Keawe, the Hawaiian History Columnist

Rethinking the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement: Part 3

2012-02-26T00:21:00.001-08:00

Rethinking the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement Part 3:

After 1993, pro-independence groups became much more stronger and more vocal. Many Hawaiians have traditionally secretly supported the idea of independence but had felt that:

Hawai'i was the jewel of the American military-industrial complex and the United States would never give up Pearl Harbor;
Hawai'i would become prey to another nation;
Hawai'i would become another failed democracy like the Philippines or Fiji because the Native Hawaiian leadership skills displayed at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs over the years have not exactly been inspiring to either Native Hawaiians and non-native Hawaiians;
Hawai'i would collapse economically without the income from US military bases and American tourism;
deep-seated ethnic issues in Hawai'i would surface plunging Hawai'i into civil war particularly by the large American haole (Caucasian)--the same segment of the population that traditionally the Kalakaua Dynasty had issues with--and the local Japanese-American populations;
Native Hawaiians themselves lacked the maturity to govern a modern nation-state in the 21st century;
a restoration of the Monarchy would spring a civil war since many Native Hawaiians claim to have ali'i bloodlines (in fact I can't think of one Native Hawaiian who doesn't claim to have ali'i blood);

In addition, there were other fears such as would property rights be respected and would independence really solve the socio-economic issues in Hawai'i. However, with Public Law 103-150 and lectures by law Professor Francis Boyle who was brought in by the Nation of Hawai'i group, independence seemed to be logical for many. In 1994, the State Legislature tried to create a non-binding referendum for Hawaiians to decide on "Shall the Hawaiian people elect delegates to propose a Native Hawaiian Government?" through the creation of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Council (HSEC) through Act 200 (HB 3630). Bumpy Kanahele, Mililani Trask, Kekuni Blaisdell, Poka Laenui, and others were invited to join HSEC by then Governor John Waihe'e III. Bumpy was part of it but later resigned upon the advice of Francis Boyle and proclaimed new constitution for the Nation of Hawai'i. Poka Laenui was part of HSEC but no other "major" leader was involved and the entire process was heavily guided and paid for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA). HSEC was for the most part boycotted by nearly every Hawaiian sovereignty group as they felt that HSEC was attempting to co-opt the sovereignty movement and to have the state facilitated sovereignty would be a violation of international laws regarding self-determination. Ka Lahui Hawai'i invited the Unrepresented Peoples and Nations Organization (UNPO)--to which Ka Lahui was a member of---for a fact finding mission and they reported numerous problems with HSEC, the elections itself, and with the State's involvement in "self-determination". HSEC nonetheless continued with the referendum which 22,000 Native Hawaiians (out of a potential 88,000 voters) participated in and there was an overwhelming vote in favor of forming a Native Hawaiian Government. While this was going on, the first of many versions of the "Akaka Bills" came before the US Congress. House Resolution 671 and Senate Bill 479 proposed to formally recognize Native Hawaiians as Native Americans and submitted to the US Congress while the HSEC "elections" were going on in 1996 thus adding to the distrust of HSEC itself. Many of those who did participate in the HSEC process believed that that was a means to re-gain independence peacefully. Some kupuna (elders) simply voted because they wanted to see some progress for Hawaiians before they died.

For most of the early to mid-1990s, nearly all independence groups favored a de facto republican form of government similar to independent Samoa, meaning no monarchy. The Nation of Hawai'i's proposed structures were influenced by independent Samoa including calling the head of state simply the "head of state". However, the discourse began to change in 1996 largely due to the Perfect Title company.

Perfect Title was founded by the now Dr. Keanu Sai. It was basically a land title warranty company. People would pay $1,500 to $2,000 to have Perfect Title do a title search on their property based on Hawaiian kingdom law. Normally all the results came out the same--the land title was clouded due to a sale or transfer that occurred between 1893-1900 because such sales or transfers could not be legally registered due to the fact that the Provisional Government and the Republic were illegal governments. This created huge problems for the real estate market in Hawai'i as other land owners began to question their own land titles. Eventually from there, Perfect Title assumed itself as the acting government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. According to the Hawaiian Kingdom website:

The partners of Perfect Title Company desired to establish a legitimate co-partnership pursuant to Hawaiian Kingdom law. Such a co-partnership had not been created in the Hawaiian Kingdom for over one hundred years, because the Hawaiian Kingdom has experienced an illegal and prolonged occupation by the United States. As a result, the Hawaiian Kingdom Government has ceased to operate. In light of the above, the partners of the Perfect Title Company reasoned that the Hawaiian corporate body of government had to be re-established pursuant to Hawaiian Kingdom law, in order for the Perfect Title Company to exist as a legal co-partnership firm.
Therefore, in order for the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom to be re-activated, an Acting Executive Head of State had to be established in conformity with the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Ed., defines acting officer as: "...to designate, not an appointed incumbent, but merely a locum tenens, who is performing the duties of an office to which he himself does not claim title."

With the rise of Perfect Title and the perception that the State, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and others were trying to "high jack" the movement, ties began to emerge with Hawaiian sovereignty groups and right-wing constitutionalist Libertarian militia groups such as the Posse Comitatus and Born-again Christians fellowships. Certain sovereignty groups and militias saw the interference of the government in their own affairs and being that HSEC was going on at the same time Waco had just occurred while some Born-Again Christians saw the Federal and State governments as being un-Christian, thus emerged an alliance. This brought up new more right wing leaders such as Henry Noa, "Akahi Nui", and Leon Siu who used the findings of Keanu Sai to fit their own understanding of the Christian Bible and American history that they learned through their own involvement with the "constitutionalist militia" groups and with organizations like "We, the People". In addition to Waco and HSEC, the State of Hawai'i was also going through a debate on the issue of gay marriage which introduced many Born-Again Christian Hawaiians to politics for the first time. Leon Siu, Minister of Foreign Affairs for one or more sovereignty groups, for example was heavily allied with Mike Gabbard, a part-Samoan who successfully used homophobia for self promotion in order to build a small political dynasty. These individuals eventually began to form "Kingdom" groups such as Aupuni o Hawaii, the Restored Hawaiian Kingdom, Reinstated Hawaiian Kingdom, etc, and entertained either placing Jesus Christ as the King of Hawai'i or having some kind of regency.

1998 anniversary of the purported annexation of Hawai'i

In 1998, Hawaiian observed the 100th anniversary of the "annexation that never was". It was not as large as the 1993 observance, but what was interesting was the noticeable presence, or lack there of, from Ka Lāhui Hawai'i, Nation of Hawai'i, and other groups who were active ten years ago. Truth be told, I forgot that Ka Lāhui Hawai'i and Nation of Hawai'i still exits if it weren't for the Nation of Hawai'i website and Ka Lāhui still having a seat in UNPO. In retrospect, the 1998 observance was not just an observance, but almost a send off for many of the older Hawaiian sovereignty movement leaders as some have passed away and others have become sidelined since then.

1897 Anti-annexation Petition

In the same year, a huge historical find came to light. Dr. Noenoe Silva had re-discovered one set of the anti-annexation petitions from 1897 in Washington DC. This had enormous influence on Native Hawaiians as many saw the actual signatures of their ancestors standing up against annexation. It also pushed people who previously liked the idea of nation within a nation further into the pro-independence camp.

In 2000, the Lance Larsen filed a friendly lawsuit against Keanu Sai's Hawaiian Kingdom government, in his capacity as acting Minister of the Interior, for not protecting his civil rights against the agents of the United States in what is now known as the Lance Larsen arbitration case. The arbitration case was historic because it was the first time that the issues of Hawai'i as an occupied nation was brought up in an international court. It was also one of the few times in my life I had seen the Hawaiian flag fly equal to other national flags. I have seen it since flying next to the Japanese and Filipino flag but that was years later. The tribunal ended up basically saying that they could not rule without the United States being a party to the arbitration case but found the case interesting. What I particularly remember was the sharpness of Ninia Parks, Larsen's attorney, and how Attorney General for the Hawaiian Kingdom, Gary Victor Dubin, mentioned that the United States is made up of 51 sovereign states (1) which is one of the favorite things that American libertarians and militia members say (i.e. Washington DC is a corporation, all states are sovereign, etc).

Around that time, Keanu Sai's discourse on Hawai'i being "occupied" became more widely accepted and copied by other kingdom groups. Keanu Sai's discourse is a sharp departure from the normal narrative and in some ways, it can be seen as a reaction to OHA's narrative of Hawaiians constantly being victims. In Sai's narratives, the Hawaiian Kingdom was strong, respected, and Hawaiians were in control of the government. If Hawaiians simply recognized that they were an occupied nation and went to international courts, the US military would have to administer Hawaiian Kingdom law until the Kingdom's institutions could be fully restored. For some Hawaiians including Hawaiian activists like Lynette Cruz, they found this narration liberating. It changed the dynamics of Hawaiian history. Hawaiians were placed in the center of the nation-building project rather than just missionaries, as much Hawaiian history textbooks do. But certain theories of his have far reaching almost anti-democratic implications as far as sovereignty is concerned.

However, it also destroys the work of other activists like Kekuni Blaisdell and Poka Laenui who had been fighting for decolonization. Why? Under Sai's assertion, Hawaiian sovereignty is still intact therefore colonization never occurred. If colonization never occurred, then there's no need for decolonization. Sai mostly bases his narration on international laws that were enacted after 1893 including the Geneva Conventions. There is also other serious problems with this narration. For one thing, it basically emphasizes the role of courts and laws rather than people power and movement building. It also makes the US military responsible for undoing what happened in 1893 rather than Hawaiians themselves. Another problem is that Hawai'i was placed as a non-self-governing territory. This in itself does not deny that there was an occupation because the UN General Assembly made it clear that non-self-governing territories were not just territories that were colonized, but territories where a people were dominated by an outside power. Therefore decolonization under the UN process is not contrary to de-occupation and there are guidelines, precedences, and an internationally recognized process. But if one were to simply stick to the de-occupation model, there is none. Hawai'i is not Estonia. Estonia liberated itself through its mass movement and with the help of Western democracies. Sai would argue that the US military should in essence facilitate de-occupation and that the government that existed prior to January 17, 1893 be restored. Popular participation therefore is irrelevant under Sai's model. Also, Hawaiians would be stuck with only one form of government--a constitutional monarchy.

As mentioned before, Dr. Noenoe Silva found one set of petitions. There were two sets of petitions. The one she found were the petitions against annexation. There is another set which was against annexation and for the restoration of the monarchy. Why were there two sets? There were two sets because half the Hawaiian population themselves in the 1890s did not want to return to the government of 1893. Many Hawaiians of that time including Robert Wilcox, wanted a different form of government. Wilcox for example wanted a republican democracy with a Native Hawaiian president. The Queen herself said that the question of the form of government should be left to the Hawaiian people and to Hawaiian citizens in a free and fair referendum and she herself believed that the "...masses of Native Hawaiians...must become a self-governing class....". She repeatedly said that in 1893 up until 1917. De-occupation of Sai leaves Hawaiians with the US military--so much for "self-determination"--whereas the decolonization model leaves Hawai'i with choices under the United Nations. Timor L'este was occupied by Indonesia for over 30 years yet they didn't go the de-occupation route. They organized a government in exile and a mass protest movement and went through the United Nations. Law is not reality. The people are the reality. Despite the obvious problems with Sai's theories and how it de-democratizes the movement itself, the older activists like Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Cruz, and others supported it either for various reasons (i.e. didn't think it through thoroughly, Sai's theories undermines other activists' work whom they don't like, they genuinely believed in it, etc) and new rightist sovereignty groups adopted it. This isn't to say that I think everything Sai says is wrong. When he speaks of Hawaiian legal history, definitely I do not disagree with much of his general interpretations. However, sovereignty is much more than Law of Nations and the Geneva Conventions. The people of Hawai'i--both Native Hawaiians and those who call Hawai'i their country--must be involved. But when he talks about de-occupation with the military ruling over Hawai'i even if its temporary, it bothers me. One just needs to look at the occupation of Iraq to see the effectiveness of an American military administration.

After 2000, there emerged not one but two sovereignty movements-- a right wing sovereignty movement led by mostly kingdom groups and a second movement consisting of Kanaka Maoli traditionalists, left-leaning activists, and academics.

Some Thoughts on the Movement Now

Despite the rise of right wing, militia-influenced Born Again Christians in Hawai'i politics and in the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement, most of the prominent Hawaiian leaders, independence advocates, and liberals continued to invite these same people to speak at forums and at rallies for the sake of "Hawaiian unity" and because of the misconception that anyone who believes in Hawaiian independence must be at least liberal. This is the same mistake that continues until today with "Occupy Hawai'i" movement and that is still where the sovereignty/independence movement lies today. When someone asks too many questions, members from these right wing sovereignty groups will respond in three ways:

name calling (i.e. you're American, you're haole, you're stupid, you're anti-independence, you're like Ken Conklin, etc)
appeal to Hawaiian racial unity
invoking Ke Akua

These kingdom groups do not oppose free trade, globalization, militarism, and believe that the reign of Kamehameha III was the golden age of Hawai'i because he was "God-fearing". They also believe that there is a world wide conspiracy of Freemasons and that the United Nations is part of the "New World Order" (which is why many of them dislike the decolonization process). Most of them reject classifying Native Hawaiians as indigenous because in their view, Native Hawaiians were not colonized (Hawai'i is merely occupied) and a definition of indigenous normally includes a level of colonialism. There is also an anti-Asian tendency among many of the membership and a sense of superiority over other native peoples such as Native Americans and other Polynesians while many in their own ranks are haoles (its haole not haoli as many of their members spell it) from the continental United States (some of whom have paid for positions such as "vice-consul", "consul", "attorney-general," in these kingdoms etc). In their view, anyone can be "Hawaiian". The blood, the genealogy, etc do not matter. What matters is the naturalization paperwork and if you're part of their group. Paradoxically, kingdom groups assert sovereignty in the name of all Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) yet claim being Native Hawaiians has no special place within the Hawaiian legal system---which shows that they have not done their homework because even a form of gay marriage, 'aikane, was recognized during the kingdom era. they are also as mentioned before homophobic and firmly believe that Hawai'i was a Christian nation therefore leaving no place for Buddhists (which is a sizeable minority in Hawai'i) or for people who still practice the Hawaiian religion. Nor do they believe in "activism" and have a marked disdain for anyone who says that Hawai'i was colonized. In their view, Hawai'i was never "colonized" but simply "occupied" and its their God given mission to save Hawai'i. It also bothers me that because of their pre-occupation with Keanu Sai's ideas, academic scholars like Drs. J. Kēhaulani Kauanui and Noenoe Silva are basically ignored because not only is there an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism but because they focus on the actual reality of what happened to Native Hawaiians and Hawaiian citizens between 1893-up until now--that is to say they focus on how Native Hawaiians were colonized. Intellectualism is part of being Hawaiian and the debate was an art form in ancient Hawai'i. Kamehameha III himself said "He aupuni palapala ko'u [My government is a government of education]".

A majority of these kingdom groups also believe that if people simply followed them and were able to quote from Emerich de Vattel's The Law of Nations--a 18th century book popular among early American founders and American Libertarians--American jurisdiction over Hawai'i would magically fall away in the same way that the Baltic republics were able to re-establish themeselves after fifty years of Soviet occupation. While understanding public international law is important, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania would never have able to break from Soviet rule if it weren't for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who defied Soviet authority by protesting, organizing groups such as the Rahvarinne (Popular Front of Estonia) and taking over the local Soviet assemblies and government buildings. The people of the Baltic States were willing to stand up to Soviet tanks and they were supported by outside powers such as France, the UK, and the US. That is what made the difference not misquoting 18th century books.

But I will also add that the Kingdom of Hawai'i of the 19th century was not a land of milk and honey contrary to what many of them, including some Hawaiian activists who consider themselves to be liberal, like to believe. Native Hawaiian society had a class system that became increasingly rigid over the course of at least 400 years. There were wide social inequalities that began during the reign of Kamehameha II and commoner Hawaiians were given handouts but never politically empowered at least until the 1870s. Joseph Nawahi was the first Hawaiian commoner to serve in a cabinet post and that didn't happen until 1892. These and other major problems which King Kalākaua and Queen Lili'uokalani tried to address but were unable to because of a minority of the foreign population in Hawai'i during their time. These kingdom groups do not have anything in common with the legacy left behind by Hawai'i's last two monarchs who though both were deeply religious, both were both secularists and had socialist tendencies. Instead, what these kingdom groups represent are a throw back to the 1840s when people were exiled to Kaho'olawe for adultery and women were expected to wear those Mother Hubbard gowns. However, these kingdom groups have succeeded in areas where early sovereignty activists have largely not. For one thing, they have organized into more coherent groups. Previous sovereignty activists organized with other activists and around UH Manoa.

These kingdom groups, on the other hand, organize around fundamentalist Christian world view and Keanu Sai's works thus making them more cohesive. This gives their groups an almost arrogant Messianic cult-like glow. At the same time, they have organized their own 'ohana (family)--almost all of the previous sovereignty leaders have never actually tried to organize their own families---and excluded people who they believed thought too much thus making their groups even more cohesive than say groups like Kekuni Blaisdell's Ka Paukaukau. Anyone who disagrees with them are simply blocked or booted out of their groups without questions asked (or answered) thus making their processes faster. Liberal, progressive, and left-leaning Hawaiian groups take a long time to find a consensus because dialogues have to be made and personalities (one is tempted to say egos) have to be massaged over. Personality is extremely important because as mentioned before, groups are formed around these "leaders". In these right-wing sovereignty groups, there is no need for that because if you do not agree with the "ministers", you're out. In some ways that was the appeal I think for many Hawaiians. These kingdom groups move around authority figures who can tell people what to think and since in order to be in the group in the first place, you have to think like they do already so there are no major idealogical differences and things seem to "move" quickly. In addition, many of the younger Native Hawaiians just got sick of attending historical re-enactments and forums--things that the older sovereignty activists are more renown for. They want to feel like there is a purpose, that their lives have a purpose, and they are part of the solution for Hawai'i. Left-leaning, progressive, and liberal Hawaiian groups can learn from these right wing groups in that respect.

Left-leaning, progressive, and democratic Hawaiians need to organize people, not simply from the church of the usual suspects and not just from the University of Hawai'i. They, or should I say we, need to get people in Waianae, Waimanalo, Kalihi, and Wailuku involved. They need to reach out to Hawaiians of the diaspora, LGBT, and other people of color in Hawai'i all need to be included. They need to organize actual groups not "coalitions" of personalities. They need a Hawai'i where no one is left behind. Being liberal or progressive does not mean simply being airy-fairy nor does being Hawaiian mean to honihoni and ho'oponopono everyone all the time. It means standing up to injustice even if it comes from other Hawaiians. Ho'oponopono is an honorable cultural trait but when ho'oponopono and aloha are used to silence critical thinking and to force people to accepting injustice, its wrong. Its not pono. And that's what many of these rightist groups do. They go up to progressive people, call them all sorts of names, then say "oh we're Hawaiian, let's ho'oponopono" right before the other person is about to respond as a way to silence that other person. If the person refuses, he or she is told be more humble. This type of behavior is just not pono and you know we, Hawaiians, we have more values than simply aloha and ho'oponopono. We are also a warrior people and Hawai'i was not unified by ho'oponopono and aloha alone but by the men and women who sacrificed their lives under the banner of Kamehameha so that the Hawaiian nation may live and we may have a country of our own. Hawaiian liberals, progressives, and other free-thinkers, we have to be warriors again--but not with ihe (spear) but with pono and kaulike (social justice).

If the Hawaiian movement towards independence were to succeed to finally ending the American rule, Hawaiians need to share a common vision and act like a modern mature democracy loving people not ranting Cujos with Bibles. Hawaiians will also need to lose their egos and stop proclaiming themselves as mo'i or king. If one has ali'i blood, good. But being ali'i in the 21st century is of little consequence to the crippling poverty many Hawaiians are suffering nor to the rest of the world where most countries have long ago abandoned nobility. If one wants to serve Hawai'i, you don't need to call yourself ali'i this or mo'i that. You simply must love Hawai'i. Some of the greatest people in the world were not ali'i or did they have titles. If one wants to look for heroes among Hawaiians, you do not need to constantly look to the Kamehamehas or some ali'i or to some other myth. Just look at those 1897 petitions. Just look at your kupuna. Just look to those Hawaiians trying to get an education. Just look at the single parents out there raising their kids while working three jobs. Just look at every Hawaiian who is still alive because those of us who are left, we are the survivors of the diseases and the colonialism that affected our people in the last 200 years. We are here today because our ancestors survived and we will continue to survive. Those are the real Native Hawaiian heroes. If you want to be a Hawaiian hero, serve our people. We have enough ali'i and those people who want to sit upon the throne. We don't need that. We need people with vision. We need people with selflessness. We need koa. We need men and women brave enough to stand up for the rights of our people and who have compassion for not just Native Hawaiians but for all mankind.

Liberals, progressives, and others from the Center-Left in Hawai'i also need to wake up and realize that for the sake of being "inclusive", conservative Hawaiians have slowly drowned your voice in Hawaiian self-determination. Unity should be based on 'ike pono--that is to say a shared and common 'ike (ideas) and a common pono (vision). It should not be based simply because two people share the same skin tone or race. There were after all Native Hawaiians who served in the Republic of Hawai'i and the uprising of 1895 largely failed because of Native Hawaiian informants serving under the Republic. People should not be forced into accepting ideas simply because of their race. Nor should unity come about through ʻoiʻoi, intimidation, fear, bullying, or irrational arguments. Liberals, progressives, and other patriotic Hawaiians needs to fight for a Hawai'i that is secular, progressive, and truly independent. We need to complete the unfinished vision of our ancestors. Mai maka'u.

How Credible was the Statehood Referendum?

2012-02-24T02:35:00.000-08:00

Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса.The people who cast votes decide nothing. What matters is who counts the votes and how.
--Joseph Stalin

Some years ago I heard this interesting story by a Hawaiian man about the way the Statehood referendum was held. His father had been a precinct captain in Pauoa and he said that certain people--both Hawaiian and non-Hawaiians--who were known in the community to oppose Statehood, when they had voted at his precinct their ballots were placed in a special box. When it was time to collect the ballot boxes, men from the US Army carried it away on Army trucks with the keys to the ballot box to 'Iolani Palace. His father believed that the US Army men destroyed the special "ballot boxes". When I first heard this story, I thought this was rather fanciful and sounded like a grand conspiracy. I know that there probably was irregularities. John Kealoha, the Lieutenant-Governor under Governor William F. Quinn and brother in law of my grandmother, had remarked to my grandmother that territorial elections were far from "acceptable" and said that the Secretary of the Territory--which was the second highest appointed office in Hawai'i and was replaced by an elected Lieutenant-Govenor after Statehood--had been rigging votes for years. One may recall that in 1960, Kealoha accused Quinn and the Republican Party's machinery of rigging the US presidential elections in favor of Richard Nixon and ordered a recall. Kealoha also ran against Quinn--thought they both were Republicans--on an anti-corruption platform. It

So the question is, how credible was the Statehood referendum? Its widely known today that in 1946 Hawai'i was listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory and in theory Hawai'i should have been given various political options including independence, free association, Commonwealth, or incorporation. The 1959 referendum only had one option: incorporation.

