500 was a golden age for Haumaka, with a cultural flowering that saw the country’s most celebrated outputs, the erecting of the famous statues and the development of  script, and extensive trade and cultural exchange with the other Chehou Islands. After 1500, the kingdom collapsed into civil war due to overpopulation and competition between clans over resources. Around this time a group of refugees settled the far southern island of Rekohu and adopted a pacifist lifestyle.

Birdman period
As a result, power devolved from the aristocratic class to the warrior class and a new religious movement emerged to supplant the old religion that had centered around the moai and ancestor worship: the or birdman cult, under which resources would be distributed and ritual leadership (the position of “birdman”) assigned to the clan that won an annual ritual race. Over time, the priesthood that administered the birdman ceremony itself gained great power.

Moai-toppling period
By the 1700s the birdman system also began to fall apart due to renewed tensions between clans and social classes; this was exacerbated by trade with Sinju that introduced firearms, resulting in a lasting into the 1800s during which most of the moai were toppled.

Colonial period
Amidst this internecine conflict, Namju steadily formed alliances and protectorates with the various clans until the entire country was under its at least indirect control by the 1850s. Movements arose to restore the old kingship to reassert Haumakan sovereignty, which ended up just entrenching Namju’s control further as it suppressed the ensuing rebellions. Haumaka remained under the Namjuan thumb for another century. After Eulhae, the independence movement surged with Kumucachi and eventually Qichwa backing, resulting in independence in 1962.

Independence
After independence there was a great revival in Haumakan culture, with the restoration of the old monarchy and clan territories (albeit in modern form as federal provinces and a constitutional monarchy), restored use of rongorongo script, and most evocatively of all the re-erection of the ancient moai across the country (some say, done as much for the purpose of attracting tourism as for enhancing national pride). While a monarchy, it has tried to chart a middle course between its communist and capitalist neighbors, with sometimes precarious results.

Rekohu was not included within Haumaka at independence and remained a Namjuan colony until voting to join Haumaka in 1982. On the other hand, Kavai is home to a long-simmering separatist movement.

Art
The most famous symbols of Haumakan culture, and indeed the thing which the country is perhaps most famous for world-wide, are the  (lit. "statues"), monolithic statues carved from into the shape of human figures. They vary in size and height, with the tallest ranging up to ten meters and the heaviest ranging up to eighty tons, with unfinished examples having been unearthed that would have been even larger and taller if completed. The moai have oversized, elongated heads with stylized features making up nearly half of their length, and appearing to be even more in the cases of statues partially buried up to the shoulders, leading them to often but inaccurately be called "Haumakan heads". In reality, they are carved up from the thighs (except for a few rare examples with full legs, portrayed kneeling), with arms carved into them in bas-relief and often with petroglyphic designs etched into their backs, though many of these have eroded over time. Many moai have or had  capstones carved from red, representing hair, and white coral eyes with black obsidian pupils.

The moai were placed on ahu, stone platforms that served as, usually along the shore and facing inland. They represented... Most moai were toppled during the huri mo'ai or "statue-toppling" of the civil wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, but many were re-erected with great ceremony after independence.

In addition to the more famous stone-carving tradition, Haumaka also has a rich wood-carving sculptural and artistic tradition...

Architecture
Haumaka shares with many other the namesake trait of building s, in the Haumakan case built above water; during the colonial era they began to be painted in their now-characteristic bright colors.

Cuisine
Haumakan cuisine is a combination of Cheongjuan, Haegyean, and Sinjuan influences. Ingredients native to Haumaka and used by the Vaiteka include shellfish... and most notably an abundance of native potato varieties, made in a number of preparations including ' pancakes, ' dumplings, and  bread made from fermented potatoes. The Haegyeans introduced chicken, pork, sweet potato, taro...

The most traditional style of preparing food is umu, in which meat, shellfish, potatoes or sweet potatoes (whole or as milakao or kalapele}, and various other vegetables are all cooked together in an earth oven and eaten together as a stew. ' is similar to umu, but boiled in a broth in a pot rather than cooked dry in an earth oven. Seafood dishes are also common, including tunu ahi, fish grilled on rocks, and ', raw fish marinated in citrus juice to cure it, similar to Cheongjuan . A popular dessert is ', a mashed and baked taro pudding. Condiments include ', smoked chili peppers, and... Beverages include ', made either fermented or unfermented from various fruits and starches, and since the colonial era, ', an liqueur.

Dance
The  is a group dance with accompanying chanting that was traditionally performed by warriors before battle, and is still performed at special occasions such as weddings and funerals, to welcome dignitaries, and most famously by Haumakan sports teams ahead of matches.

Holidays
. the Haumakan new year, is celebrated with the first of the, roughly coinciding with the southern hemisphere's , and is also considered to mark the anniversary of the Haegyean discovery of Haumaka. Tapati Tangata Manu, the Birdman Festival, is a weeklong celebration of traditional sports, music, and dance held in the summer, aligning with the breeding season of the sooty tern and roughly coinciding with the.

Sports
For centuries the  ("birdman") race was central to Haumakan religion and politics, being used to determine leadership within and between clans. Both a sporting competition and a religious ritual, competitors would race to swim across a channel to an islet or outcropping where terns nested, collect the first tern egg, swim back across, and climb up a cliff to the ritual site; the winner would be named the "birdman" and his clan would receive leadership over the others for the next year. Tangata manu ceased to be practiced during the colonial era but has been revived since independence as a cornerstone of national history and identity, although while it still has religious significance in honoring the creator god Makemake, its political role has ceased, and an artificial tern egg or other symbolic ball is almost always used instead of a real egg as terns are now a protected species.

Other traditional sports include , a form of snowless sledding in which tree trunks are tied together and ridden down a steep hillside (often considered an, where injuries are frequent), , and. As in many other Haegyean nations, the most popular spectator sport is.