Hawaiian religion "Along with ancestors and gods, spirits are part of the family of Hawaiians. "There are many kinds of spirits that help for good and many that aid in evil. Some lie and deceive, and some are truthful ... It is a wonderful thing how the spirits ("ʻuhane") of the dead and the ‘angels’ ("anela") of the "ʻaumākua" can possess living persons. Nothing is impossible to god-spirits, "akua"." Kamehameha the Great died in 1819. In the aftermath, two of his wives, Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani, then the two most powerful people in the kingdom, conferred with the "kahuna nui", Hewahewa. They convinced
Hawaiian studies connections between Hawaiian culture and the Book of Mormon and other doctrinal beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hawaiian Studies has faced some opposition and rejection from critics. They have no objection about Hawaiian culture being legitimate topics of academic research. What they object to is the current state of Ethnic Studies which they see as characterised by excessive left wing political ideology or Hawaiian claims to justice which, in their view, greatly undermined the scholarly validity of the research. Hawaiian Studies has been accused of promoting "racial separatism", "racial supremacy"", linguistic isolation" and "racial preference".