Statehood Ballot with the Certification of the Secretary of the Territory

However, former governors such as William Quinn and John Burns claimed that they had no idea that they had other options. This is despite the fact that Territorial Senator Abigail Kamokila Campbell and former Governor Ingram Stainback spoke adamantly against Statehood and favored a Commonwealth status similar to Puerto Rico--an option that should have been given to Hawai'i under the UN. Abigail Kamokila Campbell even sued the Territory in 1949 to allocating public funds solely to push for Statehood. But the Commonwealth option was not an option. Certainly, Territorial leaders were aware of how many people were actually in favor of Statehood. They forced not one, but several Statehood referendums. The earliest was in 1935 and continued all the way up until 1959 with the exception of 1941 to 1944 when Martial Law was in effect. For example, here is one referendum in 1940. Its also interesting that in the 1940 referendum, there was 83,312 registered voters and in 1959, there was 155,000 registered voters though 132,773 actual votes cast. According to official census records, the total population of Hawai'i in 1940 was 422,770 and in 1960 it was 632,772. In other words, the population grew under 30% in those two decades but the registered amount of voters almost doubled. This is despite the fact that the voting age was 21 thus excluding baby-boomers and that the results of the 1940 referendum were not as overwhelming pro-Statehood. It should also be noted that there was some truth to the US Army's involvement in elections in Hawai'i prior to Statehood.

It would make sense that the US military would "transport" ballot boxes from precincts to 'Iolani Palace because they had the transportation to, especially given that Hawai'i was still recovering from World War II and that the civilian government had been removed from power for over three long years (1941-1944). US President Dwight Eisenhower, himself once a military governor of occupied West Germany, also made several stops in Hawai'i prior to the Statehood referendum on his way to occupied Japan. Mary Dudziak's book, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, explains that that Eisenhower was being pressured by the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and other powers about the US' human rights records including its colonial possessions of Hawai'i and Alaska. One could conceivably imagine a US president--who had just authorized the 1952 coup against the democratically elected government in Iran--concerned about how propaganda might affect American relations in Europe and Asia would hint to his appointee about the necessity of securing Hawai'i and removing any potential "red" propaganda. It would have also been easy to manoeuvres an election to their preferred outcome as they had control of the ballots, the newspapers, and the Army.

So the question is did they?

Rethinking the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement: Part 2

2012-02-22T11:59:00.003-08:00

Rethinking the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement: Part 2
From Nation Within a Nation to Independence

While Ka Lāhui Hawai'i was busy registering "citizens" and holding meetings, other groups were being formed. Hawaiian independence had been a long secret cherished dream in the hearts of many Hawaiians since 1898. It still is for many. As late as the 1930s, people in Papakolea and other Homesteads were still speaking of the Hawaiian government in exile and were still refusing to take oaths to the United States. In the 1940s, such talk was outright banned by the Military Government and in the 1950s, even conservative Hawaiians were dreaming of a "commonwealth" that would lead Hawai'i into independence similar to what the United States had done in the Philippines. Not many people in Hawai'i knew that the United Nations had placed Hawai'i as a non-self-governing territory in 1946 and that free association (i.e. a commonwealth), independence, or integration were supposed to have been offered to Hawai'i. When Hawai'i was proclaimed a state, I know of many families in Papakolea who were pissed off, upset, and sad about the event. Within my own family, my grandmother cried for days after Statehood because she believed that the bonds between the Hawaiian people to their rightful government and to their land would be severed by the United States as that Statehood would bring an ahu kanaka ʻōpala --a heap of trash of people. I know she was not alone.

In the 1970s and 80s Hawaiians were still talking about sovereignty and independence. With people like George Helm and Kimo Mitchell being vocal about independence as well as the growing economic marginalization of Native Hawaiians, the Hawaiian Renaissance, and the new awareness of decolonization, those talks became more articulated. There were one or two Hawaiian groups that advocated a non-violent revolution against the State but these were mostly student groups inspired by the Black Panthers and Maoist ideology but for the most part independence groups and advocates followed the general decolonization and indigenous rights line. It should also be said that the Hawaiian independence "movement" for the most part during this time were centered around individuals and not groups. There was no pro-independence group with the type of organization that Ka Lahui Hawai'i had. Among the more prominent pro-independence advocates of the late 80s and early 90s were Attorney Poka Laenui, Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell, Dennis Bumpy Kanahele, Lynette Hi'ilani Cruz, Kihei Soli Niheu, Rev. Kaleo Patterson, Helen Didi Lee Kwai, and many others. That is not to say that there weren't pro-independence groups. But their groups did not have things such as elections, by-laws, or officers. It was more like someone would come up to one of the leaders and say "Hi I heard you speak and I like your ideas. Can I get more information or help?". "Sure come to such and such meeting on such and such date at Zippys at 7pm" and that was that. Ka Lāhui Hawai'i on the other hand had these long legislative assembly sessions at Kaumakapili Church and had its own bureaucracy and unless your last name was Trask or there was a rally coming up, no one simply could get passed the bureaucracy.

Another reason why independence advocates had trouble uniting into say a single political party or entity like Ka Lāhui Hawai'i was that their views were very different. Poka Laenui and Kekuni Blaisdell were very well known internationally for their support of indigenous rights. But Poka for example saw the restoration of Hawaiian nationhood along the lines of what was happening in the South Pacific. That is to say, it was to create a modern nation-state where Kanaka Maoli "deep culture" would be the national culture. Kekuni's Hawai'i was more traditional Hawaiian with structures were more reflective of his view of what Native Hawaiian culture was. Dennis Bumpy Kanahele's views were more closer to Poka Laenui's views except Bumpy at the time was more assertive. Bumpy's group, the 'Ohana Council, actually re-occupied crown land in the late 1980s in Waimanalo. Most of the independence advocates went to forums, delivered speeches, organized historical re-enactments, went on the radio or tv, sang protest songs and wrote letters. Most of them did support land occupation particularly Poka Laenui who had helped to organize Makua Valley land re-occupation but they did not take it to the same level as Bumpy. Bumpy was living on the occupied land, planning his own rallies, and in his hometown, Waimanalo, he was trying to get Hawaiian youth out of gangs and drugs by telling them to get involved in the sovereignty movement. The only other group that had its own rallies was Ka Lahui. The other difference between the activists could also be their class orientation. Most of the Hawaiian activists were from Middle and Upper Middle class backgrounds and many of them were educated in the US so their orientation of what "struggle" meant were also different. Bumpy, unlike most of the activists, was a high school drop out.

1993 'Onipa'a march. Photo from SF Chronicle

1993 marked a watershed year for all Native Hawaiians. OHA, Ka Lāhui, the various ali'i societies, the State of Hawai'i, and other groups form an "'Onipa'a Observance Committee" and organized a five day vigil to observe the 100th anniversary of the US-backed coup against Queen Lili'uokalani. Those were extremely emotional times for many Native Hawaiians. The then Governor of Hawai'i, John Waihe'e III, ordered US flags to be removed for 5 days from all state buildings. It was the first time in many of the lives of Hawaiians that we saw our national flag, our Hawaiian flag, flown not underneath the United States flag but flying alone. None of it was covered in the school system of course. I remember the public intermediate school which I attended during that time and which 1/3 of the student body were Native Hawaiians, we weren't allowed to talk about the march or the news in our own history class because it was "controversial". On January 17, 17,000 Native and non-Native Hawaiians marched to observe the final day of the observance, the anniversary of the day the Queen formally and temporarily surrendered her throne "to the superior forces of the United States". Hawaiian independence advocates marched with banners but they were largely overshadowed by Ka Lāhui Hawai'i who dominated the event. I recall hearing that at one of the meetings of the 'Onipa'a Observance Committee meetings, the Ka Lāhui representative told the Committee that the Trask sisters need to have a prominent speaking slot or else Ka Lāhui would "boycott the event and organize their own".

Independence advocates instead organized and built a sovereignty 'ahu in the corner of 'Iolani Palace, much to the objection of members of the Friends of 'Iolani Palace because the 'ahu possibly sits on top of unmarked graves, which is something Hawaiians traditionally did not do. But it was built there because it supposedly marked the spot where Kamehameha III and Gerrit Judd wrote their lengthy protest letters to the United Kingdom against the British occupation of Hawai'i in 1843. Later on in 1993, pro-independence advocates such as Kekuni Blaisdell organized the Ho'okolokolonui Kanaka Māoli (Kanaka Maoli or International Tribunal) which tried the United States for its crimes against the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and it brought in people from independence movements from throughout the Pacific. At the same time, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC-Hawai'i), a non-Hawaiian organization founded by Quakers, had organized a Sovereignty Education Committee (SovEd) to look into the idea of sovereignty. The SovEd published and released a book titled He Alo a He Alo (Face to Face) which was a collection of interviews from various Hawaiian leaders who were active at that time in politics or activism on the issue of Hawaiian sovereignty. He Alo a He Alo was a breakthrough work because it was the first time one could see clearly the variant views on Hawaiian sovereignty and it was the first work totally devoted to that subject since perhaps the Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen by Queen Lili'uokalani. It was around that time that AFSC began to act as a bridge between different sovereignty activists who normally would not organize together. AFSC was also considered by many Hawaiian activists or leaders as being "neutral" so there were times when an activist would call someone who was part of AFSC and hint that they wanted to do a forum with another activist but because they didn't know that activist personally and that they wanted to do it on neutral ground, if AFSC would arrange it.

The other avenue pro-independence advocates used was the Kanaka Maoli sovereignty e-mail group (e-group) which was organized mostly Lynette Cruz. That group included most of the sovereignty leaders of that day as well as more conservative Hawaiians. Activists could published their press releases, ask questions, get to know each other. What I remember most about that e-group however was how toxic it was. What I remember was people like Charles Maxwell making very personal attacks on people on that e-group particularly on non-Kanaka Maoli sovereignty supporters. I was still young at the time, but it was the first time that I ever had seen Native Hawaiians being vicious and vulgar to each other and to non-Hawaiians who actually were supporters. It unfortunately would not be the last time. I also know that others used the e-group to mount attacks on other groups and to spread rumors about each other.

US President Bill Clinton signing Public Law 103-150

In November of that year, the United States signed Public Law 103-150 apologizing to the Hawaiian people for the wrongful overthrow of their nation. This apology gave the independence movement a new impetus and new life. Never before had the United States made such an apology. It also had unexpected repercussions for Ka Lāhui Hawai'i because after the publication of the apology resolution, many within the organization started to believe that a "Nation Within a Nation" was a sell out when compared to independence.

In some ways, Public Law 103-150 marked the slow death of Ka Lāhui Hawai'i. Within two years, most of their ali'i branch of government, including Owana Salazar their ali'i nui, had left Ka Lāhui Hawai'i along with most of the membership and critically the youth.

In 1994, Bumpy's group, the 'Ohana Council, made a new constitution and proclaimed themselves the Nation of Hawai'i. They began to march monthly to Waikiki to pass out flyers to tourists about what really happened in Hawai'i. They had been doing that in 1993 but now they were passing out copies of Public Law 103-150. It embarrassed the State immensely. The Nation of Hawai'i also sponsored a talk by law professor Francis Boyle (1) which greatly added strength to the view that the logical course of action as a result of the apology resolution would be independence. The following year, in 1995, Bumpy was charged with abetting a tax protester--a Native Hawaiian named Nathan Brown who refused to pay income taxes to the occupying government, United States--and found not guilty. Many saw his trial as an attempt to silence the independence movement and as pay back for embarrassing the State in front of tourists. Within the same year, the State "leased" government land to Bumpy's group to make a self sustaining village which Bumpy called "Pu'uhonua". When the lease was signed, there was a split within the "Nation of Hawai'i" where people accused Bumpy of corruption, being a sale out, and throwing around other accusations.

Princess Ka'iulani's Engagement

2012-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

Out of all the Hawaiian royals, she is probably the one most people understand the least because of people have a tendency to project what they want on her. For Americans and Europeans, Princess Ka'iulani represented an exotic Barbie-doll like princess in a doomed Polynesian kingom. For Hawaiians, she had come to represent a beautiful victim of haole greed who did everything she could to save the Hawaiian people from annexation by the United States. Lost between these two views is Victoria Ka'iulani, the young hapa woman barely out of her teens struggling with issues and problems that for the most part she could do very little about. Yes, she was beautiful. But there is more to her than her beauty.

One of the most persistent myths has been Princess Ka'iulani's love life. Her love life was the subject of a horrible fictional novel called April of her Age and a poorly written movie Princess Kaiulani (formerly offensively titled "The Barbarian Princess"). In both works, she is made to fall in love with a Westerner. The subtle racism involved with that framing is of course that since Princess Ka'iulani was educated and beautiful, it would be natural for her to fall in love with a Westerner. She could not possibly be involved with another Hawaiian as Hawaiian men were just simpletons. So Princess Ka'iulani was made in most of these works as having a series of relationships or flirtations with Western men despite several of her letters openly stating how she felt about love. Princess Ka'iulani loved Europe. She loved France and the isle of Jersey. But she loved Hawai'i more. So much so she that during her first year of studying, she would have dreams of being back at 'Ainahau and would wake up crying. When she recieved news about her aunt being deposed, she began to get migraines and became increasingly thin. Like many Native Hawaiians in our diasporo, she craved the fish and poi of her homeland and like many Native Hawaiians abroad, her nationalism became increasingly deep seated. She shared many of these feelings and intimate thoughts with only three people--her "Mama Mo'i" (Queen Kapi'olani), "Koa" (Prince David Kawananakoa), and Baron Toby de Courcy.

Princess Ka'iulani first became interested in Koa when she first arrived in England. Koa was completing his studies as Princess Ka'iulani was beginning hers. He toured her around London and they began to exchange letters. In time, feelings grew. However, they had kept things underwraps because of Princess Ka'iulani's age but also because Prince David Kawananakoa was expected to marry someone else. Then with the political problems in 1892 and 1893, the situation took a turn for the worst. However, it was public knowledge that Prince Kawananakoa and Princess Ka'iulani were going to be married at some point but the Queen needed to consent or else both of them would be removed from the line of succession. However, another problem arose. The relationship between the Queen and Princess Ka'iulani was shaky because of the relationship between Archibald Cleghorn and the Queen. Archibald Cleghorn turned on the Queen the very next day after the Provisional Government assumed power. He persistenly said in newspapers and to Lorrin Thurston that his daughter should be queen. That's why in letters from the Queen to Princess Ka'iulani, she constantly told her niece that she was not to accept any offers for the Hawaiian throne. When Princess Ka'iulani arrived in Washington DC before the Commission of the Hawaiian Government in Exile did, it made matters even worst. The other issue the Queen probably had in mind at the time was the fact that Archibal Cleghorn owed his wealth to his late wife and his daughter and should Princess Ka'iulani marry Prince Kawananakoa and produce another heir, he would be the grandfather of the future royal family. Something that probably scared her.

When Princess Ka'iulani achieved some popularity in the American press, the enemies of the monarchy then began to spring into action by trying to cast Princess Ka'iulani as essentially "easy" by printing engagement notices it seems every month and nearly all of them it was alleged she was engaged with a Caucasian man. This type of press no doubt hurt Princess Ka'iulani and Prince Kawananakoa. You will note however that nearly no Hawai'i paper did the same because it was a well known secret. In 1895, Princess Ka'iulani proached the subject of marriage to her aunt and her aunt responded by listing three candidates--a Japanese prince, Prince David Kawananakoa, and Prince Jonah Kalaniana'ole. The Queen knew about the relationship between the prince and the princess but being that she was caught up in the political problems of her homeland, she hoped that the Princess might put aside her feelings and marry for political expediency. This is why the Princess' reply stated that she could have been married to a wealthy German baron but would prefer to marry for love (again hinting). On the part of Princess Ka'iulani, she probably was also trying to hint to the Queen to announce the engagement herself because her father did not have a favorable opinion of Hawaiians and Prince David Kawananakoa, despite his English accent, was still a Hawaiian. If the Queen could announce the engagement, then her father would have no choice to accept it. But alas, it seems that the subtle hints were lost on each other.

Sometime in January of 1898, the plans became final. Informally, it was said that Prince Kawananakoa formally asked for Princess Ka'iulani's hand in marriage on January 21 of that year--the anniversary of Queen Lili'uokalani's ascension--on the Big Island of Hawai'i. It was announced in public in February as both parties began the task of gaining the consent of both families. Archibald Cleghorn may or may not have agreed to give his consent and the relationship between him and his daughter became quite frosty as letters have shown. Prince David Kawananakoa recieved the consent of the Queen and proceeded to gain the consent of his adopted mother, Queen Kapi'olani.


The Ka'iulani Engagement Necklace

We know that this engagement was the real deal because of the exchange of gifts that began to arrive. One of the engagement presents that arrived for Princess Ka'iulani was a diamond necklace from "Mama Mo'i". The diamond necklace was originally a gift from King Kalakaua to Queen Kapi'olani for their wedding anniversary. Princess Ka'iulani did not like heavy jewelry so she replaced the silver chain with a triple strain of pearls. After the death of Princess Ka'iulani, the necklace was returned to Prince David Kawananakoa and then inherited by his wife, Abigail Campbel Kawananakoa and then later placed under the care of the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Other known engagement gifts included silverware, clothing, feathers, food, and land. One of the reasons why Princess Ka'iulani kept going to the Parker Ranch on the Big Island was to spend time with "Koa" who always accompanied her. There is also a number of photographs of Princess Ka'iulani where "Koa" is always next to her.

The 1898 "Annexation" Protest

'Ainahau 1898

In fact, it is claimed that her last words might have been "Koa" not "Papa" as noted in a few books. When Princess Ka'iulani passed away, it was Prince David Kawananakoa who paid for her funeral expenses. This is also one of the reasons why the Cleghorn family for the most part was not particularly welcomed at Washington Place after 1898.

Throughout their engagement, the American press continued to mount engagement notices every month. It had gotten so bad that even former pro-Republic of Hawai'i newspapers began to protest. One of the most frequent rumors was started by an American newspaper reporter named Andrew Adams who worked briefly in Hawai'i and claimed he was engaged to Princess Ka'iulani. The Hawaiian Star, an anti-monarchy newspaper that had originally employed Andrew Adams printed several apologies to Princess Ka'iulani and denounced Andrew Adams for trying to use Princess Ka'iulani to make a name for himself.

Another constantly rumored suitor was Clive Davies who is featured in the movie, Princess Ka'iulani, and whose father, Theo Davies, was pushing his business partner Archibald Cleghorn to force Princess Ka'iulani to marry Clive so that he could make claims for the Crown Lands. How Princess Ka'iulani felt for Clive is also well known. When the Princess met with Prince Kawananakoa in New York in 1893 and was reproached, she slowly began to disassociate herself from the Davies family including moving in with her former teacher in Brighton, England. When the Princess arrived back in Honolulu and found out that the Davies family were involved with the Annexation Club, she had no further contact with them and she in public scolded her father during a lu'au for betraying his adopted country.

Rethinking the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement: Part 1

2012-01-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

Rethinking the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement: Part 1

Progressive history in Hawai'i has its modern roots from the 1880s, though dissent movements can be found in pre-unification (pre-1810) Hawaiian history such as the 17th century anti-ali'i priest Kaopulupulu. The Kamehameha Dynasty (1810-1872), which shaped Hawai'i's early constitutional history, was conservative in its outlook due to the influence of the Calvinist missionaries, the landed ali'i (chiefs), and Britain itself. However, it was also keenly aware of the issues poorer Native Hawaiians faced and tried to maintain traditional Hawaiian paternalism both politically and economically. The last king of the dynasty, Kamehameha V, tried to make greater reforms than his predecessors and his reign was marked by the emergence of a fiercely nationalistic press. With the election of a new king, Lunalilo, in 1872, Native Hawaiians for the first time felt empowered. King Lunalilo was the first Hawaiian head of state to achieve that position by a referendum and not by conquest or the accident of his birth. When he died a year later, the Hawaiian legislature decided against having a referendum and elected a new by themselves, King Kalakaua. They had every legal right to do so, the referendum that occurred in 1872 was extra-constitutional. But it led Hawaiians particularly those who were members of the party of the opposing candidate, Queen-Dowager Emma, to feel cheated and voiceless. This led to rioting and King Kalakaua spent the early part of his reign trying to smooth ties between him and Queen-Dowager Emma--which for the most part was unsuccessful.

After the king's world tour in 1881, King Kalakaua aggressively pursued a nationalist agenda which included sending Hawaiians abroad to learn modern industries and the construction of several monuments. This had the effect that Native Hawaiians began to become more politically organized and in the later part of the 1880s, political parties and labor unions were formed. This ironically had the effect that the resident aliens in Hawai'i began to increasingly use anti-democratic means to attain their goals by organized militias against the new nationalist movement. Eventually things came to a head in the reign of Queen Lili'uokalani where a monarch with strong liberal and nationalistic tendencies was deposed by the US military who supported a rightist group dominated by European and American sugar plantation owners.

From the governance styles of the Kamehameha and Kalakaua dynasties, one can see the two trends that continue to exist in Native Hawaiian political organizations and movements. The Kamehameha dynasty approach emphasized moderate calculated top to bottom reforms and a Eurocentric view of the world. It also emphasized the role of ali'i as the guardians of Hawaiian culture. On the other hand, there was the Kalakaua approach which emphasized assertive nationalism, industrialization, equal political representation, secularism, anti-colonialism, and a Pan-Pacific, Pan-Oceania and Pan-Asian world view. The role of the ali'i was also very different under Kalakaua. The king organized the remaining major ali'i of his time under the Hale Naua which simply was not to preserve Hawaiian culture, but to study science and to rejuvenate Hawaiian culture including modernizing it.

