Aloha! - Roots behind the Shaka
If you havn’t noticed already, I am constantly doing peace signs or shaka gestures all day and all night. Haha. It’s one of my things that I just do. Here is some education behind the gesture via wikipedia! Mahalo and have a wonderful day!
The “shaka sign” has its roots in the Hawaiian custom of holding a lei (a necklace made of flowers) for the purpose of placement over the head on the shoulders of another in an Aloha greeting. The three middle fingers grasp the lei from over the top while the thumb and small finger rest under the lei thus spreading the ‘necklace’ open.
Hawaiian locals use the shaka to convey what locals in Hawaii call the “Aloha Spirit”, a gesture of friendship and understanding between the various ethnic cultures that reside within Hawaii, and thus it does not have a direct semantic to literal translation. Depending on context it can also be used to communicate notions such as “all right”, “cool”, “smooth”, and the like.
