The view from Kalawao (photo by Barbara E. Dunn)

Kerry Inglis’s presentation, titled “The Journey into Exile,” will examine letters and articles that patients and their loved ones wrote to Hawaiian-language newspapers and to the kingdom’s Board of Health in the mid to late 1800s. In these writings one finds profound expressions of the experience of living with leprosy, being separated from loved ones, living in banishment, surviving, dying, and forming a new community together.

Inglis is an associate professor of history at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, where she teaches courses in Pacific and Hawaiian history, specializing in disease and medicine in the nineteenth century. She is the author of Ma‘i Lepera: Disease and Displacement in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii, published by the University of Hawai‘i Press in 2012. The book is a social history of the Hansen’s disease outbreak of 1865–1900 almost exclusively from the perspective of “patients,” 90 percent of whom were Native Hawaiian. Based on both traditional and nontraditional sources, published and unpublished, it tells the story of the disease, society’s reaction to it, and the consequences of the experience for Hawai‘i and its people.

Anwei Skinsnes Law’s presentation, “An Expectation of Justice,” will look at the people of Kalaupapa, who have refused to have their participation and contributions to society limited by policies that sought to separate them. Her research has uncovered stories and activities of individuals such as J.N. Loe, Jonathan Napela, Ephraim Kanoe, Josiah Haole, Judge J.P. Miau, John Kamanu, and D.W.K. Kaopuiki.

Law is the international coordinator of IDEA, the largest international human rights advocacy organization by and for individuals who have experienced leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. She has been visiting Kalaupapa for the last forty-five years and has conducted many oral history interviews. Her book Kalaupapa, A Collective Memory, published by the University of Hawai‘i Press in 2021, presents the story of Kalaupapa as told by its people. The book combines more than two hundred hours of interviews with archival documents, including more than three hundred letters and petitions written by the earliest residents translated from Hawaiian. It was long assumed that those sent to Kalaupapa were unconcerned with the world they were forced to leave behind. This work shows, on the contrary, that residents remained actively interested and involved in life beyond Kalaupapa.

Copies of Inglis’s and Law’s books will be available at the program, as will copies of a number of other recent books about Hawai‘i’s history, offered at discounted prices.

This program is supported by a grant from the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities. It is co-sponsored with the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. The program is free and Open to the public. Paid parking is available on the University campus for $6.00. For further information about the program, call the Society office at (808) 537-6271.

Kau’i Sai-Dudoit and Puakea Nogelmeier (Photo courtesy of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs)

The Society’s Board of trustees established the Pa‘a Mo‘olelo Distinguished Historian award in 2005 to honor individuals for a lifetime of significant contributions to the preservation and perpetuation of Hawai‘i’s history.

M. Puakea Nogelmeier, Ph.D., is a professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is the executive director of Awaiaulu, Inc., the author of several books, including Mai Pa‘a I Ka Leo, He Lei No ‘Emalani, and the acclaimed Hi‘iakaikapoliopele. In 2012 he and Kau‘i Sai-Dudoit were the guiding lights for ‘Ike Ku‘oko‘a, a year-long initiative that gathered six thousand volunteers from Hawai‘i and abroad to transcribe seventeen thousand pages of Hawaiian-language newspapers.

Kau‘i Sai-Dudoit is the long-time project director for Ho‘olaupa‘i, the on-line archive of Hawaiian-language newspapers. She is the project manager of Awaiaulu, Inc., and the producer/narrator of the DVD, Ua Mau Ke Ea, A Historical Documentary of Hawai‘i. She served as the outreach coordinator/project manager of ‘Ike Ku‘oko‘a.

For information about prior awards, see The Pa’a Mo’olelo Award.

The annual election of the president and trustees of the Hawaiian Historical Society will take place during the Society’s annual membership meeting on Thursday, May 9, 2013. The election will be held as part of the business meeting preceding the evening’s presentation on Kalaupapa in the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Art Auditorium.

The Nominating Committee, chaired by outgoing president Glenn E. Mason and outgoing trustee John Clark, has proposed the following slate for consideration by the membership at the meeting.