Emma 'Ailima Nawahi

Princess Abigail Campbell Kawananakoa

After the coup in 1893 and subsequent occupation and illegal annexation in 1898, Hawaiians still continued to organize along the lines mentioned above. The Home Rule Party represented the more nationalistic tendencies that permeated during the Kalakaua era while the Republican and Democratic parties represented the tendencies of the Kamehameha era. The era of political involvement by Native Hawaiians in the early 20th century can also be personified by two part-Hawaiian women: Princess Abigail Campbell Kawananakoa and Emma Nawahi. Emma Nawahi was a journalist from a middle class upbringing and the widow of famed Hawaiian National Liberal Party president, Joseph Nawahi. She was a major force in the Home Rule and later Democratic Party challenging the sugar plantation oligarchy. She also challenged the ali'i of the time and strong ties with unions. She was an heir to the more assertive nationalism of the Kalakaua era. The widow of Prince David Kawananakoa, Abigail Campbell Kawananakoa, on the other hand was a dedicated member of the Republican Party and considered to be one of the wealthiest women in the Pacific. Her sense of being Hawaiian was more in line with the thinking of Kamehameha III than her husband who was a member of the Kalakaua dynasty. She believed in gradual reforms and working within the legal system though at times she voiced her deep frustration at the oligarchy particularly during the Massie Trials. Although politically, these two women shared radically different views, they cooperated on a number of "bread and butter" issues including on the Hawaiian Homelands Act and on the visit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Hawai'i which was the beginning of the restoration of 'Iolani Palace. Both women also shared another deep seated desire--re-independence--though for Abigail Kawananakoa this meant going through a Commonwealth process like the Philippines and for Emma Nawahi this meant the US just leaving. However with the imposed statehood compact in 1959, these options it seemed grew dimmer.

In 1969, conservative Hawaiian elements had formed a group called ALOHA (Aboriginal Lands of Hawaiian Ancestry) which did not seek sovereignty but sought cash and land. They like nearly all Hawaiian groups until now, had no real mass or grassroots support but had some support of middle class and upper class Hawaiians. Native Hawaiians had a class oriented (some would say "caste-like") society well before Captain Cook so Native Hawaiians for the most part accepted the traditional leadership of the ali'i and the kupuna (elders). This orientation for the most part is one of the reasons why in general the Native Hawaiian community can be seen as being much more politically conservative for that era when it comes to asserting their rights as compared to African-Africans or Latinos. Also due to the conservative nature of Hawaiian society of that time as well as the Americanization programs, the vast majority of Native Hawaiians were not involved with the Communist Party of Hawai'i which was very active throughout the 1930s until 1950s and which actually advocated for Hawaiian independence. In fact, Native Hawaiians were among the most anti-communist and anti-left ethnic groups in Hawai'i as noted by the "Hawai'i 7". This is despite the fact that Hawaiians were the model "Polynesians" used by Karl Marx for his "punalua" economic system and that the Hawaiian National Liberal Party and the Hawaiian National Reform Party, both chartered in 1891, were both center-left social democratic organizations.

But that slowly began to change. In the 1970s, there was a wave of anti-development, anti-military and radical movements in Hawai'i which was inspired and linked to the UH Ethnic Studies struggle, African-American Civil Rights Movement, the Native American Civil Rights Movement, and Anti-Vietnam War demonstrators. The new state governments, the municipal government, and other land developers were having trouble with the native and local population particular in Waikiki, Downtown Honolulu and Chinatown where elderly and economically marginalized people were being evicted to make way for high rises and hotels. The younger generation of Native Hawaiians, began to directly re-occupying ancestral lands which were taken by the United States when it decided that the Hawaiian Monarchy needed to be replaced. They also challenged Hawaiian institutions like Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate who was removing local people and native Hawaiians for development purposes, particularly notable was Kalama Valley. Many Native Hawaiians and local people began to question the state-written history on how they became American in the first place and that's when more progressive and liberal perspective began to emerge within Hawaiian issues. In 1976, Kimo Mitchell and George Helm--two young men who did not come from the privledged Hawaiian classes and did not claim to be ali'i--went to the island of Kaho'olawe to stop the naval destruction of the island. They were among the first in the later part of the 20th century to articulate a Hawaiianize a progressive political agenda and they openly called for "huli" which could be interpreted as change or revolution. Both men would mysteriously disappear while trying to attempt to cross to Maui from the island of Kaho'olawe in 1977. In 1978, the Hokule'a began its historic voyage showcasing that Hawaiians were once a great maritime people and served in a way to remind Hawaiians of the Pan-Pacific vision King Kalakaua once had. All of these trends began to show up in the Hawai'i State Constitutional Convention of 1978 which among other things tried to appease Native Hawaiian elements by small gestures like recognizing the Hawaiian language as an official language and teaching Hawaiian Studies in the public school system.

The flag of Ka Lahui

To make a long story short and not to sound like a gossip column, two sisters--Haunani and Mililani Trask--and their supporters who were mostly middle class college degree holding Native Hawaiians-- would form a group called "Ka Lahui Hawai'i" in 1987. They advocated gaining a nation within a nation status for Native Hawaiians similar to what existed for Native Americans. However, on paper they left the option for independence open if the United Nations would re-inscribe Hawai'i as a non-self governing territory. However, in several interviews, leaders of Ka Lahui said that independence was not a viable option because it would be tantamount to "secession". Out of the various groups beginning to emerge in the 1980s, they were no doubt the most organized with a constitution and an "ali'i branch" headed by the "Ali'i nui" Owana Salazar, a high ranking member of the ali'i. It also had a very nice flag and at first appealed to the new radicalized Hawaiian youth because it seemed like a practical way of organizing among other Native Hawaiians.

According to its own literature:

Ka Lahui is a Native initiative - it is something that developed from grassroots Hawaiians. It is based on a democratic constitution, created by Native Hawaiians. Citizenship is open to all Hawaiians and honorary citizenship is offered to non- Hawaiianss. Only full citizens can vote and hold office. The Constitution identifies four branches of govenment: the Executive, the Legislative, the Judiciary and the Ali'i Nui. Leadership is elected by the citizens of the 33 districts statewide where Hawaiians live. Provisions for initiative, referendum and recall are included in the Constitution. Ka Lahui Hawai'i is separate from the state government and controls its own internal affairs. Therefore, Ka Lahui Hawai'i is not subject to state control.1

Now, when you compare that there were people years earlier such as George Helm calling for revolution and student groups making resolutions calling for Hawaian independence, Ka Lahui's raison d'etre seems rather warm and fuzzy. In fact, it was welcomed by Senators Inouye and Akaka as being a democratic initiative--and for a Hawaiian group it was. But looking more carefully at Ka Lahui, one sees:

What is Ka Lahui Hawai'i's definition of sovereignty?The five elements of sovereignty are:
A strong and Abiding Faith in the Akua;
A people with a common culture;
A land base;
A govermnent structure;
An economic base.
Sovereignty is the ability of a people who share a common culture, religion, language, value system and land base, to exercise control over their lands and lives, independent of other nations. Self-sufficiency is the goal of nationhood. Self-sufficiency means the people are able to be self-supporting, capable of feeding, clothing and sheltering themselves. It means that they are the motive force for their own farming and pastoral projects [emphasis mine].

When you examine the fact that the Hawaiian Kingdom had been moving towards secularization since the reign of Kamehameha IV and King Kalakaua had tried to change the Hawaiian Penal Code to be more inclusive of other beliefs, one realizes that Ka Lahui's definition of sovereignty is based on the definition of sovereignty that Kuhina Nui Ka'ahumanu and Kina'u tried to impose on the people--a definition that allowed the hula to be banned by and had almost brought Hawai'i under French rule. In addition, when you think about "common culture" and "Abiding Faith in the Akua", does that mean that Hawaiians who are say Buddhist or are with the traditional religion do not share a common culture? Who measures "strong and abiding"? Would the Ali'i Nui have a set of torture devices to determine that? I know some Hawaiians who are knowledgeable about the culture but are atheists. Does that mean they are excluded from exercising sovereignty? E hiki no 4 i waho 5? Can a person just have 4 out of 5 of that criteria? Even in the old Kingdom constitutions, it clearly says "All men are free to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience". The Ka Lahui embodiment of sovereignty even goes beyond what Hawaiian constitutions declared about religion. You know you have a retrograde line of thinking if even by the standards of the 1880s when Hawaiian Kingdom didn't require something as a "strong and abiding in the Akua".It almost makes one think of the Monty Pathon's skit on the Spanish Inquisition. I, also, do not have an issue with religion but I do not believe a state should impose a deity or religion on its citizens. People should be free to practice their own religion without a state declaring what religion or belief they must adhere to.

One of the more liberal nation-states that emerged from colonialism in the Pacific--which is not saying much considering most of the Pacific are still colonies or have state churches--was Indonesia. When Indonesia was fighting for its independence, its first president created the Pancasila or Five Core Principles of Unity in 1945. These were:

Nationalism
Internationalism, meaning Indonesia is to appreciate human rights and contribute to world peace, and should not fall into chauvinistic fascism or racism.
Democracy, which Sukarno believed has always been in the blood of Indonesians through the practice of consensus-seeking (musyawarah untuk mufakat), an Indonesian-style democracy different from Western-style liberalism.
Social justice, a form of populist socialism in economics in opposition to free capitalism which tended to favor foreign interests including the Dutch and the Chinese.
Belief in God (Maha Esa, sometimes translated as a Higher Power), whereby all religions are treated equally and have religious freedom.

It should be noted that Indonesia's first president was not particularly happy with Number 5 but gave in because of pressure from Muslim groups. Now when you compare how Ka Lahui's Defination of Sovereignty versus Indonesia's Principles of Unity seem what it really is---a rightist attempt at trying to appeal to Native Hawaiians who were asserting a national consciousness. When you compare the Definiation of Sovereignty versus what 19th century Hawaiian newspapers were saying, again, the principles comes out as rightist and pro-establishment.In essence. Ka Lahui's points seem to be at best a compromise between the radicalized youth and the traditional Hawaiian leaders or at worst an attempt to bring back conservative elements of the Hawaiian community into a new framework--which was originally created by more progressive Hawaiians--and to tone down Hawaiian independence activism.

Then comes the line about economic base. The last line makes it clear that the economic base would be on self-sufficiency through "their own farming projects". Most 3rd world countries are agricultural since they serve as the primary source of raw materials and labor resources. The Philippines has some of the most fertile lands in the world and is primarily an agricultural country. It also suffers from a serious brain drain as skilled workers have no choice but to seek non-agricultural higher paying employment abroad and its agricultural export is not enough to cover its manufactured imports therefore the government is chronically in debt (not to mention the rampart corruption and the lack of effective tax collection on the rich). I'm not against agricultural production. But Hawaiians, we need engineers, computer IT experts, doctors, and nurses as well as taro planters and fishermen. We also need manufactured goods like say toothpaste and AA batteries which we can't produce in Hawai'i because we have no industrialization. Anyone who truly loves Hawai'i knows that we can simply be an agricultural country. It must have other industries and must be more "green" efficient. We can be simply consumers of Japanese and American goods. We need to be producers. We need to be owners while at the same time staying true to our traditional sensibilities about nature and social justice. If we are to be agricultural, we also need to consider that small scale agriculture normally is not enough. What makes the agricutlural more successful in countries like Thailand and South Korea is when its linked with land reforms and when the the farmers are part of a larger agricultural unit or community where labor, tools, supplies, access to markets (to limit competition and overproduction) are all shared and when the internal demand for such products is high. Ka Lahui did not envision that. It envisioned getting people on the land and making them farmers and then hopefully that strong and abiding faith will come in handy.

To be fair with Ka Lahui, it never got a chance to really develop anything further in terms of economic planning because it never got any land. It was successful in gaining international attention (well mostly the sisters were successful in gaining international attention) including winning a seat at the Un-represented People's Organization (UNPO). It was also successful in some of its lobbying efforts in the State Legislature. At its peak, it had over 27,000 "citizens" or members. Every Hawaiian activist that I know of was a "citizen". I was a "citizen" and attended their meetings at Kaumakapili Church. Even my "mother" was a citizen. However, for many, the problem with Ka Lahui still affects many Hawaiian organizations today. When someone signed up to be a "citizen", they were rarely ever contacted again unless they were related to someone who held a leadership position in Ka Lahui or had some fame. Ordinary people were basically tasked to be warm bodies on their rosters and rallies. It also had an advantage that no other Hawaiian sovereignty group had--the use of public facilities from the University of Hawai'i:

9. Do you want to learn more about Ka Lahui Hawai'i or the modern Hawaiian movement for sovereignty?

For more information, please call the Center for Hawaiian Studies at 808-956-6825 or write to:
The Center for Hawaiian Studies,
School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies,
1890 East-West Road,
Moore Hall 428,
University of Hawai'i
Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 (2)

The other problem also began to emerge within Ka Lahui with the appeal of independence which began to gain more momentum incidentally because of new readings of Hawaiian history (such as the republication of Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen) and because in some way, a frustration with Ka Lahui itself. For more progressive and liberal Native Hawaiians, they felt that the rhetoric of its three key leaders--Lilikala K. Kame'eleihiwa, Mililani Trask, and Haunani-Kay Trask--sounded progressive but what Ka Lahui was actually doing was conservative. A person once told me that they coined the term "Left in Rhetoric, Right in Essence" after attending a Ka Lahui meeting. Another former Ka Lahui female member remarked to me before that they felt that Ka Lahui was a "matriarchal personality cult". The other two problems many say about Ka Lahui was the perceived arrogance of its leaders and that many were seeing that a nation-within-a-nation could be a tragic mistake for Native Hawaiians. An aunt of mine who was involved with Ka Lahui told me she quit Ka Lahui because she believed that a nation-within-a-nation model would be a "second overthrow" binding Hawaiians closer to the US Federal Government. I also eventually quit Ka Lahui because as a youth at that time, I didn't see any point in being involved and independence began to appeal to me. Others thought that Ka Lahui was too much of an "ethnic nationalist" organization and strongly disliked how their members claimed to be the Hawaiian nation and their positions were the only ones endorsed by Hawaiians. But the basic structure and the way Ka Lahui handled other Hawaiian organizations would rub off on other sovereignty organizations.

Shortly after Ka Lahui was formed, more land occupations occurred including in Makua Valley and Makapu'u. These occupations would have an impact on the independence movement.

New Video: The Blood in the Sugar: US Regime Change in Hawai'i

2012-01-04T00:21:00.000-08:00

Kingmakers: The Coronation of King Kalakaua

2011-11-21T23:06:00.000-08:00

In many textbooks and books it is often said that King Kalakaua crowned himself in the style of Napoleon. That is to say that he placed the Crown on his own head. The following illustration from the Illustrated London Daily News from Kristen Zambucka's book, Kalakaua: Hawai'i's Last King, elegantly depicts that occasion.

Ralph Kuykendall's work, The Hawaiian Kingdom Volume III, says the following:

The ceremony began about eleven o'clock in the morning. The official procession moved from the palace into the pavilion as the choir sang the hymn, "Almighty Father, Hear! The Isles do Wait on Thee." The marshal of the kingdom declared Kalakaua's accession to the throne, his style and titles, after which the Puloulou, Palaoa, and Kahili were presented to the king by the Princess Poomaikelani, sister of Queen Kapiolani. The chancellor, Chief Justice A. F. Judd, then administered the oath to the king, and placed in his hands the Sword of State, "Ensign of Justice and Mercy." The chancellor received from Princess Kekaulike the Royal Mantle and placed it on the king's shoulders "as the Ensign of Knowledge and Wisdom"; he placed the Ring, "Ensign of Kingly Dignity," on the fourth finger of Kalakaua's right hand, and delivered to him the Sceptre, "Ensign of Kingly Power and Justice." The supreme moment had now come. Prince Kawananakoa advanced with the Crowns while the choir sang, "Almighty Father! We Do Bring Gold and Gems for the King." President Godfrey Rhodes of the Legislative Assembly took the king's crown, raised it up before the people, and handed it to the chancellor who in turn handed it to the king, saying, "Receive this Crown of pure gold to adorn the high station wherein thou hast been placed." The king lifted the Crown and placed it on his head. The second Crown was handed to the king and he placed it on the queen's head, saying, "I place this Crown upon your head, to share the honors of my throne." As the royal couple knelt, the household chaplain, the Reverend Alexander Mackintosh, offered a prayer. The royal couple resumed their seats; a salvo of guns was fired from the battery on shore and from the warships in the harbor; the choir sang the anthem, "Cry Out O Isles with Joy!" The ceremony was over; the royal party returned to the palace as the Royal Hawaiian Band played Meyerbeer's 'Coronation March.' (263)

A cursory look at various websites repeats the following:

Kalakaua's coronation

Impressed with court ritual he witnessed on his 1881 world tour, King Kalakaua wished to imbue his own reign with a similar ceremonial presence. On the ninth anniversary of his election to the throne, he staged a coronation in front of the recently-completed 'Iolani Palace. With no one of higher rank present in the Islands, Kalakaua placed a jeweled crown on his own head, then crowned his queen, Kapi'olani. In addition to assuming other Western-style insignia of the monarchy - a sword, ring and scepter - Kalakaua was presented with traditional items belonging to ruling Hawaiian chiefs: the feather cloak of Kamehameha I, the kahili (standard) of Pili, and the pulo'ulo'u (kapu stick) and lei palaoa (whale tooth pendant) of his ali'i ancestors.
http://hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&PageID=307&returntoname=Short%20Stories&returntopageid=483

But is this accurate? According to the coronation planners, it may not have been. The person who was put in charge of the overall coronation ceremony was the then Crown Princess Lili'uokalani who then created a committee which included Curtis 'Iaukea, Princess Po'omaikelani, Princess Kekaulike, and Minister John Kapena. During the coronation itself, Minister John Kapena escorted several members of the Japanese Imperial Household Department who were sent as personal envoys of the Emperor to attend the coronation of his "dear friend". As an interesting side note, the Japanese Emperor also asked if the Hawaiian ambassador in Tokyo who was actually an American, be replaced with a Native Hawaiian, as the Emperor desired to know more about Hawaiian culture.

According to Queen Lili'uokalani in Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen, the coronation program actually went more like this:

Promptly at the appointed time His Majesty Kalakaua, King of the Hawaiian Islands, accompanied by Her Majesty, Kapiolani, his queen, made their appearance. I give the order of the procession to the royal pavilion. Princess Kekaulike, bearing the royal feather cloak, and with her the Princess Poomaikalani; then the Princess Likelike, with the child-princess Kaiulani, and her father, Hon. A. S. Cleghorn; Governor Dominis, and myself; we were all attended by our kahili bearers, and those ancient staffs of royalty were held aloft at our sides. Then followed Prince Kaiwananakoa, bearing one of the crowns, and Prince Kalaniaanole bearing the other crown, succeeded by two others of noble birth and lineage bearing insignia of royalty of either native or traditional usage, the tabu sticks, the sceptre, and ring. Then came Their Majesties the King and Queen, attended by their kahili bearers, who stationed themselves just inside the pavilion. As the royal party entered, the queen was immediately attended by her ladies in waiting, eight in number, all attired in black velvet trimmed with white satin. The long and handsome train of Her Majesty's robe was carried by two ladies high rank and of noble lineage, Keano and Kekaulike.

The Ceremonies were opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. Mackintosh; and then followed one of those coincidences which are so striking on any such occasion, and was certainly noticed as one of the most beautiful incidents of the day. In the very act of prayer, just as he put forth his hand to lift the crown, before placing it on the brow of the king; a mist, or cloud, such as may gather very quickly in our tropical climate, was seen to pass over the sun, obscuring its light for a few minutes; then at the moment when the king was crowned there appeared, shining so brilliantly as to attract general attention, a single star. It was noticed by the entire multitude assembled to witness the pageant, and a murmur of wonder and admiration passed over the throng. The ceremonies proceeded with due solemnity, and the whole scene was very impressive and not to be forgotten. At its close the company retired to the palace in the same order as that in which it had come forth; and the day ceremonies being over the crowd dispersed, retiring to rest from the fatigues and excitements of the day, so as to be able to enter with zest into the festivities of the evening, as a grand ball was to be given at the palace. Indeed, the entire grounds were given up to pleasure such as can only be fully imagined by those who have actually mingled with a happy people in the festivities of a tropical night.
Throughout the week one diversion followed another; until, with citizens and visitors almost surfeited with merrymaking, it came to an end, and Honolulu once more settled down to its every-day quiet and routine. Certainly the coronation celebration had been a great success. (102-103)

You will notice something in the two accounts. In the Kuykendall account (which is taken from solely from one newspaper account, the Lorrin Thurston owned Honolulu Advertiser), it is Caucasians who are playing king-maker and King Kalakaua is crowned a la Napoleon. In the Queen's account, it is a ceremony where Native Hawaiian members of the nobility (ali'i) are re-affirming the kingship of Kalakaua with the Reverend of the Hawaiian Anglican Church placing the crown on the king's head who is kneeling in prayer. In the account of Special Imperial Envoy of the Emperor of Japan to the coronation and Vice-Minister of the Japanese Imperial Household, Mr. Sugi Magoshichiro, confirms the Queen's account that the Crown was placed on the king's head by who then stood up, turned around to the audience, and then crowned his consort, Queen Kapi'olani. Two accounts, same event.

Such differences in the retelling of Hawaiian history may seem trivial for some, but they clue us on the perspective of the writer which in turn directly impacts how Hawaiian history is taught.

The Opium Trade in Hawai'i

2011-10-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

When the British began to trade with China, they found that the Chinese had little desire for British products. So Queen Victoria's Britain began to import opium into China. When the Chinese Emperor tried to stop the drug trade, the British declared war and ended up not only imposing the sale of opium on the Chinese but took Hong Kong as "compensation" for the war itself.

When Chinese migration began to come in massive numbers to Hawai'i beginning in the 1850s, British and American merchants began to sale opium. Those selling opium included members of missionary families and many of the members of the "Honolulu Rifles" who in 1887 would impose the Bayonet Constitution. In the Queen's autobiography, Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen, she names three prominent opium dealers: William Fessenden Allen (cousin of Charles Reed Bishop), Henry Waterhouse, and George Parks (p241). In fact, some of the "Big Five" may have used opium money to start their businesses. Charles Reed Bishop through his partnership with William Aldrich, a known opium and "assorted dry goods" merchant, engaged in opium trade as well. However, by the 1860s, it was not merely Chinese who were buying opium, but it was also Native Hawaiians including some prominent ali'i.

The National Legislature of 1873 (which has the distinction of being a legislature that was opened by one king--King Lunalilo--and prorogued by another--King Kalākaua) made the sale of opium illegal except for medicinal purposes (Kuykendall, the Hawaiian Kingdom, Vol.3 p192). The reason for the latter exception on opium for medicinal purposes was that opium, specifically opium mixed with citrus in a pill form, was commonly used for the treatment of insomnia, sexual problems, and for relieving pain during and after surgery. However, it was highly addicting and despite the ban, opium was still sold in pharmacies and smuggled in. Kaho'olawe was a notorious opium smuggling hub for opium and alcohol in the 19th century and certain Christian missions (particularly on the islands of Hawai'i and Maui) accepted donations from known opium smugglers and dealers.

