Hawaiian History Books - Yes, we definitely need new ones!

I spent my entire academic career, doing both my B.A. and my M.A. at Hawaiian Studies.  That's a combined total of about 8 years studying what is important to Hawaiians.

And in all that time, not once was I ever required to read Kuykendall or Daws.  Or Sahlins.  Or Dening.

Until I came to the History department.

And now I know why I never had to read any of them in Hawaiian Studies.  We don't consider them to be valuable.  They are all non-natives who wrote about another culture that they studied but didn't live.  And they all infused their own observations and subsequent writings with their own understandings of what they were seeing...which is, at times, very different from how a Hawaiian interprets things.

However, I will say this - everyone studying Hawaiian history should read these books.  I have two reasons for this:


1)  We need to know what people have read about us, and therefore what they think about us.  We cannot deny that whatever people think they know about Hawaiians comes from these books.  And if (or when) we are going to challenge the assumed knowledge of others, we need to know where they got it from, and therefore, what about it is not correct.

2)  Each of these books do have some small value:

• I must admit that Kuykedall has excellent footnotes.  Seriously.  If you want to know where to find primary source documents for events that happened in the kingdom era, check out his sources.  However, none of his information comes from records that are in Hawaiian.  
• As for Daws...unfortunately his book is not footnoted; there are sources listed in the back by chapter, and those listings state what page that source corresponds with.  It's kinda irritating.  Also, he has a tendency to characterize everyone based on what he thinks they were actually like.  I must admit, however, that he does have some juicy, gossip-worthy tidbits in his book.  And there are a few quotes here and there that are worth repeating, such as: 

  Foreigners at the islands had much less to complain about; typically, they complained much more.  The privilege of residence, the right of full naturalization, a fair degree of freedom to do business, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, exemption from labor taxes, access to the courts, and the right to trial before a jury approved by consul--none of this satisfied them.  Their presence had forced the government to westernize itself at great cost and in great haste, and then they chose to act as if the government did not exist.  When the government reminded them of its existence they wrapped themselves in a foreign flag and claimed immunity.  And so, all too often, trivial local happenings were turned into international issues.  Consuls and commissioners pushed Hawaiian officials aside roughly, and legal cases in endless procession--property disputes, business failures, sailor riots, rapes, newspaper wars--made their way to the diplomatic level. (110)

Yup.  That pretty much sums up how the foreigners treated Kauikeaouli and his administration.

With all of that being said, I will also suggest that, after reading these books, go look for the equivalent stories in Kamakau's Ke Aupuni Mōʻī or in nā nūpepa.  You don't know the whole story until you've read it in Hawaiian.

And once you've done all of that, then write another book telling the Hawaiian side of it all.  That way, the academic world won't have keep relying on these guys for all their source information.

ʻOia wale.

"It's ok, he didn't know any better." Hawaiians, get writing!

I was in one of my graduate seminar classes the other day, and we were discussing the last half of a book called The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914, by C. A. Bayly.  It is an ambitious work, in which the author argues that globalization should not be looked at as a Eurocentric idea, but as something that all the peoples of the world participated in (although some may have done so reluctantly).

If I have identified his thesis correctly, then I must conclude that he did a pretty good job at supporting his argument.

However, everyone has their own agendas when reading books, which may not always be the same as the author's agenda for writing it.  Bayly wanted to prove that everyone, world powers and native peoples alike, all participated in some way in this globalization of the world.  But my agenda in reading his book was to see how he portrayed native peoples, specifically Hawaiians.

And in that, he did not fare well.

In our class discussion, most agreed that he did prove his argument.  (I can't say that everyone agreed, because some simply did not speak up...is a blank vote equivalent to a "no"?)  However, I argued that his book is actually supporting the Eurocentric view.  He focuses on the world powers and their movements and motivations, and inserts comments here and there about the native communities, as a way of showing the reader, "hey, look at me!  I know a little bit about everything!"

The thing is, I wouldn't have had such questionable thoughts about his work if he hadn't made any comments about Hawaiʻi.  But he did, and they were wrong.  Because of that, I absolutely had to start questioning all of the other statements he made about native peoples.  How many of those comments are wrong, and I just don't know enough about those cultures to realize it?    

The comment that we used as an example for class discussion is on page 438, and reads: "...well-placed chieftain families were able to make fortunes from the sale of sandalwood and other exotic produce which was bound for both European and Chinese consumer markets.  These notables spent their wealth on exaggerated versions of feasting and royal consumption, with which they had traditionally marked themselves out from the commoners."

While technicalities make parts of this statement correct, the overall sense that a reader gets from this is that our chiefs were greedy and selfish.

Well, if your entire realm of understanding comes from what you know about European kings, then I guess you would think that about ours.

Oh, and by the way, the author does not cite where he got this information from.

I mention this last point because, after pointing out to the class how this statement about Hawaiʻi was very misleading, about half the class proceeded to excuse the author, believing that he simply didn't know that he was quoting erroneous information.  They further explained that, because he didn't know it was wrong, we shouldn't fault him for it.

But I believe that it is his fault.  That's why historians use footnotes in the first place!  If you're going to use information that you got from someone else, then you tell the reader where you got it from.  And, if the information is wrong, only then can the reader excuse the author for using it.

What I focused on, however, is the fact that irresponsible authors have been publishing things about us for 200 years now, and unknowing readers have been accepting all of these untruths as fact.  Those few who find out about the errors have done the same thing that this class did - excuse the author for his mistake, claiming that he simply didn't know any better.

Well, 200 years of excuses has only led to the continued misinterpretation and misrepresentation of all native peoples and their cultures.

No more excuses.

We need more authoritative works by people of our own cultures.  Hawaiians, hurry up and write!

Introduction

Aloha mai kākou!

I'm uluwehiokaaina, from Oʻahu, and I'm a PhD student at UH Mānoa, in the History department.  I spent all of my academic career previous to this in Hawaiian Studies.  Venturing out of that ʻike Hawaiʻi "bubble" has really opened my eyes to many things, and I decided that it might be good to share.  Who knows whether or not that ends up being a good call...

I am incredibly thankful for my time spent at Kamakakūokalani, because it has given me a different set of beliefs about history, which, I am finding, is very different from the way people in the History department look at things.  That's why I refer to Hawaiian Studies as a "bubble;" I don't mean that in a derogatory way...more so, now that I am no longer there, I have realized that Hawaiian Studies is a place where we all know and agree with each other on something that we consider to be fundamental: that our stories should be told by us, and from our own sources of knowledge.

That's why it was shocking to me when I went to the History department and realized that they do not believe the same thing.  

Therefore, this blog is about those instances where I must reconcile history as an academic discipline, with history being told with the proper respect to the culture and people whose story it is attempting to tell.  At times you will agree with me, and at times you won't.  That's ok.  This is merely about opening up the world to different viewpoints.

Mostly I intend to write about the books I am required to read for classes, but every once in a while I might tell of stimulating (or frustrating) class discussions that simply need to be shared...the former of which is what finally inspired me to start this blog.  That will be my next post!