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Dodge Kahuna minivan petition

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islandboo
Lokahi

USA
237 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2004 : 12:40:09 PM

I received a forwarded email regarding the use of the term "kahuna" by Daimler Chrysler for their new concept minivan, and thought it might be of interest to folks here on this board.

The body of the email is as follows:

Aloha mai,

I hope you're all doing well in this New Year. It's been a while since I've sent out an e-mail. I wanted to bring to your attention, a petition started by John Book (www.john-book.com), a Hawaiian living in Pasco, Washington. The petition can be viewed at http://www.petitiononline.com/Kahuna04/petition.html

The petition reads as follows:
To: Dodge

The Dodge company recently presented a new model car for 2004, called the Dodge Kahuna. Once again, a Hawaiian word is being used to sell something that has nothing to do with the word's actual definition. In the last 40 years, the word "kahuna" has been used as part of surf culture, representing a big jolly man from Hawai'i who speaks in slang. The word has also been used to describe anything that is large, whether it's another person or even a hamburger, as shown in the Quentin Tarantino film "Pulp Fiction". A "kahuna" is a person, a shaman, who participates in religious ceremonies. Yet its use in today's popular culture is far from its true definition, and by Dodge using the word for its cars, I feel they are doing nothing more than trying to cash in on the current trend of using Hawaiian words and artifacts to sell something. This misuse of the word is offensive among Hawaiians and Hawaiian culture, and I feel that the car should be renamed something else. I do not believe that Dodge did enough research in finding out the definition of this word. A few years ago, someone was going to name a bomb "Corpus Christi" in honor of the person who would be flying the plane and dropping the bomb somewhere, until someone told them that those words mean "Body Of Christ". The lack of respect and disregard of Hawaiian culture has got to stop. Either change the name to something more suitable by doing research on an appropriate Hawaiian word, or don't use any words at all. By signing this petition, you are saying that you feel that Dodge should change the name of the Dodge Kahuna, and release a formal apology explaining the reason for the name change.

Sincerely,

(the undersigned)

I encourage you to share this e-mail with everyone you know in case they may be interested in signing as well. Take care and come back home.

Derek Kauanoe
www.HawaiiansAbroad.com

Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu

USA
783 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2004 : 7:07:21 PM

Islandboo,

Thanks for bringing this up. I heard of this on the 4th Peg board where the analogy was made of calling it the Dodge Bishop or the Dodge Rabbi. I'm an irreligious person, but if they are going to be casually hurtful, then I think they should be equal opportunity hurtful.

Also, thanks for the link. The link on 4P didn't work.

Pauline