During the short ministry of Cesar Moreno, the opium issue was resurrected. According to Kuykendall's Hawaiian Kingdom Volume 3:

Another subject in which Moreno was much interested, because of his Chinese connections, wasopium, the liberalization of Hawaii's strict laws on that subject, and a plan to make Honolulu the opium processing and distribution center for the whole Pacific area. Early in the session a bill was introduced to authorize the importation and sale of opium to Chinese only; two licenses were to be sold at an upset price of $60,000 each. On July 9 this bill was passed on its third reading. In the last week of July, Moreno's lobbying activities came to a climax. On the twenty-fourth, a bill was introduced to authorize the importation, manufacture, exportation, and sale of opium; there was to be one license, for two years, to Chinese only, at an upset price of $120,000. On the twenty-seventh, a motion was made to insert in the appropriation bill an item of $24,000 for a subsidy to the Chinese steamship company; it was defeated by a vote of 18 to 17. The next day a motion for reconsideration was adopted, and after a brief debate, the subsidy item was approved by a vote of 25 to 14.25 On this item, Minister of Finance Kaai deserted his ministerial colleagues. He had agreed to vote against it, but instead not only voted but spoke for the subsidy. Asked for an explanation, Kaai said he voted as he did at the direct command of the king, and he showed a letter from the king to justify his statement.26 Commenting on the legislature's reversal of its earlier decision, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser charged that the result was procured "by open and wholesale bribery," and said, "The indignation of the public at the part played by a certain impecunious adventurer in the case is great. . . . His boasted power to oust the Ministry, and his assumption of prescience in regard to Regal acts may satisfy his egotism, but will never enhance the brilliance of his fame, or add one tittle to his influence. He has been measured by a discriminating community, and their estimate of him is small . . . the public will be heartily glad at the opportunity to bid him an everlasting farewell."27 On July 30 the opium bill, which had been introduced six days before, came up for third reading and was passed.28 In regard to this action and the passage of the subsidy for the Chinese steamship company, the American minister wrote, "It was at once charged and not disputed that Mr. Moreno had secured these results by the use of money in the lobby," the money having been provided by certain Chinese merchants of Honolulu.29 To the credit of the king, he vetoed both of the opium bills here mentioned; but he signed a third bill which amended the existing law restricting the importation and sale of opium.30 (p210-211)

What Kuykendall does not discuss is that one of the major reasons why some had actually voted for the opium bill was because by legalizing the trade, it would take away income from certain prominent American and British businessmen similar to how Prohibition in the US made alcohol distributors ("bootleggers") quite wealthy.

In 1886, the National Legislature passed the "Opium Act of 1886" to legalize the sale, importation, and production of opium providing that it were to be licensed (therefore taxed) and Native Hawaiians and Japanese were forbidden from buying any of it. The King and the Cabinet would be responsible for the public auctioning of two licenses per year starting at a minimal bid of $40,000. A Chinese sugar planter and merchant, T. Aki, offered a "gift" of $75,000 to King Kalākaua in exchange for a successful bidding on one of the licenses. Kalākaua accepted $71,000 with the additional $4,000 to be paid after the license was given. When Kalākaua awarded the bid to someone else, Aki sued Kalākaua and won. When the public found out about this scandal, there was a huge uproar. Even the heir-apparent, Princess Lili'uokalani was shocked with her brother. The bribery case of Kalākaua along with the missteps in Samoa and the other spending projects of the King were the basic excuses that the "Hawaiian League" (which had no Native Hawaiians in it) would use in forming the "Honolulu Rifles" to impose the Bayonet Constitution. In the aftermath, a new "reform" Legislature was elected and the Opium Act of 1886 was scrapped.

However, the topic of opium did not die there. In 1892, Opposition Representatives Kaunamano, Ashford, and White all submitted bills to legalize opium and during the Committee hearings, it came out that members of the police, the Hawaiian League, and others were secretly involved in and profiting from the opium trade (Kuykendall, Volume 3, p545-546). With that revelation, a consolidated opium bill was passed before the closing of the Legislature of 1892 (which ended in 1893). American and British businessmen would accuse the Queen of having lax morals and the passage of the new Opium Act of 1892 would be one of the excuses the Committee of 13 (formerly the Hawaiian League) would use to depose her.

According to the Queen, however, whatever her personal feelings were towards opium, she had no choice in signing the law because she no longer had the veto power due to the Bayonet Constitution. In Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen, she explains:

I proposed to issue licenses for the importation and sale of opium. I did think it would be wise to adopt measures for restricting and controlling a trade which it is impossible to suppress. With a Chinese population of over twenty thousand persons, it is absolutely impossible to prevent smuggling, unlawful trade, bribery, corruption, and every abuse. There were more scandals connected with the opium traffic than I have the time to notice here. Some of the most prominent citizens have been connected with these affairs, and frauds have been unearthed even in the custom-house itself. The names of Mr. Parks, of Mr. W. F. Allen, and more recently of Mr. Henry Waterhouse, have been associated with some very questionable dealings in this drug; and it may be doubted whether the practice of hushing up such matters is favorable to good morals in any community. The Provisional Government seems to have had no scruples in the matter; for the sons of the missionaries exported a large quantity of confiscated opium, and sold it for fifty thousand dollars in British Columbia.

The British government has long since adopted license instead of prohibition, and the statute proposed among the final acts of my government was drawn from one in use in the British colonies; yet I have still to learn that there has been any proposition on the part of the pious people of London to dethrone Her Majesty Queen Victoria for issuing such licenses.(241)

The Queen also forgot to mention that her brother-in-law, Archibald Cleghorn, the custom house chief and governor of O'ahu was implicated but that is another story.

Hawaiians in the P.G.

2011-10-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

One of the topics that is often discouraged is the topic of Native Hawaiian collaboration with the Protectorate Government (note: it should actually be called Protectorate not Provisional Government because the Provisional Government collapsed 15 days after its formation and was saved by US Minister John Stevens through his proclamation of the Protectorate Government) or P.G. and Republican governments. Hawaiian civic leaders, certain departments at UH-Manoa, and some sovereignty activists in general would prefer to not to discuss the role played by Native Hawaiians within the two de facto governments because: Firstly, many of the Hawaiian leadership today are related to those who collaborated against the Queen; Secondly, it removes the image that all Native Hawaiians were victims of the P.G. and the Republic; and, lastly, it shatters their idealized image that all Native Hawaiians are the same and therefore all Native Hawaiians heroically fought against the Dole regime.

Many did heroically fight against Dole and annexation but there are several unpleasant realities to that fact. Native Hawaiian resistance to the Dole regime was particularly strong in the rural areas and by the economically marginalized classes but among the upper class and urban areas, it was lax and in some cases collaborationist particularly in Honolulu. Resistance was also very strong among the Chinese merchants, Japanese plantation workers, as well as liberal American and European residents. The evidence for this can be seen in the lists of arrests that were made in the aftermath of the Uprising of 1895.

On the flip side to this, the ones who were making the arrests throughout the P.G. and Republic eras were mostly Native Hawaiian policemen--all of whom were from the former Hawaiian Royal Constabulary--while the National Guard of the Republic were purposely composed of mostly illiterate Portuguese with a few Native Hawaiians officers who had previously served in the Royal Household Troop of the Queen. The 1895 Uprising actually failed because of Native Hawaiian spies under Captain Robert Waipa Parker. It was Parker's men who arrested Joseph Nawahi in December of 1894. The Queen in her autobiography, Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen, relates that Captain Parker was one of the ones who arrested her (p267). Another part-Hawaiian Charles B. Wilson, who was a member of one of the Queen's cabinets, was the one who asked the Queen to sign her abdication (p267) and was reporting back to Dole on the Queen's activities (including the secret newspaper clippings) (p291). Likewise, some of those who were arrested and tortured by the Republic of Hawai'i were not just Native Hawaiian leaders like Joseph Nawahi. But those arrested included several American journalists and Europeans who supported the Queen. According to many Chinese, the burning of Chinatown by Governor Stanford Dole years after the 1893 coup was his collective punishment on the Chinese because of their support of the Queen's government which shows you that Native Hawaiians were not the "only victims" but even many Chinese, British and Roman Catholics were also punished for their loyalty.

A high ranking royalist who became a supporter of the P.G. and Republican government early on was Colonel Curtis 'Iaukea. 'Iaukea had been brought into the royal court under Kamehameha III and had served under King Kalākaua and Queen Lili'uokalani in diplomatic and administrative posts. Less than eight months after the January 17th coup, he was appointed as a Prison Inspector under Dole--the first of seven positions he would hold under the Dole regime. In his autobiography, By Royal Command, 'Iaukea makes it appear that he held only one position throughout the Dole regime and did so out of economic necessity (p197). This is actually untrue. As mentioned before he held no less than 7 appointments and received a salary for each position. One of his positions was as a sub-agent of Public Lands (read Crown Lands) and through his position, he acquired lands in Pearl Harbor (p198) and was responsible for selling Crown Lands.

Colonel Curtis 'Iaukea was also the Secretary and Military Attache to Stanford Dole and went with Dole to Washington, D.C. to lobby for annexation with President McKinley in 1898. The year before that, in 1897, he was the secretary to Foreign Minister Samuel Damon and accompanied Damon to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in that year. He was therefore instrumental in putting a "Hawaiian face" to the Republic's propaganda machine in Europe and personally assured Queen Victoria that the Republic was a legitimate government. The Queen was so upset with 'Iaukea that she did not speak to him for 12 years (as noted in Curtis 'Iaukea's book, By Royal Command, p215). But by then, the Queen had to rely on 'Iaukea because of the intense mistrust she developed towards Prince Kuhio and other "royalists".

A. Kunuiakea

But one of the early defectors to the P.G. side was actually Albert Kunuiakea, the illegitimate son of Kamehameha III. According to this oath of allegiance to the new government a week after the Queen was deposed and was later a member of the Constitution Convention and Legislaturer under the Republic. Before that, according to the Blount Report, pages 766-770, he was active in the imposition of the Bayonet Constitution of 1887. He may have also coveted the presidency of the Republic of Hawai'i after Dole's term which was to end in 1900, though Dole favored 'Iaukea as his successor. His motives are of course very clear. Denied to the succession of the Crown because he was a bastard, Kunuiakea decided to try to become president of a new republic.

The Constitutional Convention of 1894

Another interesting tidbit is the drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of Hawai'i. According to Curtis 'Iaukea in his autobiography, "By Royal Command":

Encouraged by the news brought by the Alameda that the United States Senate had 'arraigned President Cleveland for unconstitutional behavior' by his policy of interference in the internal affairs of Hawai'i and, at the same time mindful of the fact that Congress 'was fixed in its opposition to' the annexation treaty, President Dole decided a permanent form of government should be forthwith established...
The election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention had taken place in March, and convention held its first sitting on May 30th, 1894, in the court room of the Supreme Court, the former Ali'iolani Hale...The delegates consisted of 6 Native Hawaiians, 14 residents born of foreign parentage, 9 Americans, 3 British, 3 Portuguese, and 2 Germans....(p193-194)

There are several things interesting about that statement. First, it mentions that the US Senate had censored President Cleveland for the so-called "Lili'uokalani Assignment" and for "Black Week". "Black Week" and the censorship are topics that have not yet been tackled by "Kingdom groups". Second, it mentions the word "elected". The electoral database according again to 'Iaukea was 4,000 person. These were the persons who not only swore allegiance to the new Republic but had lots of money because the property qualifications were very high for its day. 'Iaukea, Kunuiakea, and the Parkers were all electors under the Republic which meant they had money. Third, the mention of Native Hawaiians who were elected to the Convention which shows that some wealthy Native Hawaiians did indeed collaborate. Fourth, the mention of American, British, Portuguese and Germans. Its understood that this meant that those Americans, British, etc were still citizens of their own country but were given denizenship (temporary citizenship something akin to a Green Card in today's language). If they had been citizens, 'Iaukea would have included them as part of the "residents born of foreign parentage". In any normal country, non-citizens would not have been allowed to be elected much less as delegates to a Constitutional Convention. That alone tells you how unpopular the Republic was with the majority of the population and no matter what the opinions might have been of the 6 Native Hawaiian delegates, they would have been outvoted 3 to 1. It sorted reminds me of that story of the Kanaky helping an injured Frenchman only to have the Frenchman return with his friends and voting to kick out the Kanaky. But then again, the Republic of Hawai'i never claimed to be a democracy within Hawai'i since to do so would have been laughable. However, the Republic still worried about opposition and the final Constitution (which was submitted to the Convention ready to be signed similar to how the Japanese would write the constitutions for some of their puppet states thirty years later) had to be approved yet again by Dole's Advisory Council.

After the approval of the Constitution, there were also several Native Hawaiians who were "elected" to the Legislature and several who served in diplomatic missions. One of them was of course 'Iaukea. The Queen in her trial had to make it a point to forgive those who had decided to work under the Republic because of monetary constraints but at the same time reminded them that they had to work for the future of Hawai'i.

Now having said and proven that a minority of Native Hawaiians had actively participated in the government of Dole, this does not mean that Native Hawaiians approved of this during that time (as one can see from certain articles in the Ka Leo O ka Lahui. Nor does this make the P.G. and Republic a popularly supported government. Japan set up a number of "states" during WWII--most of these were recognized by other Axis powers and even by the Soviet Union (who had fought the Japanese). All of these puppet governments utilized the native leadership of the occupied area. In the case of the Japanese, they utilized the American historical precedence of California, Texas, and Hawai'i in establishing their "states", particularly Manchukuo (満洲国), in their deliberations in the League of Nations in 1933. The League of Nations through the Lytton Report (note: this is why its important for everyone to read world history very carefully and not just rely on lectures) determined that the "states" even though it had native politicians (Manchukuo even had the last Qing Emperor of China as its "head"), it lacked popular support and would not have been established in the first place without Japanese troops. The same situation would apply to Hawai'i as did Manchukuo.

Japanese propaganda poster for Manchukuo from the late 1930s

But on another level, it also means that contrary to the idealized popular myth that all Native Hawaiians universally have the same values and sense of patriotism---then and now. That is why it is wrong to assume that simply because someone is Native Hawaiian, they have the same sense of aloha 'āina as another. Hawaiian culture, nationalism and patriotism are not genetically inherited or magically transmitted through kōkō. Some Native Hawaiians have absolutely no great affection to the land of their birth and only use their kōkō when its time to claim Hawaiian Homelands, for their Kamehameha Schools application for their son or daughter, or to make themselves a voice of the oppressed therefore empowering themselves through politics.

Secularism, Kamehameha IV and Kalākaua

2011-10-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Throughout most of the 19th century, the Hawaiian Kingdom was not a secular government (aupuni kauhonua). However, a secular (kauhonua) movement did begin during the reign of Kamehameha III, as well as a few Hawaiian politicians (including the future King Kalākaua) who urged for laicism or a leaving affairs to the laity themselves--something that was discouraged by Kamehameha III who frequently appointed missionaries for every important government portfolio. Kamehameha IV can be credited as being one of the primary advocates of laicism, though he is best remembered for bringing the Anglican Church to Hawai'i. King Kalākaua on hand, can be credited for being instrumental in advocating for hard secularism within the Hawaiian government, which is why 'Iolani Palace never hosted a Christmas Party or any religious holiday during most of his reign. Hard secularism calls for no display of any religion in government offices and that the separation of Church and State be strictly maintained. Laicism and soft secularism normally call for all religions to be respected and that the government should not privilege one religion over the next but may make official references to a deity. Indonesia may be an example of a laicist or soft secularist nation while France is an example of more hard secularist country. Tonga meanwhile is not technically a secularist or laicist country.

During the reign of Kamehameha III, Hawai`i was not a secular society. The Calvinist version of the Christian religion played a heavy part in the development of laws and constitutions. Both Ka'ahumanu and Kamehameha III largely helped to impose Protestant practices on the Hawaiian population and would give sermons on salvation in their official capacity. Those that did not comply with the views of Ka'ahumanu and Kamehameha III were fined, imprisoned, harassed, and in some cases exiled and burned alive. Such was the case of many of the kahuna who were burned alive between the First Hawaiian Civil War (1819). Native Hawaiians regardless of their own religious convictions were forced to attend Church or else be fined. One of the roles of the public school system in Hawai`i during that time was not only to teach reading, writing, and arithmetical but also obedience to the Christian God, to the Kamehameha Dynasty, and to the Western values. This was further re-enforced in the Penal Code which made it illegal to conduct any business on a Sunday. One of the personal names of Kamehameha III, Kauikeaouli ("placed in the dark cloud"), could have been Kauikeauuli ("placed in the dark time") for the masses of Hawaiians. Despite the Act of Toleration, Hawaiian Roman Catholics and those of the Hawaiian indigenous religion were still be discriminated against. It is of little wonder that when Lord George Paulet seized control of Hawai`i in 1843 (which according to the British and Foreign State Papers, Volume 149, Part 3, page 1025, was actually largely due to the prejudicial actions of Minister Judd who among other reasons interfered in the trial of a Henry Skinner, a British subject and John Dominis, the father-in-law of the future Queen Lili'uokalani), there were many commoners who celebrated and the entire Fort Kamehameha in Honolulu (where Fort Street got its name) immediately gave their loyalty oaths to Lord Paulet. To the credit of Kamehameha III, when Hawaiian independence was restored he met every one of the soldiers of the Fort and forgave them without punishment acknowledging that he and his administration were not at times fair. This episode had a profound impact on the young Princes Alexander Liholiho Kamehameha and Lot Kapuaiwa Kamehameha as well as David Kaläkaua and the other children of the Chiefs' Childrens' School.

After the death of Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV began to undo much of the work of his uncle who he deemed was too much of a "friend of the foreigners". This entailed removing Judd and the others from his cabinets and in establishing a new church. But in a very little written about episode in Hawaiian history, we have clearly the policies of Kamehameha IV in 1860 and the start of modern Hawaiian secularism. In 1860, the Japanese first embassy was making its way to Washington, D.C. King Kamehameha IV was eager to conclude a Treaty of Friendship with Japan and so tasked his Foreign Minister R. C. Wylie to explain to the Japanese ambassador the nature of his government. Minister Wyllie wrote to Ambassador Lord Shinmi Masaoka on March 18th, a Sunday, the following:

"...His Majesty places them [all foreigners] all on the same friendly footing; and while he permits men of all religions to follow their own conscientious belief, he permits no priests of any religion to interfere in the political administration of His government."

The following Monday, Prince Lot Kapuaiwa Kamehameha in the Privy Council explained that the policy of his brother in regards to the Japanese was in accordance "with enlightened governments and....with ancient practices". What the future Kamehameha V was probably referring to was the separation of the ali`i and the kahuna which symbolically had separated the government from religion until the time of Pa`ao (13th century) who made the ali`i paramount and justified it by the stories of Papa and Haumea and other mo`olelo. Kamehameha IV saw no conflict in being religious while trying to keep the Church out of political affairs. In fact, in the same letter from Foreign Minister Wyllie to Lord Shinmi Masaoka, he states that:

"...when the Portuguese priests arrived, [the Emperor of Japan] was as liberal and kind to men of all religions as is the policy of King Kamehameha IV, and that their Imperial Majesties changed that policy and strictly prohibted the Roman Catholic religion, because some priests, the successors of Saint Francis Xavier, intermeddled in the political government of the Empire. If the priests did so, they did wrong, and violated the rules of their own Church...."

King Kamehameha IV therefore was an early advocate of laicism though he still enforced many of the laws he inherited from Kamehameha III because of the resistance of his kuhina nui and some of the higher tanking Christian Hawaiian ali'i themselves. Kamehameha V went further than his brother and began to bring back the hula (though privately), allowed the licensing of certain types of kahuna, as well as permitting the funeral of his sister to be conducted in the old Hawaiian pre-Christian manner. But in general, throughout the first half of the 19th century, laws based on Calvinist Christian values were codified into the emerging Hawaiian adaptation of the English Common Law system though theoretically Hawaiian practices were exempt unless they hampered health, sanitation (i.e. the excuse for banning kahuna la'au lapa'au), public morality (i.e. the banning of the hula) and political stability.

During the reign of Kalākaua, one saw the emergence of an assertive Hawaiian nationalism and a measure of kauhonua unknown until that time. During the King's coronation in 1883, he placed the Crown over his own head rather than having it placed by the presiding Anglican bishop. This symbolized ideas from the French revolution via Napoléon that it is the laity (non-clerics) that governs and man is the maker of his own destiny. He further went on to use national days as a way to re-introduce Hawaiian legends and began to celebrate Christian holidays private in his own household. While it was the custom of Kamehameha III to have the clergy sit in among the high chiefs in the front pews during the opening of the National Legislature, King Kalākaua only allowed up to two representatives of each religious organization to have reserved seating. As a sign of respect for what the King was trying to accomplish, the Anglican Church bishop normally would not attend the opening but would simply attend the reception afterwords. The King also tried--alas in vain--to remove religious references from the Penal and Civil Code particularly the ones involving the Sabbath. "...Better to keep a proper Sunday than a wrong Sabbath...." as the King wrote to his sister, Princess Likelike in 1881. He failed in amending these laws because of political events such as the 1887 Constitution which was supported by influential preachers and missionary children of what is now the United Churches of Christ had no issue with using the pulpit to preach political issues and to "damn" members who opposed their narrow view of Christianity-- as his sister, St. Damien, and Robert Louis Stevenson would all be victims to that same pulpit.

Some thoughts on the Creation of a Hawaiian National History

2011-10-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Part 1

One of the major tasks of any nation is creating a national narrative or political history. A national narrative is important to nation-building since all nations are, in the words of Benedict Anderson, "imagined communities". A nation is an imagined community because its not possible to connect with everyone in a given at the same time. Instead, we connect with people through a series of images, senses, and stories that most accept as being "in common" with everyone else. Thus, for Americans they generally associate apple pie, hot dogs, the Mayflower, the Washington Monument, etc., as "being American". A part of that association is a collection of stories that are woven together to form a national narrative or history. Again, for Americans, normally their national narrative begins with the arrival of the Mayflower and now currently ends with President Obama.

