Max Freedom Long/ William Tufts Brigham/Huna(?)

 Max Freedom Long ( 1890 – 1971 ) was an American novelist and New Age author. He devoted the rest of his life to creating theories about how the Native Hawaiians did what he claimed they did, and teaching those theories through the sale of books and newsletters.

 Long decided to call his compilation of teachings Huna, because one meaning of the word is "hidden secret." He wrote that he derived it from the word kahuna, who were priests and master craftsmen who ranked near the top of the social scale.

There are no accepted Hawaiian sources that refer to the word Huna as a tradition of esoteric learning.

Professor Lisa Kahaleole Hall wrote that Huna "bears absolutely no resemblance to any Hawaiian worldview or spiritual practice" and calls it part of the "New Age spiritual industry." ["'Hawaiian at Heart' and Other Fictions," The Contemporary Pacific, Volume 17, Number 2, 404-413, © 2005 by University of Hawai'i Press http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/13881/v17n2-404-413-dialogue2.pdf?sequence=1]
Huna books are "examples of cultural appropriation."

 William Tufts Brigham (1841-1926) was an American geologist, botanist, ethnologist and the first director of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu.
Brigham was cited as the primary source by Max Freedom Long in his books on Huna (New Age). There is no credible evidence that the two men met. Even if they did, Brigham was not an authority on kahunas.