For election for president for a one-year term, May 2013 to May 2014:

• Helen Wong Smith, MLIS, CA, librarian, College of Pharmacy, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Smith has served on the HHS Board of Trustees since 2011.

For election for five trustees for three-year terms, May 2013 to May 2016:

• Ian Birnie, retired Harbor Master, State of Hawai‘i.
• Makana Risser Chai, researcher and author of two books on Hawaiian lomilomi.
• Stuart W. H. Ching, provincial archivist, Congregation of the Sacred Hearts United States Province.
• Damaris A. Kirchofer, retired Foreign Service officer with the United States Information Agency
  and the U.S. Department of State.
• Ronald Williams Jr., Ph.D. (ABD), instructor, Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies,
  Hawai‘inuiūkea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

The Society would like to acknowledge with thanks the outgoing trustees, President Glenn E. Mason, Treasurer James K. Mee, Noelani Arista, John Clark, and Victoria N. Kneubuhl.

Hommon’s book is a study of the ancient Hawaiians’ transformation from chiefdoms into primary state societies. Historians define primary states as large-scale, territory-based, autonomous societies in which centralized, bureaucratic governments employ legitimate power to exercise sovereignty. Hommon argues that Polynesia should be added to the list of world regions with recognized primary societies by virtue of developments in Hawai‘i and Tonga. In the book, Hommon describes three competing Hawaiian states existing in 1778-1779 based on the islands of Hawai‘i, Maui, and O‘ahu. He compares these with the Tongan state and the chiefdom societies in the Solomon, Marquesan, and Society archipelagoes.

Robert J. Hommon recently retired as archaeologist and senior cultural resource scientist for the Pacific Islands Office of the National Park Service. He has conducted research on seven of the eight major Hawaiian Islands, including at Kealakekua Bay, Mākaha and Kahana Valleys, and Russian Fort Elizabeth. He conducted island-wide surveys of Maui, Lāna‘i, and Kaho‘olawe. For the latter, he prepared the overview report for listing the entire island in the National Register of Historic Places. Hommon served as president of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology for ten years.

A book signing at 7:00 p.m. will precede the lecture, which will begin at 7:30 p.m. Copies of the book will be available at a 20 percent discount. The book has been praised by reviewers as “a masterful integration of archaeological and documentary records” and “a comprehensive description of the ancient Hawaiian state [drawing] upon a wealth of comparative data from other Polynesian societies.” For a more complete description of the book, visit the Oxford University Press Web site.

The lecture will take place in the Kana‘ina Building (the Old Archives Building) on the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu. Free parking is available on the palace grounds. For further information about the program, or to order a copy of The Ancient Hawaiian State from the Society, telephone (808) 537-6271 or send e-mail to Barbara Dunn.

The lecture will take place at the University of Hawai‘i Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies Auditorium, 2645 Dole Street, Honolulu, beginning at 7:00 p.m. This program is co-sponsored with the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at UH Mānoa and is free and open to the public.

John Henry Wise was a twenty-year-old student in the inaugural class at the Kamehameha School for Boys when he was drafted by the ‘Ahahui Euanelio o Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Evangelical Association) to be trained in the United States. In the course of his schooling at Oberlin, he became the first Native Hawaiian to play collegiate football in America.

In the years after his return to the Islands in 1893 he became a Territorial senator, an expert on traditional practices, and a professor at the University of Hawai‘i. His career provides a dramatic example of Native action and agency that contests representations of Native Hawaiian Christians as submissive and “missionized.”

Williams sees the example of Wise as representative of a broader struggle within the Native churches at the close of the nineteenth century. This part of Wise’s life is discussed in Williams’s article, “To Raise a Voice in Praise: The Revivalist Mission of John Henry Wise, 1889-1896,” in volume 46 of The Hawaiian Journal of History (2012).

Ronald Williams, Jr., is a graduate of, and an instructor at, the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. He is currently a Ph.D. (ABD) candidate in the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Department of History.