For Hawaiians, its a bit trickier than Thanksgiving dinners and putting "Support Our Troops" stickers on the car. Native Hawaiians, as a people, have three narratives: a genealogical narrative; a regional political narrative; and a national political narrative. The genealogical narrative is based on a founding of a ruling clan and normally starts in the remote past during the time of Pö, or with Kumuhonua, or with Maui, or through Papa and Wakea. The most well known is the Kumulipo. The problem with the genealogical history is that the reality its more of an idealized genealogy where story telling and oratory is more or as important as accurately naming ancestors. You will not find many Native Hawaiians who will claim to be a descendant of fishermen or farmers--who were always the majority of the population until disease and Kamehameha II wiped a huge chunk of them out. That in itself already shows that genealogical narratives tends to be class-oriented, personal and bias. The genealogical narrative then becomes not simply a re-telling of the names and deeds of ancestors, but it becomes a claim to power over other Native Hawaiians, and, in particular for some a bid for status. Not many Hawaiians realize that when Queen Lili'uokalani published her autobiography, people such as Robert Wilcox wrote long articles against the Queen's genealogical charts basically saying that she changed the paternity of some of her ancestors to make her line look more royal. In the 19th century, these genealogical narratives would also serve nationalistic purposes as a way to connect the Hawaiian people, the Hawaiian nation, and the ali'i as well as serving as a tool to re-enforce Hawaiian history, culture, identity and sovereignty in the face of Western colonialism.

In regards to regional narratives, people often forget that Hawai'i was divided into four main kingdoms--Hawai'i, Maui, O`ahu, and Kaua`i--for most of its history. Each of these kingdoms have their own version of events and their own political and cultural uniqueness. The old Kingdom of O'ahu for example had a series of elected kings and had female rulers. The Kingdom of Kaua'i retained a lot of old cultural elements that were mostly forgotten in other areas of Hawai'i which is one of the reasons why some of the oldest hula compositions comes from Kaua'i. It also be noted that at various times, Moloka`i, Ni`ihau, Ka`u, and other places were independent kingdoms unto themselves but were absorbed into one of the four kingdoms by the 1500s. With the rise of Kahekili and later Kamehameha two centuries later, these regional histories were displaced by the history of the conquering kingdom and then became "regional" histories.

As far as Hawaiian national narrative, technically speaking, the political history of the Hawaiian nation begins in 1810 when Kamehameha I officially becomes mö`ï of the four kingdoms because there was no unified nation before him (though Pili and Kahekili almost succeeded). The writers such as Davida Malo, Samuel Kamakau, and others, during the reign of Kamehameha III, was that there was a conscious move to incorporate regional history, symbols, genealogical chants and personalities into a national narrative--things that would bind the "imagined community" together. This was done to help show foreign nations that Hawai`i had a very ancient history as well as to incorporate the displaced ali`i and commoners into this new Hawaiian nation. At the time of Malo and Kamakau, there were many among the masses of Native Hawaiians, kahuna (priests), and displaced ali`i who were frustrated with the Kamehameha regime. This was particularly true in the 1824 when Prince George Humehume Kaumuali`i of Kaua`i tried to restore the Kingdom of Kaua`i. He ultimately failed and the entire former royal court of Kaua`i were shipped to Lahaina then to Honolulu and made to serve in the Kamehameha household. During the surrender ceremonies of George Humehume Kaumuali`i at Pohukaina, the names of the four kingdoms of their great rulers--Hawai`i of Keawe, Maui of Pi`ilani, O'ahu of Kakuhihewa, and Kaua`i of Manokalanipö--were chanted into a single chant and since that time those lines have appeared in numerous Hawaiian songs. For some, that day marked the beginning of a single, politically unified and truly Hawaiian nation and is the psychological start for a national narrative. The revolt also served as a wake-up call for many of the elites in Honolulu to expedite building a national community. Shortly there after we begin to see the start of a public education system, standardized Hawaiian grammar, standardized Hawaiian spelling, the formation of the Chiefs' Children's School, a new constitution (which gave voting rights to the masses of Native Hawaiians and allowed them to participate in their own government), and a standardized religion--Christianity. It is also interesting to note that in the Constitution of 1840, it clearly describes the beginning of the Hawaiian national history in the following sentences:

14. Ka hoakaka ana i ke Ano o ka Noho o na'lii.
Eia ke ano o ka noho ana o na'lii a me ka hooponopono ana i ka aina. O Kamehameha I, oia ke poo o keia aupuni, a nona no na aina a pau mai Hawaii a Niihau, aole nae nona ponoi, no na kanaka no, a me na'lii, a o Kamehameha no ko lakou poo nana e olelo i ka aina. Nolaila, aohe mea pono mamua, aohe hoi mea pono i keia manawa ke hoolilo aku i kekahi lihi iki o keia mau aina me ka ae ole o ka mea ia ia ka olelo o ke aupuni.

15. Eia ka poe nana ka olelo mai ia manawa mai, O Kamehameha II, o Kaahumanu I, a i keia wa hoi, o Kamehameha III. Na keia poe wale no e olelo o ke aupuni, a hiki i keia wa, a o na palapala a pau a lakou i kakau ai, oia wale no na palapala o ke aupuni.
16. E mau loa aku hoi ke aupuni ia Kamehameha III, a me kona hooilina aku. Eia hoi kona hooilina, o ka mea ana e olelo pu ai me na'lii i kona wa e ola a14. Ka hoakaka ana i ke Ano o ka Noho o na'lii.

Eia ke ano o ka noho ana o na'lii a me ka hooponopono ana i ka aina. O Kamehameha I, oia ke poo o keia aupuni, a nona no na aina a pau mai Hawaii a Niihau, aole nae nona ponoi, no na kanaka no, a me na'lii, a o Kamehameha no ko lakou poo nana e olelo i ka aina. Nolaila, aohe mea pono mamua, aohe hoi mea pono i keia manawa ke hoolilo aku i kekahi lihi iki o keia mau aina me ka ae ole o ka mea ia ia ka olelo o ke aupuni.

15. Eia ka poe nana ka olelo mai ia manawa mai, O Kamehameha II, o Kaahumanu I, a i keia wa hoi, o Kamehameha III. Na keia poe wale no e olelo o ke aupuni, a hiki i keia wa, a o na palapala a pau a lakou i kakau ai, oia wale no na palapala o ke aupuni.

16. E mau loa aku hoi ke aupuni ia Kamehameha III, a me kona hooilina aku. Eia hoi kona hooilina, o ka mea ana e olelo pu ai me na'lii i kona wa e ola ana, a i ole ia e olelo, alaila lilo ka olelo i na'lii wale no, a me ka poe i kohoia no hoi.na, a i ole ia e olelo, alaila lilo ka olelo i na'lii wale no, a me ka poe i kohoia no hoi.

That is to say that the origin of the Hawaiian Kingdom is based on the Kamehameha I "...who was the head of the this government, from all the lands from Hawai'i to Ni`ihau, from one end to the other. However, the lands were not his own private property but were held for the people and for the chiefs...."and only the deeds and documents written by the successors and administrators as directed by Kamehameha I were valid. Again, we have the beginning of a Hawaiian national narrative not to mention the a process by which Kamehameha III was trying to re-gain control of his throne after the years with Kaomi and Nahi'ena'eina by excluding his other other half-siblings (remember Kamehameha I had over 14 recorded wives and dozens of other children).

A year later, King Kamehameha III, John Young, Timothy Haʻalilio, David Malo, Dwight Baldwin, William Richards, Sheldon Dibble, Samuel Kamakau and others would form the Hawaiian Royal Historical Society. In the words of Kamakau:

A society was started at Lahainaluna according to the desire of the teachers. As the people of Alebione (Albion) had their British history and read about the Saxons and William, so the Hawaiians should read their history...The King said he thought the history of all the islands should be preserved from first to last.

It should be noted that Kamehameha III was very keen on incorporating the "history of all the islands" as the memory of Kaua`i Revolt still lingered in his memory. There was also a need to have Hawaiian history textbooks for the recently implemented nation-wide public school system.

The Hawai'i State Capitol

2011-10-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Hawai'i State Capitol: Hawaiian International or Modernist Colonial?

Architecture has long been used as a political tool. Ramses II built temples and statues of himself along the Egyptian border with Nubia (modern day Sudan) to emphasize Egyptian sovereignty and might. Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler all used architecture as a way to legitimatize their regimes. In a colonial context, architecture is used to to showcase Western ideas of civilization and governance. The British were very fond of putting up Neo-classical administrative buildings in their colonies. The Spanish exported their Baroque style to their colonies all over Latin America.

According to the official state website, hawaii.gov, the Hawai'i State Capitol was primarily designed by John Carl Warnecke along with other two architectural firms. John Carl Warnecke was the favorite architect of Jacqueline Kennedy who utilized him in a few of her projects in Washington, D.C. The building design was built in the "Hawaiian International" modernist style, volcanic in form and to be rather large. When the Capitol was finished in 1969, it was the tallest building in downtown Honolulu. The color schemes of the House of Representative and Senate chambers are blue and red respectively and meant to symbolize the moon and sun. The white pillars are meant to symbolize the eight islands and are capped in the form of a palm tree. The moot around the capital is meant to represent the Pacific Ocean. Outside of the "official" explanation, is the State Capitol a modernist take on colonial architecture? Are there any undertones or subtexts to the architecture of the State Capitol?

In regards to the scale of the building, one can not help but notice how the capitol dominates 'Iolani Palace. This reminds me of another building built in the early 20th century. When the Japanese took over Korea in 1910, the first thing they did (well, besides arresting the Korean Imperial Family and placing them under house arrest under the guise of a coup like another government did in 1893 which shows imperial powers do learn from each other) was design a new government building called the Japanese Imperial General Government Building (sometimes also referred to as the Seoul Executive Building). They chose a modernist (for that time period) architect to design a building that would stand directly behind and tower over Gyeongbokgung Palace, the former official residence of the Korean monarchy. The Japanese specifically chose the location in order to give legitimacy to their rule by connecting it to Korea's past while at the

The Japanese Gen. Gov. Building dominating over Gyeongbokgung Palace

The Hawai'i State Capitol dominating over 'Iolani Palace

time the scale was meant to impress upon on-lookers that Japan dominates Korea's future. After Korea proclaimed its independence from Japan at the end of WWII, the Japanese General Government Building was divisive symbol for decades until it was finally demolished in the late 1990s.

The Hawai'i State Capitol also seems to be making the same message as the Japanese once did. Like the Japanese General Government Building, the Hawai'i State Capitol towers over what many consider to be governing center of the Hawaiian Kingdom (although factually speaking, the real governing center was Ali'iolani Hale not 'Iolani Palace, which was only an official residence among several other royal residences). It thus connects itself to Hawai'i's past by its proximity while its scale over the Palace suggests one of domination and abrogation.

In regards to the color scheme, officially the blue and red colors are supposed to represent the moon and sky. But it is is interesting to note that two two colors have long been associated with the Legislature since the time of the Republic of Hawai'i. During the Kingdom era, green was associated with the Legislature because of the color of the walls. When the Provisional Government took over, they moved into 'Iolani Palace and renamed it "the Executive Building" (well, after they began to sell off the furniture and loot the jewelry). When they proclaimed themselves a republic, their constitution created a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Senate met in the Throne Room of the Palace while the House met in the State Dining Room which is next to the Blue Room. This was relatively easy since the House and Senate only consisted of 15 persons each. When the Republic gave itself to the United States, the United States created a Territorial Government. Unlike during the time of the Republic, the new Legislature had to actually be elected and poor and middle class Hawaiians actually could vote. Due to the increased size of the House of Representatives, the House moved into the larger Throne Room (aka "The Red Chamber") while the Senate occupied both the State Dining Room and the Blue Room. Gradually the colors red and blue became associated with each chamber

The Legislature int he 1950s

of the Legislature and it seems it was passed onto the State Capitol. From readings about Governor George Burns, Burns was aware of history and played an important role in the design of the Capitol. The Capitol was one of his pet projects. It seems likely that architect, who had visited Hawai'i, and/or the other architectural firms involved had discussed ideas with Burns and had seen 'Iolani Palace when it housed both the Legislature and the Governor's Office (which was in King Kalākaua's former bedroom). So they likely drew inspiration for the colors from the Palace and perhaps unknowingly switched the associated the colors of each Legislative house to the time of the Republic of Hawai'i.

This leaves one to wonder what the State Capitol really stands for. Is it a modern symbol of democracy as the Hawai'i State website claims or is it a modernist take on colonial architect meant to both connect the present regime back to its historical roots in the Republic while at the same time dominate over the very symbols of Hawaiian royal history (i.e. 'Iolani Palace and Ali'iolani Hale)?

Part 4: The Hawaiian Class System

2011-09-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

Part 4: The Hawaiian Class System

From Mokupuni (Island Kingdoms) to Panalāʻau (Colony)

At the time of Kamehameha I's unification of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1810, Hawai'i had entered into world trade. Spain still controlled Mexico, most of the West Coast of what is now the United States, Latin America, the Philippines, Micronesia, and Guam. Russia controlled Alaska and had a foot in San Francisco. The United States had just added Louisiana, Florida and the MidWest and began to build its markets in China. Japan was closed to all except for the Dutch who controlled most of Indonesia.

Since the creation of the mokupuni system began a system of monopolies through the kapu system. Part of this was to control the natural resources but it also had the effect of creating a barter system as well as limiting the accumulation of wealth by both the commoners and the ali'i themselves. Previously all natural resources belonged to the 'ohana. While this was still true to a degree, the ali'i controlled both the supply and demand. Some have argued that this was a form of "primitive socialism". Others have argued that this was part of a semi-feudalistic system. Personally, I think the original Hawaiian society probably was a form of "primitive socialism" where Hawaiians exercised through collective leadership (vis-a-vis the 'ohana) both the means of production and and distribution of goods as well as the lack of fixed land tenureship (i.e. private property). With the arrival of Pa'ao and subsequent innovations, Hawaiian society began to have a caste-like hierarchy. The top class, the ali'i, began to operate like a barter trade corporation within the framework of a semi-feudal political system. While many Hawaiians were taught that the feathers and shells were valued almost as currency, well, that's not entirely true. Feathers, shells, and lauhala were set against prices set in pigs and other crops, but primarily pigs. Pork was a luxury meat and was seen as a sign of wealth (Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom Vol 1, p83). Pork was also an important protein in the diet of the commoners--dog meat being the second (yes, Hawaiians did eat dogs). Therefore, the control of pork was a control on the very diet of the common people and could be another explanation why commoners tended to be significantly shorter and smaller than the ali'i (i.e. lack of protein) as noted by David Malo.

But it was also a control of religious office as kahuna were also given pork meat by the commoners for their services render. Therefore, in exchange (or kūʻai) for making things such as fine lauhala mats, shell necklaces, and feather capes, the ali'i would grant the commoners a certain amount of pork and dog meat from their pens as part of the exchange. During the non-Makahiki months, payments for services by the kāhuna (particularly medical services) were paid in pork meat as well (Micheal Chun. It Might Do Good: The licensing of Medical Kāhuna, 2009). In Mary Kawena Puku'i's Olelo Noeau, there is this:

E uku ana kela kanaka i kii ka laau. He aha ka uku? He puaa.

Note the word "uku" which does not mean flea in this case. But it means a specific payment or fee. Perhaps this is a reason why some Hawaiian politicians are very good in asking for pork barrel funds. So in old Hawai'i, pork was worth its weight in gold so to speak and it is not entirely true that Hawaiians did not understand how to barter and trade.

With Kamehameha's conquest, the barter system slowly ended and was becoming replaced with crony capitalism. According to Kuykendall in his Volume 1 of the Hawaiian Kingdom:

In the primitive economy of the Hawaiians, commerce in the modern sense was almost non-existent, though a sort of barter was carried on among them to a limited extent.1 The Hawaiians' intercourse with foreigners very quickly developed the idea of trade, and the law of supply and demand soon came into operation, a fact attested by complaints of high prices made by many early visitors to theislands. It is true that in the beginning the trade was intrinsically very unequal, the Hawaiians selling valuable products for trinkets and articles of slight worth; but that condition did not prevail for long. Besides the control exercised by the law of supply and demand, prices rose as a result of general enlightenment, from observation and the information imparted by foreigners who settled in theislands. After a time, when Kamehameha had completed his conquest, we find prices and the course of trade affected by artificial monopoly. Traders at the islands in 1811 reported that pork was a royal monopoly and the purpose of the monopoly, as explained to them by John Young, was theaugmentation of the royal revenue...

At the beginning and until after 1800 trade at the islands was very simple. The commodities supplied to the ships were for the most part perishable foodstuffs—pork, fowls, and vegetables—together with wood and water, some salt, a little rope, and various minor products and curiosities. For these thetraders gave a great variety of articles; in the earlier years, large quantities of firearms and ammunition passed into the hands of the Hawaiians; at one period Kamehameha received, by choice, naval stores, and in 1805 purchased a ship; over thewhole period, the traders furnished to the islanders cloth and clothing, household furniture and furnishings, tools and utensils, and miscellaneous articles of all sorts. Trade at first was entirely by barter, but it was not long before money—mostly in the form of Spanish silver dollars—came into use to a limited extent. Much of this found its way into the king's treasury and did not circulate. (83-84)

The money did not circulate because Kamehameha I still exercised his royal monopolies and any commoner caught with money had it confiscated. One of the many points of Billie Beamer in her The Royal Torch is that Kamehameha I not only sold Hawaiian commoners to British and American ships to work as sailors, but confiscated their assets once they returned or forced them to have it traded in pork. It is therefore not entirely true that wage labor came with Captain Cook or even Captain Vancouver. The Hawaiian commoner class simply did not have any wages that they could earn while living in Hawai'i during the lifetime of Kamehameha I. Hence why the commoners learned to barter themselves (i.e. prostitution) in exchange for goods which they could carry and therefore hide.

However, the free flow of European and Chinese goods did change the dynamics of the economy and the perception of power. The ali'i no longer had an absolute monopoly on all goods in Hawai'i. The average European sailor seemed to have more goods than the ali'i and in the eyes of the commoners, this seemed to suggest that their ali'i did not have the same mana or prestige as the average sailor. This created problems and the attempts to live up to having the same prestige as Westerners actually be one of the reasons why eventually the ali'i were all in debt before the death of Kamehameha I. Also the fact that the chiefs had acquired a taste for wine, rum, and other alcoholic beverages.

A debt acknowledgement receipt signed by O'ahu Governor Boki

Towards the end of the reign of Kamehameha I, social inequalities were already apparent. Kamehameha I began to implement fees on docking ships. All of the wealth of the ships were only going to Kamehameha and his close group of friends (hence crony capitalism). Commoners began to once again question the ali'i. The ali'i for their part began to quite frankly wonder if the acquisition of wealth was such a bad idea especially in the face of a growing demand for sandalwood and whale oil by foreigners which they could then turn around and buy new status symbols.

'Iliahi or Hawaiian sandalwood

The sandalwood trade would prove to be a disaster for the common people but a bonanza for Kamehameha I.

Kamehameha learned of the value of this wood, he ordered men to go out in the mountains . . . to cut sandalwood, and he paid them in cloth and bark for making native cloth, as well as with food and fish [i.e., he furnished them food and clothing while they were engaged in this work]. Men were also detailed to carry the wood to the landings. . . .The chiefs also were ordered to send out their men to cut sandalwood. Because the chiefs and commoners in large numbers went out cutting and carrying sandalwood, famine was experienced from Hawaii to Kauai. . . . The people were forced to eat herbs and fern trunks, because there was no food to be had. When Kamehameha saw that the country was in the grip of a severe famine, he ordered the chiefs and commoners not to devote all their time to cutting sandalwood, and also proclaimed all sandalwood to be the property of thegovernment. Kamehameha then turned and ordered the chiefs and the people under them to farm,and he himself set them a practical example. The king is said to have placed a kapu on the young and small trees in order to conserve this natural resource. (Kamakau, Ka Moolelo o Kamehameha I, in KNK, Aug. 24, 1867 qtd. in Kuykendall, Vol 1, p88)

Seeing that social inequalities might threaten the new unified kingdom, Kamehameha I began to place a series of kapu including one on alcohol and another that all chiefs should live at his court so he could monitor their debts. This, however, did not work as his own children including Liholiho (who technically outranked his father) flaunted their acquired wealth and drank alcohol in front of the other chiefs.

To compound the situation, Hawaiian succession traditions did not necessarily mean that the son of a ruling king would actually rule. Hawaiians had two sets of ali'i--ruling ali'i and non-ruling ali'i. The head of a mokupuni who was the highest ranking ali'i but did not rule was called an ali'i nui. The head of a mokupuni who actually did rule was called the ali'i 'ai moku. 'Ai meaning to eat was tied into the idea of governing for many reasons not to mention because of pork meat. A ruler who actually both was the highest ranking chief and the actual ruler was called the mō'ī. A coup by Maui chiefs led by Ka'ahumanu ensured that the succession would go to 'Iolani Liholiho and not the dozens of other sons of Kamehameha by proclaiming a regency (Kuhina Nui). To ensure the legitimacy of ali'i as a whole in the face of massive questioning of their authority by the ali'i and the kāhuna, as well as to allow the ali'i to accumulate wealth in their own right and to protect the Maui chiefs against the Hawai'i island chiefs, Ka'ahumanu then moved to abolish the entire system while wearing Kamehameha's malo through the 'Ainoa. This led to the First Hawaiian Civil War and ended with the defeat of Kekuaokalani (who had a claim to the throne) in Kuamo'o.

With the end of the kapu, the exploitation of the commoners worsened and the politically, semi-feudalism (meaning the commoners occupied land in exchange for services and property to be rendered to a noble) occurred while economically, crony capitalism continued. From 1819 until 1839, there were basically only two real classes of Hawaiians--the haves and have nots. Social inequality was probably the worst it had been in centuries. With the Makahiki innovation and later additions to the kapu system, commoners at least had a break for three months a year to focus on their own livelihood. Without the kapu, the ali'i forced the common people to work the full 12 months a year. Men worked to gather sandalwood and were given basically nothing. The ali'i were no longer obligated to trade labor for pork meat or tapa. The women were forced into prostitution. This is one of the reasons why Ka'ahumanu was given the nickname "Ka-Pāpale-'ai-Aina" or the hat that eats the land. Kamehameha II was also known as "Ka-we'a-we'a" which translates something akin to "the pimp" though as king, he spent very little time in Hawai'i and more time in Rio de Janeiro and London. As mentioned before, the first treaty between Hawai'i and the United States included a provision to supply sandalwood to American traders in exchange for the payment of the debts of the ali'i.

