ABSTRACT

Gary Pak’s Children of a Fireland (2004) provides a rather panoramic view into contemporary Hawaiian culture through its depiction of a fictional town on the brink of disaster. The multi-layered novel, which interweaves cultural, geopolitical, and socio-historical threads, remains largely unexplored and is thus fertile ground for this study. Focusing on Hawaiian spirituality, this paper traces the journeys of the two savior figures depicted in the novel, highlighting the significance of their positioning as literary doubles, particularly in light of post-contact Hawaiian religious syncretism. To this end the paper starts with the necessary background and then introduces the spiritual journey and sacrifice of the Christian savior and of the native shamanic savior in the narrative. The paper finally posits that the portrayal of two saviors reflecting the historically oppositional native and colonial modes of spirituality, rather than one balanced syncretic savior, is a reflection of an internal struggle faced by many during the process of spiritual identity negotiation, which is born of the colonial purist approach, and thus serves as an invitation to generate a new discussion on religion and spirituality in contemporary Hawaii that embraces and draws upon the present diversity.

摘要

加里·帕克的火焰之子（2004 年）通过描绘一个处于灾难边缘的虚构小镇，为当代夏威夷文化提供了一个相当全景的视角。这部多层次的小说交织了文化、地缘政治和社会历史的线索，在很大程度上仍未被探索，因此是本研究的沃土。本文着眼于夏威夷精神，追溯小说中描绘的两位救世主人物的旅程，强调他们定位为文学替身的重要性，特别是在接触后夏威夷宗教融合的情况下。为此，本文从必要的背景开始，然后介绍了叙事中基督教救世主和本土萨满教救世主的精神旅程和牺牲。