Parking for this event is available in the adjacent parking structure for $6.00. On-street parking exists along Dole Street, but is seldom available. For further information, telephone the Hawaiian Historical Society office at (808) 537-6271 or send e-mail through the contact page here.

The first of the papers to become available on line is Aurora Hawaiiana (Hawaiian Dawn), a four-page weekly issued in Honolulu under the editorship of J.M. de Freitas. Aurora Hawaiiana was the second Portuguese-language newspaper published in the Islands. The on-line collection consists of eighty-five issues dated between August 3, 1889, and March 28, 1891. The papers can be read and downloaded through the University of Hawai‘i’s open-access digital repository at http://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10524/31855.

In the near future, eight other newspapers published between 1885 and 1927 will be digitized and made freely accessible. They are: O Luso Hawaiiano, A Uniao Lusitana Hawaiiana, A Sentinella [Sentinel], The Liberal/Ka Liberale, O Luso, A Setta [Arrow], O Popular, and O Facho [The Torch]. These total 1,463 issues.

Hawai‘i’s Portuguese newspapers were general weekly publications and included advertisements, letters from readers, verse compositions describing events of the day, and special announcements.

The Society’s current preservation project is funded in part by a grant from the George Mason Fund through the Hawai‘i Community Foundation. Work under the grant is concentrating on preservation of the sixty-four different newspapers in the Society’s collection, beginning with the Portuguese papers.

Best wishes for the holiday season and the new year beyond from the staff, trustees, and volunteers of the Hawaiian Historical Society.

The Hawaiian Historical Society library will be closed Christmas week, from Monday, December 24, through Tuesday, January 1. We look forward to seeing you when we reopen on Wednesday, January 2, 2013.

The article, by Ronald Williams, Jr., of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, explores the late nineteenth-century religious revivalist efforts of officers of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, including their recruitment of John Wise to lead this evangelical movement, his training in the United States, and the outcome that followed his return to to the Islands.

Williams challenges previous portrayals of “submissive, ‘missionized,’ Native Hawaiian Christians” by highlighting Native actions and adducing the example of Wise as representative of a broader struggle that was enveloping Native churches. According to Williams, the actions of Wise and many others “point to a self-created identity as Native Hawaiian Christian” and rejection of “the false binary of Christian vs. Royalist that sought to pit their religious faith against national loyalties.”

Other articles in 2012 edition of the journal include:

• “Queen Kamāmalu’s Place in Hawaiian History” by J. Susan Corley. Corley pieces together a portrait of Kamāmalu as “a fascinating, complex, and accomplished woman who was determined to fit herself into the new order of life that events had thrust upon her after her husband became king—first by the elimination of the traditional religion and its many kapu restrictions, and second by the new learning the American missionaries brought.”
• “The Līhu‘e Place Name on Kaua‘i” by Pat L. Griffin, wherein the author presents a detailed deconstruction of Ethel Damon’s account of the naming of Līhu‘e, Kaua‘i, in her 1931 book, Koamalu:A Story of Pioneers on Kauai and of What They Built in That Island Garden.
• “Off in the Far Away: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Letters Home from Hawai‘i” edited and annotated by Jennifer Saville. The painter visited Hawai‘i in 1939. Her letters to her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, offer both a visitor’s experience of Hawai‘i and insights into the artist herself.
• A note on the National Museum of Scotland’s display of one of Kamehameha II’s Featherwork ‘Ahu‘ula Cloaks by J. Susan Corley.
• Reviews of seven recent books on aspects of Hawai‘i’s history.
• The journal’s annual bibliography of recent Hawaiiana, covering books, articles, theses and dissertations, and audio-visual materials of historical interest published in 2011.

Volume 46 of the journal will be mailed to Hawaiian Historical Society members during December as a benefit of membership. Others may purchase copies directly from the Society office at 560 Kawaiahao Street, Honolulu (telephone 808-537-6271).

The Hawaiian Historical Society will present its annual open house and book sale Thursday, December 6, 2012, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Society members, friends, and the public are invited to attend the event in the Society’s Library Reading Room at 560 Kawaiahao Street, Honolulu, on the grounds of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site.