With the arrival of the Congregationalist missionaries six months, a new severely exploitative crony economic system continued without much criticism. For nearly six years, the missionaries did absolutely nothing to criticize the regime of Ka'ahumanu. This was despite the fact that thousands of commoners died not only from diseases but from the sandalwood trade. After a year in the islands, the missionaries themselves began to record privately how bad the situation was:

"But they found the people very poor, and it was with much difficulty that they could obtain any food of the natives, and then only by paying three times its value. The reasons why provisions are so scarce on this island is, that the people, for some months past, have been engaged in cutting sandalwood, and have of course neglected the cultivation of the land. Vegetables are sold at a very dear rate." (Kuykendall Vol 1, p90)

Kuykendall also records other accounts in his Volume 1 of the Hawaiian Kingdom:

One of the missionaries describes the situation. In speaking of Governor Kaikioewa of Kauai, he says:
He is remarkably fond of purchasing novelties, and almost whatever is offered by foreigners, with little regard either to the cost or the utility of the article. This propensity to buy, seems indeed, to be deeply rooted in most of the chiefs. . . . (Some of the foreigners who trade here, are too well acquainted with this trait in their character.) For however bitterly they may complain, of dilatory payments, and want of veracity, and integrity in the natives, they urge upon them things which they do not want; and for which, they have no means of paying, but by imposing new burdens upon thepeople. (89)
Spring or summer of 1822. Oahu. "On one occasion we saw two thousand persons, laden with faggots of sandalwood, coming down from the mountains to deposit their burthens in the royal store-houses, and then depart to their homes, wearied with their unpaid labours, yet unmurmuring at their bondage. (90)"

April, 1830. Kauai. From the journal of Mr. Gulick: "Felt distressed and grieved for the people who collect sandalwood. They are often driven by hunger to eat wild and bitter herbs, moss, &c. And though the weather is so cold on the hills that my winter clothes will scarcely keep me comfortable, I frequently see men with no clothing except the maro. Were they not remarkably hardy, many of them would certainly perish.(90)"

In the end, however, the missionaries never protested directly to the government on the treatment of the common people. As long as the ali'i allowed them to preach and later to control political offices, they did not protest to Ka'ahumanu. In fact, they extolled her on her Christian virtues. An infamous story said that commoners attended the funeral procession of Ka'ahumanu to make sure she was really dead.

The missionaries, however, did begin the institution of free market capitalism (i.e. meaning the end of royal monopolies) but this was to widen crony capitalism so that it could include themselves. Then, as now, many churches operate stores and seminaries. Most of these stores sell church items, books, and other things for Christian living. The missionaries did not just bring books about Christianity, they brought books on European history, architecture and literature. These books became the textbooks in which they would teach Hawaiians in their seminaries, particularly Lahainaluna. The stores also included proper European clothing, eating utensils, clocks, and jewelry. Naturally, congregations were told to buy these items from their stores because it would support the mission and make the Hawaiians more "civilized". Through their sermons, their seminaries and their stores they introduced Hawaiians to a wage-based economy and materialism. Materialism for Congregationalists was not a bad thing. John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism, believed that material wealth on earth was a sign of salvation because basically Adam was cast out of the garden to labor. At the same time, the flaunting of wealth and excess wealth were sins. So the missionaries had to teach Hawaiians the benefits of materialism in relation to salvation. To do this, the mission stores became show pieces of "civilization" where the missionaries and their Christianized Hawaiian students could teach the common people what every proper home should look like and all the trappings of salvation such as clocks and books. However, this was slow as Hawaiian society was still beginning to still figure out its place in the world and there were several rebellions that broke out including the Second Hawaiian Civil War (aka Humehume's War) in 1824 on Kaua'i.

With the death of Ka'ahumanu, one of my ancestors, Princess Kina'u became basically the ruler as Kamehameha III was basically living with Kaomi and partying with a group of young Tahitians and Hawaiians who called themselves the Hulu Manu. Princess Kina'u began to push for the development of more missions. At the same time, Kamehameha III under the more equalitarian influence of Kaomi, began to push for a nation-wide public school system. This became formalized with the beginning of a constitutional government of a Declaration of Rights in 1839. The Declaration marked a formal start of a wage-based economy or what others such as Noam Chomsky would call Industrial Feudalism. The missionaries back the development of wage-based capitalism as they believed it was part of their Calvinist mission. To implement this new economic system, a public school system was established in 1840 with the missionaries being the primary body to approve, print and buy textbooks.

In time, materialism and capitalism set in for both the chiefs and the common people--though in varied degrees. Some ali'i caught on quickly and pushed for more dramatic reforms such as the private ownership of land. Contrary to what is taught, the missionaries supported the idea of private property as it was one of the hallmarks of Western civilization. But they were not the only ones pushing for it. The Western trained chiefs such as Papa I'i and Kuhina Nui Kina'u were heavily involved. Now that commoners had rights and their property could not be easily confiscated, the ali'i were losing income and were complaining to the Kuhina Nui. The natural evolution would be to secure land which could then be used to pay off their debts. The other question came into play that since Kamehameha III had no legitimate children, whoever was his successor would still in theory control all of the land in Hawai'i. What if the successor did not like the missionaries? He could in theory ask them to turn over their churches to another denomination of his choice.

With death of Princess Kina'u in 1839 and the 1843 take over of Hawai'i by the British, Kamehameha III acted upon the recommendations of his Privy Council (most of whom were appointed by the new Kuhina Nui, Kekāuluohi). Within five years, the Great Mahele was promulgated and the American denizens and former American missionaries now controlled the Cabinet and the Judiciary. Two years after that, in July 1850, the Alien Land Ownership Act was proclaimed. So from 1848 until the Kuleana Act was passed in August of 1850, Hawai'i was technically a feudal society. With the Kuleana Act of 1850, commoners could own land in their own right and this dramatically changed the relationship between the commoners and the ali'i more so than the Declaration of Rights did because this in theory gave them the rights to their means of production.

But, this assumes that they could understand the concept of private land ownership--which in Hawaiian there was no word for. The word they used was kūʻai which actually meant to barter. But in the Hawaiian sense, how can you "buy" or "barter" for land that your family had lived on for generations? Even if you understood the concept, where would you get the money to pay for a survey of your land (by a surveyor) just to begin the application for the land grant considering for the last two generations, your forests and property were ripped from you under Ka'ahumanu regime? To make it more confusing, the law itself called itself the Kuleana Act.

There were also serious opposition to the Great Mahele showing that Hawaiians did understand the ramifications and did distrust both the missionaries and many of the ali'i. Sally Merry in Colonizing Hawai'i points out that Kamehameha IV and V were strongly opposed to the Great Mahele, to the Alien Land Ownership, and nearly everything Kekāuluohi was doing. Some of the commoners and lower ranking chiefs questioned the Kuhina Nui, Kekāuluohi, believing that she was moving too quickly in reforms and in doing so was acting in the interests of the Americans. Some began to question if she was the Kuhina Nui of Hawai'i or of Boston. The Alien Land Ownership Act, which allowed non-Hawaiians to own land, was passed in July of 1850. The Kuleana Act, which allowed the commoners the right to own land, was passed in August of 1850. This right away shows you the priority of the government of that time. Petitions after petitions were sent to the King, but he not only ignored them but at times wrote back statements rebuking the intelligence and patriotism of the petitioners themselves. Furthermore, both the Kuleana and the Alien Land Ownership Acts were passed when Kamehameha IV and V--the leading ali'i opposition figures--were away in Europe. Thus the way foreigners and commoners got the right to own land were deliberately done in such a way that no input outside of those loyal to Kekāuluohi and the Americans in the Hawaiian government could or would be heard.

With the Great Mahele, ali'i and the urban commoners were able to purchase their ancestral lands. Since the high ranking chiefs and the Americans had the inside track on land surveys due to their positions in the government, they were among the first to locate and buy valuable land. I will get more into the Great Mahele in another post. The ali'i in general became asset rich (due to their land holdings), but capital poor as they could not develop all of their properties. The missionaries on the other hand were capital rich (some of it due to the mission stores, their high government salaries, as well as their own businesses) and focused their efforts on buying select property and developing those properties. Not to mention that they enjoyed the support of government offices, the judiciary, and the pulpit.

With the passage of a bi-lateral free trade agreement (aka Reciprocity Treaty) with the United States during the reign of King Kalākaua, American capital floated the islands and what began to be developed by the missionaries, flourished under their sons. By 1880, the United States was the main importer and exporter of Hawaiian trade and a form of wage-based plantation feudalism was in place. With American dominance in capital and a government infrastructure and institutions geared towards their interests, they began to buy out the asset rich ali'i. What they could not buy, they quiet titled and used eminent domain laws. Despite efforts made by various cabinets under King Kalākaua, English became more widely spoken in Hawaiian households and Hawaiians were demanding that schools teach their children in English because English was the gateway towards jobs. The wage-economy mentality had set in. Hawaiian courts and the Hawaiian legislature itself began to use more and more English in its deliberations so much so that by the end of the 1880s, the King stopped issuing a "Speech from the Throne" in Hawaiian though he continued to issue public proclamations in both Hawaiian and English. In theory, Hawai'i was independent under a constitutional monarchy. In practice, Hawai'i had all of the basic elements that resembled US neo-colonies in Latin America for most of the second half of the 19th century.

At the same time, the commoners began to gain a more united working class consciousness as a result of the election of Lunalilo, a freer press, and new economic and political theories coming out of Europe. A Mechanics Union was formed. Sugar plantation workers began to mobilize for strikes. The ali'i were still one of the most conservative reactionary forces within Hawai'i, however, many of them had been influenced by the nationalism of Kamehameha IV and V including the Princess Lili'uokalani. While as regent in 1881, she publicly stated her support for a labor strike on Maui and believed that workers had the right to re-dress. This lead her to become of the most popular ali'i of her time. Although she was an ali'i and was a product of her class, she and her sister-in-law, Queen Kapi'olani, questioned the social inequalities of their time including those imposed upon women. Marginalized Hawaiians also questioned more loudly "Who owns the nation?" and political parties as well as more new newspapers began to be formed. At one time, Hawai'i had over 70 newspapers--all of them of different political persuasions.

Kalākaua, once upon a time a newspaper editor himself, saw these questions and demands as part of an evolutionary step in the political maturity of the Hawaiian people and did not stop it, even when the attacks were directed at him. As much as the King was also part of a crony capitalist economic system, the king was also a member of the Hawaiian cultural elite. He was still an ali'i. To try to stimulate the growth of a new middle class, Kalākaua tried to finish projects that Kamehameha V had began, projects that would industrialize Hawai'i and move Hawai'i from an agricultural based wage economy to a industrial and service based wage economy which in time could be transformed further. This is one of the reasons why he floated huge loans from the United Kingdom, France and United States. In addition, in trying to develop a middle class, the king was also trying to reshape the dynamics between the ali'i and the common people by stressing his version of Hawaiian nationalism over the old Hawaiian class system as well as to expand the traditional patronage politics that had existed with the help of Walter Murray Gibson.

In 1887, reactionary plantation owners and mercenaries took over the Palace and forced a new constitution to limit the king, who they felt was "extravagant". The reality is that they wanted to keep Hawai'i as a low wage backward agricultural country and stop further political developments which might push Hawai'i away from the orbit of the United States. The same reactionary force would then find allies with the US diplomatic agent, John L. Stevens, and remove the liberal Queen from power six years later before she could implement a new constitution because it was speculated that the Queen wanted to restructure the entire Hawaiian economy starting with land reform. While they did not Kalākaua, they intensively disliked his sister because of her understanding of Western economics. In addition, there was a feeling of entitlement which Kalākaua and Lili'uokalani sought to remove from their minds. It was only in the reign of Lili'uokalani that the first commoner was appointed a cabinet position.

With the subsequent occupation of Hawai'i and the proclamation of what called itself a republic (which in fact was a plutarchy or an oligarchy dedicated to plunder), an ethno-class system (some have called it "plantation feudalism") was built up. The P.G. (Provisional and Protectorate Governments) and the "Republic" sought to replace developing class and Hawaiian national consciousness with that of a strictly ethnic consciousness while trying to enforce Anglo-American values (minus the democratic ones of course). Thus the plantation owners began allowing for cultural groups to be organized on the plantation and would later use these organizations against unions. When the sugar plantations began in the 1860s, plantations operated as towns. But beginning in the late 19th century, plantation owners enforced the ethnic divisions by formally dividing up living quarters into ethnic camps. The system would be refined for the next one hundred years.

In 1898, what had been a resisting neo-colony became a real colony or panalāʻau.

Part 3: The Hawaiian Class System

2011-09-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Part 3: The Hawaiian Class System

From 'Ohana to Mokupuni

In the previous post, I went into how early Hawaiian society was primarily composed of clans headed by experts and respected elders and which slowly developed a governing class, mostly as a result of later migrations. These later source clans eventually developed themselves into a hereditary aristocracy known as the ali'i. In Irvin Goldman's Ancient Polynesian Society, he makes the point that Polynesian societies were originally "open chiefdoms" meaning clans where the governing class were fluid (sometimes elected). Open chiefdoms then developed into "traditional chiefdoms" as in the case of Tahiti at the time of Kahiko and the Maori in Aotearoa (New Zealand). From traditional chiefdoms, some Polynesian societies developed into "stratified chiefdoms" meaning that there was a distinct class system and a hereditary elite. This was the case in Samoa, Tonga, and in Hawai'i. Mary Kawena Puku'i had argued in The Polynesian Family system in Ka'u that Hawaiian society bore a resemblance to Samoa, but the system was less stable because of the way land tenureship was.

I actually argue that Hawaiian society developed in such a way that if you threw 15th century Hawai'i somewhere in 11th century Malaysia or Indonesia or 14th century Philippines and Thailand, the systems would fit right in. This is basically because in both the case of Hawai'i and many of the Thai, Malay and Indonesian states, "open chiefdoms" went directly into "stratified chiefdoms" or kingdoms and as a result, there wasn't the type of feudal relationship that Europeans or for that matter the way Samoan aiga (family units) and certain matai had with the land. Even later innovations such as the office of the kuhina nui paralleled similar offices in SE Asia such as the Krom Phrarajawang Bavorn Sathan Mongkol of Thailand, the Mahapatih of Jawa (Java), etc and had no equivalent in Polynesia. In terms of basic structures, both the Hawaiian and the Malay case, clans maintained a strong voice within the governing system which is why again in both cases, the commoner class could simply pack up and leave. The lower ranking ali'i (or datuks or rajas in the case of the Malay states) could change their allegiance at will and in both situations, at the death of a high ranking ali'i or noble, the land divisions came up for review and re-division. This was something totally alien in the Samoan and Tongan system where land was fixed to clans and the matai. In fact, it still is that way. In the Malay case, it was not until an introduced religion, Islam, that land in general became a fixed individual property subject to hereditary Islamic rules. The only exception in the Malay and Indonesia cases are where the matriarchal kingdoms where land was indeed fixed but to female heirs. In Hawai'i, it was not until the introduction of Christianity that land became view as hereditary individual property.

So how did Hawai'i move from "open chiefdoms" (or what I prefer to call the 'ohana system) to a "stratified chiefdom" (what I dub the mokupuni system) without going through a period of "traditional chiefdom" as in other Polynesian societies? Hawaiian accounts are almost universal in declaring that this was due to the arrival of a man named Pa'ao.

In Hawaiian Mythology by Martha Beckwith, she recounts the two versions of the Pa'ao legends as follows:

Tradition ascribes to Paao the introduction of human sacrifice into the temple ritual, the walled heiau, and the red-feather girdle as a sign of rank; all typical, says Handy, of late Tahitian culture and not found in Samoa. Other institutions ascribed to him are the pulo‘ulo‘u tapu sign, the prostrating tapu (tapu moe or -o), and the feather god Kaili; some would call Paao rather than La‘a-mai-kahiki the introducer of image worship. Most of these things characterize the Ra‘iatea ritual. That Paao took his ideas from Tahiti is further indicated by reference to "Vavau" and "Upolo" as places where he owned land, probably old districts so named in northern Tahiti in the Aha-roa division of that island, and the name Aha-ula (later called Waha-ula) for the first heiau erected by his party on Hawaii suggests such a connection. Paao is said to have brought the puhala (pandanus) to Kohala. He brought soil from the hills and planted trees about the heiau, still standing, of Wahaula, some of which seem to have survived to Fornander's day. Stones near the heiau of Mo‘okini are pointed out today as "Paao's canoe," his "paddles" and "fishhook," and the fields he cultivated are called "the weeds of Paao" (na maau o Paao) and left untouched for fear of storm. To him are ascribed those severities of religious observance which built up the power of chief and priest during this later period of migration from the south. The land was revolutionized and all the old kahunas were put to death during Paao's time, says Kepelino.

(a) Emerson version. The priest Paao and his older brother Lono-pele have a bitter quarrel. Lono-pele accuses Paao's son of stealing tapu food and Paao insists on cutting open his son's stomach to prove the accusation false. He broods over his son's death and builds a double canoe to leave for other lands. Lono-pele's son drums upon the canoes with his fingers while they are under tapu and Paao has him slain for a sacrifice for the canoes and buried beneath them, where the buzzing of flies reveals to the father the child's dead body.
Paao acts as priest for the voyage, Makaalawa as navigator and astronomer, Halau as sailing master, Pu-oleole as trumpeter; and there are forty paddlers, besides stewards and awa chewers. Na-mauu-o-Malawa (The grasses of Malawa), sister of Paao, accompanies the party. Kanaloa-nui the canoe is called (Or Ka-nalo-a-muia, The buzzing of flies). They pass under the Kaakoheo bluff and the prophet Makuakaumana asks to be taken aboard. Paao says all the places are full except the projection of the stern. Makuakaumana leaps and gains this position (but this incident probably belongs to the return trip to Tahiti).
Lono-pele sends as storm winds Kona-ku, Kona-nui-a-niho, Moae, Kona-heapuku, Kiki-ao, Lele-ula, Lele-kuilua, followed by a north wind, Ho‘olua, and a monster bird, the Iwa, called Ke-kaha-ka-iwa-i-na-pali. Paao invokes Lono and first a school of aku fish, then one of opelu come to quiet the waves. These fish have ever since been sacred to the Paao family.
Paao lands first in Puna on Hawaii, where he builds the heiau at Pulama [now called Waha-ula (Red mouth) but formerly Aha-ula]. He goes on to Kohala and erects the famous heiau of Mo‘okini at Pu‘uepa, the stones for which are passed from hand to hand a distance of nine miles from the seacoast.
(b) Kamakau version. Upon Paao's prayer to the god of ocean (Kanaka-o-kai, says Green), the aku and opelu fish "leaped up and skipped in the waters and quieted the waves." At the time of the prophet's leap, several other "gods" attempted the feat and were dashed to death. His success is heralded in a chant:"You are like the flying fishSkimming easily through the sky,Traversing the dark waters of ocean,O Halulu at the foundation house of heaven,Kane, Makua-kau-mana,The prophet who made the circuit of the island,Who circled the pillars of Kahiki."(Paao brings with him several mo‘o kupua from Kahiki, all worshiped as sacred stones on Oahu today. These are Makapu‘u, Ihiihi-lau-akea, and Malei. Makua-kau-mana returns to Kahiki but Paao remains on Hawaii and his bones rest in the cave of Pu‘uwepa in Kohala. An early school composition makes Paao brother to Pele.) (p370-373)

Tales of the Night Rainbow by Koko Willis and Pali Jae Lee gives the following account

Around 1250 A.D., a priest named Pa'ao came on a visit from Tahiti.

We knew Tahitians for there were many Tahitians who had come here to live. Any family who wished to come and live on these shores was welcomed and they were helped to establish themselves. They usually adapted to our way of life quickly and there was harmony among the families. All these people were considered to be Hawaiian. Where they came from was of no importance. The heart (kana'au) [my note. ka na'au actually means gut or liver not heart which makes perfect sense for Native speakers since the na'au was believed to be the seat of consciousness, emotions and culture not the heart but makes no since to an English speaker] was what we saw and heard. Pa'ao was noticed for many reasons. He came wearing white. The color was not used by us for it represented the absence of life. The men who came with him wore the Tahitian red malo (clothing) with which we were familiar. Pa'ao visited every island asking questions, always asking questions. People wanted to be helpful and so told him of harbors and tides, fertile valleys and all the things he asked about. No one thought much about it he'd ask questions, the people tried to answer. Then suddenly he was gone. The people questioned each other about him. He made many feel an unease that they were not used to. They called him the man who wore death, because of his undyed kapa. Several years later, we learned that Pa'ao did indeed wear death for he returned bringing devastation to our land.

To us, they were invaders. Pa'ao had gone back to Tahiti and gathered thousands of people to come to Hawai'i and take over the land. The men were tall fierce warriors. They did not believe in the force of light, only in the force of the closed fist, in mighty armies that killed, took and plundered. (21-23)

According Legends and Myths of Hawai'i by King Kalākaua:

When the high-priest Paao arrived with Pili he introduced some new gods while recognizing the old, strengthened and enlarged the scope of the tabu, and established an hereditary priesthood independent of, and second only in authority to, the supreme political head. Different grades of priests also came into existence, such as seer, prophets, astrologers and kahuna of various function,including the power of healing and destroying. In fact, the priesthood embraced ten distinct grades or colleges, each possessing and exercising powers peculiar to it, and mastery of all of them was one of the qualifications of the high priesthood. The tutelar deity of the entire body was Uli. The form of the heiau, or temple, was changed by Paao and his successors, and the masses mingled less freely in the ceremonies of sacrifice and other forms of worship. The high priesthood became more mysterious and exclusive, and assumed prerogatives above the reach of royalty. (p38)

Kalākaua also describes in his book that Pili would try to conquer the entire archipelago but would fail at Kaua'i where he was taken ransom. But the new social order brought by Pa'ao would last for the next five hundred years--with serious innovations.

The arrival of Pa'ao and the attempted unification of Hawai'i under Pili in the 13th century fits into what was also occurring elsewhere in the Pacific. Samoa and Tonga began to move to a stratified feudal society and took turns conquering each other and sometimes their neighbors like Fiji and Tuvalu as well. Samoa also began to build cities such as in Mu'a. In the Western Pacific, Islam began making headway and the traditional Hindu and animist rulers began fleeing to Bali, the Maluku, Flores, southern Philippines and possibly as into the middle of the Pacific itself including Papua-New Guinea. In Micronesia,stratified chiefdoms were formed and construction of the building of floating cities such as Nan Mandol begun. The Rapa Nui, Rarotonga, the Austral Islands, Huahine, Borabora and Tahiti also began a period of redefining its traditional social structure and religious megalithic building. Much as the Warring States Period of China produced some of the great thinkers of Chinese history such as Kung Tzu (Confucius), Laozi, and others, this dramatic period of social change in the Pacific also saw the birth of social innovations and thinkers. Its believed that at this time the Arioi movement began in Tahiti under the prophet-deity Oro, the Bird-Man cult of Rapa Nui, the Uritoi society began in Guam, the Kaioi society of the Marquesas. The common major social changes that occurred from one end of the Pacific to the other end, from Jawa (Java) to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) at roughly the same century, however, was the strengthening of a class system and the birth or arrival of new religious and mystical movements--most of which were started by "prophets", "saints", and "visionaries". The new religious movements may have been a reaction to the strengthening of class prerogatives of the ruling class as well as dealing with an increase in the population due to a high birth rate at the time as well with another wave or exploration and migration throughout the Pacific. As such Pa'ao may have been part of a reactionary authoritarian movement against these religious ideas and introduced these reforms into Hawai'i.

One has to also take into account that the two hundred years prior to Pa'ao, Hawaiians were increasingly aware of the outside world. Those were the times of Kupe, Hema, Hawai'iloa, Mo'ikeha, and many others. So Hawai'i was connected to not only Polynesia but in other places in the Pacific. But just as Willis and Lee mentioned, new settlers into Hawai'i tended to blend into the local culture. The awareness of different races (as the Kumulipo and other chants mentions) and the openness to outside ideas is probably why Hawaiians did not develop xenophobia that would have prevented Pa'ao and Pili from setting foot in Hawai'i.

We also know from archaeological remains that the Hawaiian population was growing rapidly beginning in the 13th century. This probably led to some areas having tight competition for resources. This also allowed for a large potential labor pool. Hawaiians began to build fish ponds, 'auwai systems, and probably still practiced some kind of 'ohana clan leadership type of system mentioned by Puku'i and Lee. However, there was no type of central leadership. Pa'ao's reforms allowed for a central hereditary leadership to push for wider projects and the enforced caste-like system (with the variations of kahuna orders and emphasis on ali'i blue blood) essentially gave jobs to the labor pool which made them less restless and co-opted them to supporting the new order. His reforms also probably drove the fear of God into the indigenous population as he also introduced human sacrifice and a new series of kapu including puhi ahi kanaka or the burning heretics and criminals. I always imagined Pa'ao to be sort of a Polynesian Torquemada like in those Monty Python skits "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!". For those who are reading this and saying "Wait, I didn't know Hawaiians burned heretics". Yes, they did. While many Polynesian groups ate their captives, criminals, and those who spoke against the chief or the Gods, Hawaiians did not practice cannibalism. But they did practice ritual burning, ritual drownings, and other things that one probably wouldn't read in Ka Wai 'Ola o OHA anytime soon. But all of those mentioned death rituals were all said to have been introduced by Pa'ao. Almost every Hawaiian source points their finger at Pa'ao. Pa'ao, as noted by Kalākaua also introduced megalithic temple building and new forms of ki'i. Archaeologically speaking, this can be varied not only by the remains of the various heiau which double or tripled in size after the 14th century but by the Mokumanana site which dates prior to the 16th century.

Mokumanamana ki'i

Temple of Kamehameha I in the Kona District at Kamakahonu. Courtesy, Hawaii State Archives, Honolulu.

Tournament during the Makahiki

A couple of centuries after Pa'ao, the deity Lono arrives. According to Martha Beckwith in Hawaiian Mythology:

The Lono order of priests in the days of Kamehameha set up heiaus to pray for rain, abundant crops, or escape from sickness and trouble. A prayer to Lono, recorded in the Fornander collection under Thrum, shows how, after the coming of Kane and Kanaloa and the establishment of the ancestral line through Kumuhonua and Lalohonua and its spread over the island through Wakea and Papa, from whom were born the chiefs, there came Lono also from the ancestral birth-place, to whom were offered the redfish, the black coconut, the whitefish, and the growing awa; to Kane and Kanaloa were made sacred the red fowl, the pig, and awa: 'Ku, Kane, and Kanaloa are supreme in Kahiki.' The coming of Lono is heralded by cloud signs in the heavens and finally:

Lono and Keakea-lani,Living together, fructifying the earth,Observing the tapu of women,Clouds bow down over the sea,The earthquake soundsWithin the earth,Tumbling down thereBelow Malama.

Beckwith says that:

According to Kupihea the great gods came at different times to Hawaii. Ku and Hina, male and female, were the earliest gods of his people. Kane and Kanaloa came to Hawaii about the time of Maui. Lono seems to have come last and his role to have been principally confined to the celebration of games. At one time he was driven out, according to Kupihea, but he returned later. Kane, although still thought of as the great god of the Hawaiian people, is no longer worshiped, but Ku and Hina are still prayed to by fishermen, and perhaps Kanaloa--Kupihea repeating to me softly the prayer with which he himself invoked the god of fishes.
Of the coming of the gods he had explicit evidence to offer: "Ku and Hina were the first gods of our people. They were the gods who ruled the ancient people before Kane. On [the island of] Lanai was the gods' landing, at the place called Ku-moku. That is the tradition of our people. Kane and Kanaloa [arrived there], but not Lono. Some claim that Lono came to Maui. It is said that at the time Kamehameha quartered his men at Kaunakakai on Molokai before the invasion of Oahu, he went to Lanai to celebrate the Makahiki [New Year] festival and on that occasion he said, ‘We come to commemorate the spot where our ancestors first set foot on Hawaiian soil.' So it seems as if it must be true that the first gods who ruled our people came to Lanai." (p11)

So Pa'ao most likely brought with him various clan legends about Kāne, Kanaloa, Wākea, Papa and a modified version of Kū in order to underpin not just the authority of the ali'i but to re-enforce that Hawai'i was as a Mo'ikeha chant puts it:

Eia Hawai‘i, he motu, he tanata
He kanaka Hawai‘i, e –He kanaka Hawai‘i
He tama na Tahiti
He pua ali‘i mai Tapa‘ahu
Mai Moa‘ulanuiakea Kanaloa
He mo‘opuna na Kahiko, laua o Kapulanakehau
Na Papa i hanau.....

A child of Kahiki or Tahiti. An offspring. When an island group is called a child of another island group, it denotes that group was in tributary or inferior relationship in ali'i-speak. During the Tongan-Samoan wars, the Tu'i Tonga, the Tongan rulers, would sometimes refer to Samoa as a child of Tonga. Samoan rulers would sometimes refer to Tonga as their child. This was done even in the 19th century when Enele Ma'afu of Tonga conquered parts of Fiji and described his realm as being a child of Tonga. If rulers wanted to express that their realms were equals, they would use the term for siblings or friends.

With the coming of Lono (whether he was an akua or some kind of prophet from a religious movement in the South like the Arioi as some speculate, we do not know), the tired population welcomed yet another innovation into the religious system and the Makahiki Festival was introduced which allowed the population some degree of relief from the restrictions placed by Pa'ao-- similar to how a Mardi Gras where one can freely poke fun of norms and social conventions. The Makahiki Festival also allowed an avenue where people could channel their frustrations through sports--something similar to the Greeks and their Olympics and Americans and their Superbowl. Without the Makahiki innovation, Hawai'i probably would have seen more revolts. The ali'i were most likely also happy because the kapu system also restricted their interactions with each other and allowed them a time to rest before preparing for war in the next season.

The Makahiki Festival in Waimanalo

Furthermore, as an additional release valve, the reason that land tenureship was made flexible could have also been as a way to co-opt various 'ohana and Kūlanakauhale (villages). By the time Pa'ao had arrived, larger extended families probably lived in Kūlanakauhale and met in hālau loa. The original meaning of hālau was not just school or a canoe shed, but it was a neutral area within a large settlement where several 'ohana could meet and deal with common issues. These types of meetings in the hālau were originally led by experts (kahuna) considered to be neutral but in later times, by a konohiki appointed by the ali'i nui (high chief). If the land tenureship could change with the death of a new high chief, it meant that the appointments would also die with him. Therefore, an aspiring commoner could in theory gain an appointment as a konohiki therefore basically become a mini-ali'i in the kūlanakauhale. In addition, by not having fixed land tenureship, it gave the ali'i nui a free hand in disbursing favored lands to his supporters-- that is to say his favored ali'i and clans alike. Those who did not support the ali'i nui were free to leave. This also favored ambitious 'ohana who by supporting a winning ali'i nui, could displace a rival 'ohana off their lands. This also favored a patron-client type of relationship that continues until this day.

With the new combination of a stable hereditary aristocracy caste-like structure (introduced by Pa'ao), unfixed land tenureship, the sanctioning of a separate kahuna class (also introduced by Pa'ao and this new institution would in turn be obligated to support the state-sponsored clan founder mythology), and a valve to release social pressure (through the Makahiki), this created the Hawaiian mokupuni structure that reached its zenith under Umi-a-Liloa and was carried over until the 18th century.

Part 2: The Hawaiian Class System

2011-09-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

Part 2: the Hawaiian Class System

Before Wākea, Before Pa'ao, the 'Ohana System

“Na ali'i o ke kuamo'o o Haloa”

Chiefs of the lineage of Haloa…

Said of high chiefs whose lineage goes back to ancient times.

Mary Kawena Puku'i - 'Olelo No'eau

Hawaiian family. Courtesy of the Bishop Museum

In Tales of the Night Rainbow by Koko Willis and Pali Jae Lee there is this interesting passage:

Family, to us, on Moloka'i was seen as a solid unit. A whole, of which we
were each a part. In actuality, the family was a community or group of people
living together, growing together, working out their problems the best way they
could together, all connected, all learning and growing and assisting each other
fingers of the same hand; parts of one body.
Each 'Ohana was governed by a group of kupuna (elders). Age alone did
not make one a part of this group. There were many old people who were not.
To become part of the ruling body of the family you had to be accepted by all
of the elders. Everything was decided on consensus of opinion. The ruling body
varied in size, and always consisted of kahuna (experts) of many kinds.
When a person proved himself through years of hard work and wise thinking,
if they were known for being loving and unselfish in all things, and had mastered
many of the family secrets, sooner or later their name would come up and the
kupuna would discuss making this person a part of their group. No vote was taken.
If everyone was in agreement, then at the family 'aha (meeting) they were
requested to join the other kupuna who ruled, on the upper part of the circle.
It may sound simple. It was not.
One of the kupuna was our chief or ruling elder. He did not rule alone like
the ali'i. All our ruling elders ruled together. This one person met with other
family heads when there was need of it, and brought us news of what was going
on in other families. (p33-34)

It is important to note here that Lee makes it a point to say that kahuna means expert and not what it has come to mean post-1820 which is priest or something related to "sorcery". I will delve into that important distinction later.

In Mary Kawena Puku'i's "The Polynesian Family System in Ka'u" we find this on page 2:

In Hawaiʻi political control was constantly in flux and political institutions were ill defined; land titles were evanescent due to redivision of spoils amongst faithful supporters upon the accession of every new high chief (whether he had acquired power through conquest or election by family council); and the external mechanism of family form and authority was less well regulated, though the family was, internally, completely integrated...

Because old Hawaiʻi lacked village units regulated by established institutions such as existed in New Zealand and Samoa, it must not be concluded that the community was not a reality and a fundamental factor in the old political and economic order.

The fundamental unit in the social organization of the Hawaiians of Ka-ʻu was the dispersed community of ʻohana, or relatives by blood, marriage and adoption, living some inland and some near the sea but concentrated geographically in and tied by ancestry, birth and sentiment to a particular locality which was termed the ʻaina.

Puku'i writes further that:

There are ample indications that in this legendary era pioneering Hawaiians were tribal groups, under individual chiefs, many of whom came from islands south of the equator, generically referred to as “Kahiki” (generally meaning “a land overseas”). From the point of view of Polynesian history, a study of these evidences, scattered through legends, myths, chants and genealogies, is capable of yielding rich rewards, in interest and in scholarly returns. (p41)

and then quotes Sir Peter Buck by:

Dr. Buck writes (The Coining of the Maori, p. 338): “All members of a Maori tribe are related to each other by blood descent, and the record of a common tie is preserved in the family genealogies.... The kinship terms in use are capable of expressing the relationship between any two members of the tribe... (42)”

The arrangement mentioned by Lee and Puku'i is not as unusual or idealistic as it may sound. On Ni'ihau, the term "'ohana" does not mean family. It means a family meeting, a sort of 'aha. The term for family unit is pilitana. In the old Hamakua dialect of Hawaiian which my grandmother spoke, the word 'ohana refers to a village meeting. Specific related persons or family units were called pilihanau. So the structure mentioned by Lee and Puku'i bares a resemblance to those mentioned concepts. It also bares a resemblence to what existed in other Austronesian societies in the Pacific.

For those who are unfamilar with the term, Austronesian has nothing to do with Australia but is a linguistic and anthropological classification pertaining to the indigenous populations of Oceania, parts of SE Asia, and Madagascar. Austronesian simply means "South Sea Islands" in Greco-Latin just as "Polynesian" means "Many Islands" in Greco-Latin and the Austronesian family of languages is believed to be one of the oldest language families dating back to at least 4,000 years. The Hawaiian language is a part of the Polynesian branch of the Austronesian family of languages. Since language is the primary carrier of culture and being that Hawaiian was not a written language until 1822 or 1823 (depending on which source you're using), one of the ways that one can verify if a practice is indeed an ancient one or a local innovation is by looking at the origins of the terminology and the concepts and comparing cognate (similar) terms or concepts by various Austronesian languages. For example, the word maka or mata means "eye" in most Austronesian languages (including in Philippine, Indonesian, Malagasy and Maori languages) so we can conclude that the body part name and the word itself dates back several thousand years because of its prevalence in other Austronesian languages.

In a symposium on "Austronesian diaspora and the Ethnogeneses of people in Indonesian Archipelago" which the proceedings were published by the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of Science in 2006 under the same name as the symposium, a paper discusses some common Austronesian terms including the term matua. Every Hawaiian knows the word makua. Today, it means parent. In the symposium proceedings, it lists matua in Macassarese and Buginese as eldest, elder (kinship) or old (p214). I know that in Toraja, matua refers to the older generation, well older than the speaker. The creator being in Toraja mythology is Puang Matua. The Malay word for "lord" or "noble" is tuan and is believed to come from either the word matua or matuang and the word datuk or datu which now an aristocratic title is believed to have originally referred to the ancestor of a clan (ed. Thomas Reuter, Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land, p116). Datuk among certain Dayak tribes in Borneo also means expert, medicine man and the head of a tribe--similar in some respects to what Lee was writing about in regards to expert. In Chamorro, matua or matoa refers to chiefs and likewise means old or dignified.

In old Hawaiian, a makua was anyone one generation removed from the speaker which is why the makua used to also refer not just as parent but as to uncles, aunts, and older cousins. So like in Macassarese and Buginese, the word also implied someone who was more senior than you. But in Hawaiian, it meant one generation removed. Matua could also be one of the root words for akua. Thus an akua was originally the founder or makua of a clan. This could explain why early Hawaiian Christians did not see the necessity of having makua and akua in the same sentence. Early Protestants as one knows were very fond of saying "Father God".  Kupuna on the other hand meant two generations removed from the speaker thus it came to mean "grandparent" in English.

In Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land, several authors make the point that the clan was the single fundamental social unit. This is in opposition to the Western idea where the fundamental social unit is the individual. In the surveyed cases--from Indonesia to Tonga--the clan did not simply consist of a father, mother, grandparents, and children. Again this is in opposition to the Western idea of what constitutes a family. In the case of the Balinese, the clan consisted of those who were related by blood (in some cases up to the 10th degree), those who married blood relatives, those adopted into ones clan, as well as those shared the same neighborhood and temple (banua in Balinese). In some cases, those who lived in the same district treated each other as family, though the bloodlines were not clear, because they shared in communal tasks (banjar) such as farming and fishing. Those who shared in the same rituals and occupations could also see themselves as a form of an extended family since Bali is divided into a caste system and those of the same caste generally had to marry each other and work together. There is no differentiation between a clan and a family in the Balinese sense. In the Hawaiian sense, this may have also been true of larger settlements particularly after Pa'ao. While Lee and Puku'i do not go deeply into those areas, they both argue that their perspective is largely based on a rural setting where the class or caste-like divisions were not as pronounced as in other areas. In the large villages of Kou (Honolulu) and Kailua (Hawai'i), a clan could easily have consisted of several extended families including those who lived near each other and, eventually after Pa'ao, those performing similar occupations as well as those sharing the same ritual spaces similar to the Balinese example. So the Hawaiian 'ohana or clan could have at first consisted of family members (perhaps up to the 10th degree consanguinity as the Balinese case), those hanai'd into the family, those "married" (I prefer the term ku'i or joined than married since married is a Western concept) into the family, and those who lived in the same village. Eventually, as settlements grew larger and with the imposition of the ali'i institution, those performing the same communal tasks and within the same class, could have easily saw themselves as being "ohana" since they would have seen each other everyday and could have eaten meals together in the same eating houses. Like the Balinese, I doubt that there were any differentiation between a clan and a family as both were called 'ohana. Also in the Balinese and Hawaiian cases, these clans or larger families had councils which consisted of experts and from the bases of these councils, leadership were generally held by agreement and by election. The most senior person did not necessarily have the right to lead the entire clan unless he or she had the respect of the entire clan to do so.

One has to think that voyaging for thirty or more days on a single canoe, you'd probably travel with relatives and those who you can trust as opposed to complete strangers who might just throw you overboard if food becomes scarce.

Upon arrival to a new land, the clan or 'ohana would claim certain lands or what some anthropologists call "ritual area" and developed certain narratives to explain how and why it could claim certain lands and thus have access to spiritual economic and political power. In Peter Bellwood's The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspective  he notes:

Each clan recounts its separate origin and its particular journey into Tana ’Ai. One clan — in Lewis’ words, “the source clan” —is pre-eminent. This clan possesses the narrative that integrates the other clans to it. As among the Kalauna, this clan’s “history” is especially complex because its own internal division is of great significance. For the source clan of Tana ’Ai, this internal division is an ancestral elder/younger bifurcation represented by critical differences encountered in hunting together. On arriving in Tana ’Ai, the elder of the brothers assigns precedence to the ancestors of the other clans as they, in turn, arrive; the younger brother marries with these ancestors and shares out ceremonial goods and ritual duties. An ambiguous third ancestor who accompanies the two brothers at the outset takes a divergent journey and finally arrives in Tana ’Ai to become the founder of the lowest clans of the domain...

Among the Ilongot, each household is regarded as “one trunk” (tan tengeng). These “trunks” form local clusters generally denoted by the names of rivers or other prominent features of their environment. The boundaries of these settlements and the affiliation of households within them is flexibly interpreted. But in each settlement, according to Michelle Rosaldo,
there is at least a core group of closely related families who are apt to share a history of common residence, having lived in close proximity over years of intermittent movement in search of fertile lands, abundant forests, or freedom from lowland law. It is this history of coordinated moves, through times of inward-turning “concentration” and then “dispersal” toward the lowland margins of Ilongot lands, that lends a settlement its viability as an ill-defined yet generally recognized and cooperating social group (M. Rosaldo 1980:5)...
Like the Kalauna and Ata Tana ’Ai, Ilongot also possess origin narratives that relate journeys of the past. Although they focus mainly on the recounted memories of their oldest living members, these narratives nevertheless articulate two distinct levels of origin. Again to quote Michelle Rosaldo:
A history of related moves, interpreted in an idiom of bilateral kinship and reinforced by bonds of marriage, permit most members of a settlement to construe themselves as kin, who (as Ilongots express it) share a “body” (betrang) … What continues over time is not a stable group but a tradition of relation (M. Rosaldo 1980:9)...
Here kinship is constituted by a shared journey which includes hunting together. A tradition of such shared relationship points to still earlier origins.
Those people who have shared in hunts, along with kin in other settlements with whom they have been wont to live at times of “concentration”, will tend to see themselves as members of a single bertan… .
Ilongot society is composed of at least thirteen such discrete, named, and loosely localized groups. Seen from a perspective of origin structures, there is little formal difference between the Ilongot, the Kalauna or the Ata Tana ’Ai except in the way in which each of these societies reckons its path of origin through the father in the case of the Kalauna, the mother in the case of Ata Tana ’Ai or through either parent in the case of the Ilongot. In all of these societies, the sharing of a journey is part of the reckoning of social ancestry. This reckoning is enhanced by the recurrent linguistic use of terms for “path” as a common Austronesian metaphor for social relationships.
In comparing these societies, one crucial difference needs to be pointed out in the case of the Ilongot. All the bertan of the Ilongot recount their own separate narrative of origin; no member of a bertan recites a narrative that links the bertan to each other as a group.

From this long description, one can gleam the true context of the Papa-Wākea myths as well as the Kumulipo (which would be developed in the 1750s) and the kapu. Hawaiian society was divided into 'ohana. Experts became clan leaders (mākua then worked their way to become kūpuna). Exceptional experts within the ʻalaea would then eventually hold chiefly position as explained by Lee and as what currently still takes place among the Dayaks in Borneo. In early times, these positions were probably not hereditary nor automatic (including the title of kupuna and mākua). But as families intermarried or adopted (hānai) each other, larger 'ohana became ʻalaea or clans. Following the patterns of Samoa, Eastern Indonesia, Guam and the Philippines, as one ʻalaea gained political or economic control over their own 'ohana and over other ʻalaea, it became a "source clan" or a governing class. The source clan (papa noho or lit. "presiding class") would eventually claim hereditary privileges thus becoming papa noho ali'i and justify this new structure through some kind of quasi-historical narrative or myth. In this context, the mythology of Papa and Wākea, of Hāloa, of Māui all begin to make sense. These were all originally clan "legends" of their clan founders that became the "pre-eminent" myth in an effort by the governing clan to bind all the other clans together (including the 'ohana from previous migrations) yet at the same time to give precedence to one set of individuals or group within their own ruling clan to have control both ritual domains (i.e. heiau) and political economy (i.e. natural resources of the 'āina, valued trade items such as feathers, etc) of all clans under their rule. This is why most of these genealogical chants include references to struggles against brothers and why certain incestuous relationships were deemed necessary to preserving the purity of the papa noho ali'i. To help control the various 'ohana on the psychological level, new classes of experts (kahuna) became solely religious functionaries (read priests) who then perpetuated the clan myths of the ruling elite. However, Hawaiian sources say that this process of hereditary privileges of the priests and nobility was dramatically quickened or imposed by the arrival of Pa'ao.

Outside of the "Austronesian world", another example that might parallel this might be in Japan where the Amaterasu mythology of the Yamato clan became the dominant origin or founder mythology as the clan came to eventually rule over much of Japan and in turn would create Shintoism to re-enforce their new national leadership.The earliest settlers of Japan, the pre-Jomon and the Ainus were eventually pushed back by the waves of migrations until they were subdued by the Yamato clan until the point that today we know very little about these peoples. Their mythologies were replaced by the Yamato clan founder's genealogical myths and its sanctioned practices through the Shinto priesthood. The same probably happened in Hawai'i.

As one migration established a foothold in Hawai'i over another earlier migration, this created a series of competing or counter-myths as well. Lee's work is an example of such. So are some of the legends Samuel Kamakau writes of. As the saying goes, where there is power, there is resistance. This is where the role of origin meta-myths--myths that link all the Hawaiian people into one unit through a clan founder or place of origin (as in the Hawai'iloa myths)--comes into play. Since even until today the "'ohana" is still a basic unit of Hawaiian society, meta-myths like Papa-Wākea and the Kumulipo had been created and sanctioned as a way to bind the various 'aha 'ohana to the ali'i as well as to project an air of superiority. I call it the kākou-mākou myths meaning there is a layer of inclusiveness (kākou) while it still contains a layer of exclusivity (mākou) from the audience.