Refreshments will he served on the library lanai, and the Mission Gift Shop will be open during the sale.

As always, the Society will be offering new books about Hawai’i's history from Hawai’i authors and publishers—-all at special discounts for this one-day sale. Selections will include biography, history, reference works, natural history, tales and traditions, Hawaiian language works, and reprints and translations. Titles from local publishers Bess Press, Bishop Museum Press, Kamehameha Publishing, Mutual Publishing, the University of Hawai’i Press, and Watermark Publishing will be available as will new titles from mainland publishers.

Purchase by mail order is also available. For more information, call the office at (808) 537-6271 or send e-mail to Ipo Santos-Bear at hhsisbear@lava.net.

Here is a sample of the books that will be available at the sale.

Engraved at Lahainaluna: A History of Printmaking by Hawaiians at the Lahainaluna Seminary, 1834-1844 by David W. Forbes. Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, 2012. 210 pages.

This beautifully presented book includes both a detailed account of the development of copperplate engraving at the Lahainaluna seminary and a comprehensive catalogue of the engravings made there between 1834 and 1844. Copperplate engraving was pioneered at Lahainaluna because of the great demand for textbooks while the press at Honolulu was mainly occupied with printing tracts and parts of the Bible. The work produced at Lahainaluna was primarily the creative effort of young Hawaiian students and scholars who worked on and created the engravings. Thus, the engravings represent a native portrayal of Hawaii distinct from the conceptions of the early Westerners who came to the Islands.

A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai’i by Patrick Vinton Kirch. University of California Press, 2012.

Kirch traces the origins of the Hawaiians and other Polynesians back to the shores of the South China Sea and follows their voyages of discovery across the Pacific. Combining his own four decades of research with Native Hawaiian oral traditions and archaeological evidence, he seeks to put a human face on the gradual rise to power of the Hawaiian god-kings, who by the late eighteenth century were competing for control of the entire archipelago. Kirch works back from Captain James Cook’s encounter with Hawai’i in 1778, when the British explorers encountered an island civilization governed by rulers who could not be gazed upon by common people. Interweaving anecdotes from his own travel and archaeological investigations into the broader historical narrative, he shows how the early Polynesian settlers of Hawai’i adapted to this new island landscape and created highly productive agricultural systems.

Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory by Anwei Skinsnes Law. University of Hawai’i Press, 2012.

Between 1866 and 1969, an estimated eight thousand persons, mostly Native Hawaiians, were sent to Molokai’s Kalaupapa peninsula because they were believed to have leprosy. They left a powerful testimony of their lives in the form of letters, petitions, music, memoirs, and oral history interviews. This volume combines more than two hundred hours of interviews with archival documents, including more than three hundred letters and petitions written by the earliest residents translated from Hawaiian. Contrary to assumptions that Kalaupapa residents were unconcerned with the world they were forced to leave behind, this work shows that they remained actively interested and involved in life beyond Kalaupapa. They petitioned the Hawaii Legislative Assembly in 1874, seeking justice. They supported Queen Liliuokalani and the Hawaiian kingdom prior to annexation, and they contributed to the relief effort in Europe after World War I. This is the story of Kalaupapa as told by its people.

An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands: Letters of Carrie Prudence Winter, 1890-1893, edited by Sandra Bonura and Deborah Day. University of Hawai’i Press, 2012.

Carrie Prudence Winter, a young missionary teacher from Connecticut, arrived in Honolulu in 1890, to take a position at Kawaiahao Female Seminary, a boarding school for Hawaiian girls. During her three years at Kawaiahao, Winter wrote often and at length to her fiancé, and her letters provide readers with an intimate look at nineteenth-century courtship as well as many details about life in Hawai’i during the last years of the monarchy. Excerpts from dozens of letters describe Winter’s teaching and living with her pupils, her relationships with fellow teachers, and her encounters with Hawaiian royalty (in particular, Kawaiaha’o enjoyed the patronage of Queen Lili’uokalani, whose adopted daughter was enrolled as a pupil) and members of influential missionary families, as well as ordinary citizens. She discusses health concerns such as leprosy, smallpox, malaria that affected the lives of her students and took a keen interest in relaying the political turmoil that ended in the U.S. annexation of the Hawaiian Islands in 1898. The book also incorporates more than fifty photographs, four autobiographical student essays, and an appendix identifying all of Winter’s students and others mentioned in the letters.

Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire by Adria L. Imada. Duke University Press, 2012. 392 pages; 80 illustrations.

This book, by a California ethnic studies professor, seeks to show the role of hula in legitimating U.S. imperial ambitions in Hawai’i. Hula performers began touring the United States and Europe in the late nineteenth century. These “hula circuits” introduced hula, and Hawaiians, to U.S. audiences, establishing an “imagined intimacy,” a fantasy that enabled Americans to possess their colony physically and symbolically. Meanwhile, touring hula performers incorporated veiled critiques of U.S. expansionism into their productions. At vaudeville theaters, international expositions, nightclubs, and military bases, Hawaiian women acted as ambassadors of aloha, enabling Americans to imagine Hawai’i as feminine and benign, and the relation between colonizer and colonized as mutually desired. By the 1930s, Hawaiian culture, particularly its music and hula, had enormous promotional value. In the 1940s, thousands of U.S. military personnel in Hawai’i were entertained by hula performances, many of which were filmed by military photographers. Yet, Hawaiians also used hula as a means of cultural survival and countercolonial political praxis. The author focuses on the years between the 1890s and the 1960s, examining little-known performances and films before turning to the present-day reappropriation of hula by the Hawaiian self-determination movement.

Hawaiian Music & Musicians: An Encyclopedic History by George S. Kanahele; edited by John Berger. Mutual Publishing Company, 2012. 1040 pages.

This is a new paperback edition of a work whose earlier version was described by a reviewer as “probably the best reference book on its subject ever written.” It covers the performers, songs, and styles of the period from 1920 to 1970 and includes entries on traditional Hawaiian music and instruments. It provides hard-to-find information on many little-known performers.

Honolulu Town by Laura Ruby and Ross W. Stephenson. Arcadia Publishing,2012. 128 pages; 200 illustrations.

Before the days of what became Honolulu Town, there was a small Hawaiian settlement at the edge of a natural harbor, ideal for launching canoes for fishing and for cultivating fields adjacent to the Nuuanu Stream. This was Kou, named for the sheltering, orange-blossomed trees. As the settlement grew and visitors came and went, many stayed, and it became known as Honolulu, meaning “protected harbor.” Successive waves of immigrants came to this port town, bringing with them new religions, architecture, education, foods, and social mores. The small confines of this town encouraged cross-pollination of peoples and ideas that fostered the unique neighborhoods that give Honolulu its character.

Ili Na Ho’omana’o o Kalaupapa: Casting Remembrances of Kalaupapa by Anwei Skinsnes Law and Valerie Monson, featuring photographs by Wayne Levin. Pacific Historic Parks, 2012. 144 pages.

A continuous history of Kalaupapa—from the first people relocated to the peninsula because of isolation policies related to leprosy in 1866 to modern-day residents, to family members who will carry their relatives’ legacy into the future. Photographs by Levin taken from the 1980s through the present are combined with text by Law and Monson, including interviews with Kalaupapa residents and descendants of individuals sent to Kalaupapa as early as 1879.

The Ukulele: A History by Jim Tranquada and John King. University of Hawai’i Press, 2012. 62 illustrations.

Since its introduction to Hawai‘i in 1879, the ‘ukulele has been a symbol of an island paradise; a tool of political protest; an instrument central to a rich musical culture; a musical joke; a highly sought-after collectible; a cheap airport souvenir; a lucrative industry; and the product of a remarkable synthesis of Western and Pacific cultures. The volume explores all of these aspects of the ukulele, placing it in a broad historical, cultural, and musical context. Drawing on previously unused sources, the authors tell the story of how this obscure four-string folk guitar from Portugal became the national instrument of Hawai’i, of its subsequent rise and fall as an international cultural phenomenon, and of the resurgence in popularity it is currently enjoying.

Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawaii: An Illustrated Guide by George J. Tanabe and Willa Jane Tanabe. University of Hawai’i Press, 2012. 256 pages; 363 color illustrations.

This book provides a thorough yet accessible overview of Buddhism in Hawai‘i followed by a temple-by-temple guide to the remaining structures across the state. It covers the basic history, teachings, and practices of various denominations and the meanings of objects commonly found in temples. The heart of the book is a narrative description of the ninety temples still extant in Hawai‘i. With more than 350 color photographs, entries begin with historical background and continue with descriptions of architecture, sanctuaries, statuary and ritual implements, columbariums, and grounds. At the end is a chart listing each temple’s denomination, membership number, and architectural type. In addition to being an introduction to Buddhism and a guide book, it is an indispensable historical record of what exists today and what may be gone tomorrow.

No major conservation efforts have been undertaken with these newspapers for at least twenty-five years, and many of them are starting to crumble due to acidification. The first focus will be the Portuguese-language newspapers. The goal of the project is to have a good microfilm copy for preservation; a good, searchable digital copy that is freely accessible; and the best possible preservation for the original papers.

The nine target newspapers were published in Hawai‘i from 1885 to 1927 and include one English and Portuguese newspaper and one English and Hawaiian newspaper. The surviving newspapers comprise 1,463 issues containing 5,852 pages.

Hawai‘i’s Portuguese-Language Press

The Portuguese newspapers in Hawai‘i were in general weekly publications, largely in Portuguese, though there were sometimes items in English. In addition, there were numerous advertisements, letters from readers, verse compositions describing events of the day, and special announcements. Selections from Portuguese literature were also published in some of the papers. The editors of these papers were representative leaders of the Portuguese community. Several editors also served on English-language papers.

The collection includes the following newspapers:

• O Luso Hawaiiano (four-page Honolulu weekly, Portuguese, some English). Merged with Aurora Hawaiiana to form Uniao Lusitana Hawaiiana. August 1885 to December 1890; 63 issues, 252 pages.
• Aurora Hawaiiana [Hawaiian Dawn] (four-page Honolulu weekly, Portuguese), the second Portuguese newspaper in the Islands. August 1889 to March 1891; 85 issues, 340 pages.
• A Uniao Lusitana Hawaiiana (four-page Honolulu weekly, Portuguese). March 1892 to February 1896; 199 issues, 796 pages.
• A Sentinella [Sentinel] (Honolulu weekly, Portuguese, some English). Ran from 1892 to 1896, but only three issues survive: April to September 1892; 12 pages.
• The Liberal/Ka Liberale (four-page, semi-weekly, English and Hawaiian). October 1892 to April 1893; 54 issues, 216 pages.
• O Luso (four-page Honolulu weekly, Portuguese and English). Formed by union of Uniao Lusitana and Sentinella. The longest-running Portuguese-language paper, with the largest circulation. February 1896 to October 1897: 83 issues, 332 pages; October 1910 to Jan. 1920: 894 issues, 3,576 pages.
• A Setta [Arrow] (Hilo weekly, Portuguese, some English). Ran from 1903 to 1921, but only six issues survive. 1905, 1906, 1908, 1920, 24 pages.
• O Popular (four-page Honolulu weekly, Portuguese, some English). July 1911 to January 1913; 75 issues, 300 pages.
• O Facho [The Torch] (four-page Hilo weekly, Portuguese). Ran from 1906 to 1927, but only one issue survives: February 2, 1927, 4 pages.

Suggested Reading

For more information about the history of the Portuguese-language newspapers in the Islands, see Edgar Knowlton’s article, “The Portuguese Language Press of Hawaii,” in Social Process in Hawaii, 24 (1960): 89-99. The text is available on line at http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/22969/Vol_24.pdf?sequence=1.