Without these origin meta-myths, the 'aha 'ohana would not feel obligated not only to obey the ali'i without the use of force but not to help out non-related persons in their community. Thus the myths of Papa and Wākea, Hāloa, etc, all provided not only a raison d'etre for the ali'i but also performed the role of philosophically justifying their rule over all other 'ohana or clans--many of which were already there. Once the ali'i had a philosophical reason for all other clans to obey them (i.e. being the ones that defeated Liha'ula, being the older brothers of the Hawaiian people, etc), they then could claim all the islands as their own and begin to develop a semi-feudal aristocratic society. So these myths and genealogies provided a philosophical transition from the 'ohana type of system (that probably existed prior to their arrival) to the new state society that the ali'i were trying to cultivate, particularly after Pa'ao--a society which was significantly different than the previous social order.

The kapu then could be understood also provided a socio-religious tool to display its dominance over the other clans as well as re-enforcing the source clan's mythology, providing a system to control the natural resources, a means to disburse privileges and justice, and simply a way to test the loyalty of other clans. That also would explain the why ali'i had to constantly project themselves as embodying the akua themselves particularly through temple rituals--as a way to re-enforce the sanctioned myths and upon the populace. It also would explain why the ali'i would sought to tie themselves to the main food crop, taro, in an effort perhaps similar to how other nationalities such as the Americans tie certain foods (i.e. apple pie, hot dogs) to being "American". It is also a technique that other royal clans had done (i.e. the Yamato clan of Japan, the Chakri of Thailand and other dynasties in Asia sought an affiliation with rice, etc)

As the ali'i institution became more stable over time, aspects of the previous clan social order, as spoken about in Tales of the Night Rainbow and in The Polynesian Family System in Ka'u continued under the new royal divine-sanctioned structure of the hereditary ali'i and in many respects still continues among certain Hawaiian families albeit in a syncretic Christian form.

But again, this also shows that Hawaiian culture and Hawaiian politics is far from a pond of wai kū (stagnant water) as some would like to have Hawaiians believe. But Hawaiian society and culture historically, is like any other living society, underwent sometimes dramatic internal change.

Part 1: The Hawaiian Class System

2011-09-23T02:33:00.000-07:00

Part 1: The Hawaiian Class System

The Origins of the Ali'i and Kahuna

A maka'āinana standing next to ki'i.
Photo by Brother Bertram Gabriel Bellinghausen c1889.
Courtesy of Chaminade University

A proper understanding of our history is very important to us because it will serve to demonstrate how the present has been distorted by a faulty knowledge of our past. By unraveling the past we become confronted with the present already as future." Renato Constantino, Dissent and Counter-Consciousness, p131

The other day I had been re-reading some of the Hawaiian books I have and in particular the book, Tales of the Night Rainbow by Koko Willis and Pali Jae Lee. When I read the book the first time a decade ago I didn't take much notice in particular a chapter on the ali'i. I think it may have been because I had similar stories before from my grandmother or due to the fact that its only within the last five year thats I had been able to study various Austronesian languages more closely and have had the opportunity to get material on the indigenous peoples from Indonesia, Fiji, Samoa, and the Philippines (not mention a bit of traveling).

In the next four parts, I will be examining the Hawaiian class system from an historical, anthropological, and from the mythical point of view.

My grandmother never believed that most of the ali'i were indigenous or were Hawaiian. She believed that many of them came originally from Samoa, Tahiti, Borabora and Ra'iatea because of their kapu which included the kapu puhi kanaka ahi, lumaluma'i and certain types of mōhai. I won't translate those terms because they are quite horrible and graphic. But she believed that such kapu were innovation sfrom Tahitians who came with Pa'ao and that originally the Hawaiian religion consisted of simply Kū and Hina. She also believed that original Hawaiians were also not directly from Polynesia but from Asia (hence the names Hawa, Hiwa, Ulu, and Nana which have cognate names in Indonesia, Borneo, and India) led by Māui and the original people were primarily farmers which is why Kanaloa never had a huge role in the Hawaiian religion unlike the Māori, Tongans, and Samoans. But later, with Pa'ao, all of this was distorted as the kapu system became rigid and this is why some Hawaiians have a different more hoʻomaʻau mentality, particularly notice-able with some Hawaiian politicians and certain Hawaiian groups. I personally took those stories as a family myths but those stories had always bothered me which is why I began to investigate more on Pacific linguistics and history.

In Tales of the Night Rainbow, the author clearly state:

To us, they were invaders. Pa'ao had gone back to Tahiti and gathered thousands of people to come to Hawai'i and take over the land. The men were tall fierce warriors. They did not believe in the force of light, only in the force of the closed fist, in mighty armies tha t killed, took and plundered. The people on Lana' i were the first to see them approaching. They said the red malo of the invaders could be seen from horizon to horizon making the s e a itself take on a r ed hue. Soon the s e a did turn red with the blood of our people as thousands were slaughtered and enslaved. The native population that could, made a run for Kaua'i where they would be safe. You had to be well schooled in the tides of Kaua'i to get ashore safely. Many of the people who could not get to the boats in time hid in mountain caves. The people who were caught were used as fishbait and human sacrifices, and their bones were used to decorate the tiki statues of the Tahitian gods.
The Tahitians who became the rulers of our islands called themselves na ali'i ( the rulers or chiefs) and they called our people Mana hune (small power) because they thought we were ajoke. In fact the people who lived here before the ali'i came were much smaller than these warriors, and had no knowledge of how to use a spear of club or any manner of war weapon. The early people had used their minds to cooperate with the world and had no war leaders or chiefs to lead them into battle. They were fishermen and farmers. They shared all they grew and caught with the community. To be a warrior you must be trained in the ways of war. No one in our Islands had such training at that time. Since the Tahitians did not consider mind power to be power at all, the people were as they said -Mana hune (small power) [hence the origins of the name Menehune] (p21).

Legends and stories of the Menehune's great deeds came about because the ali'i would give orders when they wanted a fishpond built, or a temple or a ditch, and allowed a very short time for it to be done. The al t i would order the maoli (natives) to do the job and go off laughing. I f the work was not accomplished in the given time, all the people of that place would be slaughtered

In The Legends and Myths of Hawai'i by King Kalākaua, he claims that for thirteen or fourteen generations, the first people of Hawai'i lived very simply and not until the tenth century or so, did Nanamoa, Pili, and Pa'ao come from Tahiti and changed the political and social landscape of the islands (p20-21). Kalakaua goes on to say that:

At the close of the second migratory period, which concluded their intercouse with the world beyond them for more than six hundred years, or from AD 1175 AD to 1778, the people of the group had very generally transferred their allegiance to the newly-arrived chiefs.... (p22)

In the context of Tales of the Night Rainbow, the term "transferred" might be a polite way of saying conquered. Furthermore:

The nobility and hereditary priesthood claimed to be of a different stock different from that of the common people, and their superior stature and intelligence seemed to favor the assumption (p23)

So who were the ali'i? Did Hawai'i always have ali'i? One of the things that I love about Hawaiian legends is the bits of information (or "cracks in the parchment" as some historians call it) that can be gleamed. In addition, for every Hawaiian myth, there is a counter-myth. Let's take a look at our mythology for a second.

In Thrums Hawaiian Folk Tales, we find this legend:

In his time appeared a portent in the heavens in the shape of a head which spoke, commending Kahiko as a just ruler and reproving Waia because he had failed to keep up religious observances, to be courageous, to care for his people’s welfare, but took thought for his own pleasure alone and for the acquiring of possessions. “What king on the earth below lives an honest life?” asks the head, and the people answer “Kahiko!” “What good has Kahiko done?” “Kahiko is well skilled in all the departments of government; he is priest (kahuna) and diviner (kilokilo); he looks after the people in his government; Kahiko is patient and forbearing.” “Then it is Kahiko who is the righteous, the benevolent man,” says the head, and again it asks, “What king on earth lives corruptly?” and the people answer with a shout “Waia!” “What sin has he committed?” “He utters no prayers, he employs no priests, he has no diviner, he knows not how to govern,” answer the people.

Eventually the people decide to overthrow Waia, the brother of Kahiko. This is the first (and not the last) time the maka`āinana or commoners would overthrow a chief and replace him with another and this shows how fluid rank was at the time. It also shows that the commoner class did not simply blindly follow the ali'i. Kahiko is according to some genealogies the father of Wākea, Liha'ula, and Maku'u. With Kahiko as ruler, the priestly class (kahuna) and the ali'i (chiefly) class became united into one. But note, that all of this does not occur in Hawai'i. Hawaiian legends are nearly universal in saying that Wākea was either a chief or the son of a from Kahiki. In Martha Beckwith's Hawaiian Mythology in the chapter on "The Chiefs" we find:

Eastern Kahiki, western Kahiki were born, [My note: Most likely the original in Hawaiian said Kahiki ku and Kahiki Moe]
The regions below were born,
The regions above were born,
Hawaii was born,
The firstborn child was the island Hawaii
Of Wakea together with Kane,
And Papa in the person of Walinuʻu as wife.
Papa became pregnant with the island,
Sick with the foetus she bore,
Great Maui was born, an island,…
Papa was in heavy travail with the island Kanaloa (Kahoo-lawe)…
A child born to Papa.
Papa left and returned to Tahiti,
Went back to Tahiti at Kapakapakaua,
Wakea stayed, lived with Kaula as wife,
Lanai-kaula was born,
The firstborn of that wife.
Wakea sought a new wife and found Hina,
Hina lived as wife to Wakea,
Hina became pregnant with the island of Molokai,
The island of Molokai was a child of Hina.
The messenger of Kaula (Laukaula) told
Of Wakea’s living with another woman;
Papa was raging with jealousy,
Papa returned from Tahiti
Bitter against her husband Wakea,
Lived with Lua, a new husband,
Oahu son of Lua was born,
Oahu of Lua, an island child,
A child of Lua’s youth.
She lived again with Wakea,
Conceived by him,
Became pregnant with the island Kauai,
The island Kama-wae-lua-lani was born,
Niʻihau was an afterbirth,
Lehua a boundary,
Kaula the last
Of the low reef islands of Lono.…[emphasis mine]

Those who had been to the Makahiki at Kaho'olawe would be familiar with a shorter version of the chant usually called "the Papa-hānau-moku chant". In the above much longer version, we find that Wākea and Papa lived in one of the Kahiki's and came to Hawai'i the first born with Kāne and Papa. Kāne is always connected with huge landmasses (i.e. the Big Island of Hawai'i) and distant lands beyond Kahiki. In fact, Hawai'i, the island is said to have existed before Papa and Wākea and Papa goes back to Tahiti after giving birth Kaho'olawe. This is of course a different version that what many Hawaiians know of the Papa and Wākea mythology. The Papa and Wākea myths are important in our understanding how the class system came to be because the legitimacy of those claim to be ali'i even until today claim that all Hawaiians are related through the Papa and Wākea myth and that the ali'i are the eldest brother of the Hawaiian people hence why they deserve respect.

As I will be getting into Hawaiian Creation mythology in another post, lets take another look at Beckwith's Mythology and her notes on Papa and Wākea:

Stories and genealogies connect the Wakea-Papa line with the myth already noticed of a marriage between a high chief from a distant land and a native-born chiefess. A struggle is implied between an older line and a new order which imposes the separation of chiefs from commoners and of both from a degraded slave class, and establishes religious tapus, especially as related to women, by which so powerful a weapon is placed in the hands of the new theocracy, chiefs working in harmony with the priesthood, as to control conduct and effectually to subordinate the people to their ruling chiefs...Wakea is called the son of Kahiko-lua-mea (Very ancient and sacred) and his wife Kupulanakehau. To them are born Lihau-ula (Liha-ula, Lehu-ula) from whom are descended the priests (kahuna) and Wakea from whom come the chiefs (aliʻi). From a third son, Makuʻu, some say by another wife, come the commoners (maka-aina)....To the question of the meaning of the Papa and Wakea legend as it took shape in Hawaii no single answer can be given. Back of it is the Polynesian mythical conception of a dark formless spirit world presided over by the female element, and a world of form born out of the spirit world and to which it again returns, made visible and active in this human life through light as the impregnating male element. Back of it is also the actual picture of society in Hawaii, revealing a struggle for ascendancy among incoming settlers both in the Hawaiian group itself and in earlier lands—an ascendancy dominated by the idea of ancestry from a divine parent stock and hence of grades of rank as revealed in family genealogies....[the bold are mine]

In this rendering, Kahiko who had united the priestly and chiefly class in Kahiki and has three sons who represent the origins of the Hawaiian class system. We are often told about Hāloa, the taro, being the ancestors of all the Hawaiian people but we are never told about Maku'u because it would imply that the commoner class existed before Hāloa or that there were people here before Wākea which in turn would then change the perception people may have of the ali'i as being the older brothers as well as the fact that Hawaiians came in waves of migrations and not a single migration.

We are also never told that Wākea, called an 'ehu and a haole (meaning foreigner not Caucasian), at times he is the son of a foreign chief but born on O'ahu--the same place as Papa. For example we find this myth in Hawaiian Mythology from Kamakau:

Wakea is born at Waolani on Oahu and he finds Papa in Ewa district on Oahu, and there on Oahu the daughter Hoʻohoku is born. Kamakau states that 'the children of Wakea, up to the time of the disappearance of Haumea, lived between Halawa and Waikiki and for the most part in the uplands and valleys.; The land called Lalo-waia (and hence the name of Wakea’s son Waia) was a fertile land. Wakea (or perhaps his descendants) returned and lived there up to the time of Kamehameha. Some of his descendants emigrated to Kahiki and some peopled the other islands of the group. The story then resolves itself into that of a chief of god-like rank, attached to the Kane and Kanaloa family of gods in Waolani, who weds a daughter of a closely related Ewa family living in the land, and unites the priestly office with that of ruling chief. The chief later neglects his wife’s family, who eventually disappear from the land, and unites his interests with some other ruling line. The pattern occurs too commonly in Hawaiianromance to give it special significance in this connection.
Two chants in which the island births of Papa are made the theme for an enumeration of the islands of the group are so similar as to be certainly drawn from a common source. Both date from the time of Kamehameha and are hence not very early. Of the composers, Pakui is called the kahuna of the heiau of Manawai on Molokai. and Kaleikuahulu is described as a native of Kainalu on Molokai, son of the ruling chief Kumukoa and grandson of Keawe, whom Kamehameha appointed to teach to some of the chiefs his knowledge of genealogies....

Other chants and myths subscribe not Wākea, but Maui, as having discovered the Hawaiian Islands hence why in the above mentioned myth, Wākea was born on O'ahu which meant that the island and the Hawaiian people already obviously existed. Other myths exist that claim it was Kahiko himself to first saw the islands which were already inhabited. While others claim it was Ki'i or Hawai'iloa. Some legends claim that both Papa and Wākea were foreigners altogether and that the Papa and Wākea myths pertained to the Tahitian immigrants and not the original Hawaiian people. The point is that Hawaiians themselves existed prior to Wakea but the origins of the class division lies with Wakea's father, Kahiko.

After Kahiko's death, a battle occurs between Wakea and Liha'ula. Wākea attempts to reclaim the priesthood and the governing rights their father, Kahiko, once had. Wākea is victorious and Liha'ula is banished to Kahiki Moe while his children become the kahuna class. David Malo has this to say:

Kahiko at his death bequeaths the land to his elder son Lihau-ula “leaving Wakea destitute.” Lihau-ula gives battle to Wakea the blond (ehu) against the advice of his counselor, who would not have him fight during the summer lest his men melt away. Lihau-ula is slain and Wakea takes over the rule. He fights with Kane-ia-kumu-honua and is defeated and obliged to take to sea; but as they are swimming about his kahuna bids him form a symbolic heiau and its sacrifice with his hand (described much like our own hand game of the church and the steeple), gather his people together, and offer prayer to his god, which done he renews the battle, is victorious, and wins the government (aupuni). Those who place the fight in Hawaii say that he was driven to the extreme western islet of Kaula and thence oversea; others say that he fought in Kahiki-ku. (Hawaiian Antiquates, p312)

When Wākea won over his priestly brother, he then went on to Papa. After a while, Wākea begins to desire his daughter, Ho'ohokuikalani and issues the first kapu ali'i--the beginning of the kapu system and the institution of the ali'i as a hereditary governing class. Not a very auspicious reason to begin a new religious system. Wākea begins to resemble Henry VIII. Wakea then goes after his daughter, Hoʻohokuikalani, while Papa lives with Wākea’s kauwa Haakauilana in Tahiti and a son is born, Kekeu. Kekeu then has a union with Lumilani, probably a Hawaiian, and Noa is born. Noa lives with another person named Papa (sometimes also called Hina) and has Pueo-nui-weluwelu, who then goes off and marries Noni and has two children including Maka-noni. Thus the Kauwa class was born. Meanwhile, the original Papa, goes back with Wākea and has more children. This information is found in David Malo's work, Hawaiian Antiquites page 91. Thus Wākea is the father of the ali'i as an institution and as a class.

The above mentioned myth I am quite familiar with from my grandmother because she would always say the Papa and Wakea epics refer to the coming of the Tahitians and that is why the old ali'i when they would approach a double pulo'ulo'u staff at the entrance of a door or temple, would move their right foot forward first. The double pulo'ulo'u represented Wākea’'s two brothers--Liha'ula and Maku'u--and the forward foot movement imitated Wākea who supposedly made his defeated brothers moe kapu as he kicked dirt across their heads with his right foot in a symbolic gesture. Thus the pulo'ulo'u itself represented the supremacy (some might use the word seizure) of the ali'i of both secular and spiritual power. Hence why the word mana means spiritual inheritance, charisma, spiritual power as well as secular authority.

So in carefully inspecting Hawaiian mythology itself, one can see the institution of the ali'i with the kapu were an innovations imported into Hawai'i and the Papa and Wākea mythology were used as a justification. This is all according to Hawaiian mythology itself. Eventually, the ali'i as a hereditary institution unto itself thought of themselves as an enlightened aristocratic illustrado class "of a different stock than the commoners" (in the words of Kalākaua) who kept "Hawaiian traditions" or more accurately kept the "Hawaiian" traditions they liked for as one can see, there are numerous counter-traditions. This is not to say that all ali'i were bad. Contrary, Hawai'i has had many good ali'i. Queen Lili'uokalani is my favorite ali'i. But the ali'i in general should also be understood in the context of their time, their history, and their class interests. We should not just venerate ali'i because they were ali'i nor should we assume that Hawaiian society never underwent changes and innovations. Only an extinct culture does not undergo changes. Hawaiian culture is far from extinct.

Furthermore, just looking at the contradictions in the mythology, it should give us some insight into the class and cultural contradictions existing in Hawaiian society before Captain Cook accidentally stumbling in our Islands. Hawaiian society was like any other society with real issues and not some kind of tropical Eden as some try to make it out to be.

In the next part, I will be exploring what type of Hawaiian society that might have existed prior to Pa'ao as well as possible wave migrations based on archaeological, linguistic, and historical information.

Kamehameha V and the United States

2011-09-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

Kamehameha V and the United States

One of the least written about monarchs is that of Kamehameha V. While Kamehameha III gave the country not one but two constitutions, Kamehameha IV and V were monarchs who were uncompromising in their belief that the Hawaiian nation should remain independent at all costs. Sadly, they are among the least understood monarchs as well. In this post, we will examine the foreign policy of Kamehameha V involving the United States.

King Kamehameha V

After Kamehameha V was elected to the throne--remember Kamehameha IV did not name an heir after his son passed away so the House of Nobles and the Kuhina Nui had to hold an emergency session to name Lot Kapu'aiwa Kamehameha as Kamehameha IV's successor--he retained many of the old cabinet members of his late brother including Richard Wyllie (whom some may remember helped shape Hawaiian policy on secularism and tried to create an anti-corruption drive with the government).

Kamehameha V himself was a veteran of the Hawaiian government system. While he served as Minister of the Interior under his late brother, he had proven himself a person who followed the letter of the law even though he disliked many of the laws that were inherited by them from Kamehameha III. He once remarked that he would order the arrest of his own brother if the law required it. Kamehameha V was largely shaped by what he saw as the ali'i being weak corrupt leaders and by the British occupation in 1843. During the occupation, Kamehameha V and fellow Chief's Children School class mate, David Kalākaua, had tried to organize a resistance movement. During the occupation, many of the ali'i had either tried to petition for annexation to the United States or had collaborated with the British. The ones who organized a non-cooperation policy with the British were mostly from the middle and lower class who ironically blamed Kamehameha III for his refusal to meet with Lord Paulet in the first place. Kamehameha V's own perception of the ali'i as a class was further shaped by the joie de vivre behavior of the latter years of Kamehameha III and his own cousins including Prince William Charles Lunalilo. In many aspects, Kamehameha V was very similar to Kamehameha I in temperament and in demands from his advisers. He also held the belief that Hawaiian independence could never be secured simply by the exchange of ambassadors and by treaties. He strongly believed that the only way to secure Hawaiian independence was through economics (Kuykendall, Vol 2. p196). Let me re-emphasis that point. Kamehameha V believed that treaties were not guarantees of independence; but, what guaranteed independence was a developed nation with a people who owned industries, land, and wealth.

Although to the minds of some Hawaiians, this might seem rather radical, Kamehameha V's assessment would later prove to be right. Japan, which has very little natural resources other than nice clay, some metal, a few deer and hot baths--- avoided colonialism precisely because it learned how to adapt Western knowledge and became an economic power to protect its independence. Kamehameha V dreamed of Hawai'i becoming an economic superpower. Only then, he felt could Hawaiian independence be secured and once independence was secured, then Hawaiian culture--which was suppressed during the reign of Kamehameha III--could then be revitalized. This would later rub off on his aid-de-camp, chamberlain, and postmaster-general, David Kalākaua.

At the same time, Kamehameha V also believed that in a Hawaiian version of a credo Porfirio Diaz allegedly uttered about Mexico. That is to say, "So far from God and so close to the United States." Kamehameha V had no illusions about the United States, even though it was in the throes of its own Civil War. He believed that the United States would be the greatest threat to the security and stability of the Kingdom. This was also shaped by his travels to the United States, in particular an incident in 1849 where he and his brother were told that colored people were not allowed in the first class cabin of the train. This would particularly bother Kamehameha IV's mind throughout his reign and could explain the friendliness Kamehameha V had with US President Lincoln, despite US-Hawaiian relations.

The future Kamehameha IV, V, and G. Judd in Paris, c1850

When Wyllie passed away in 1865, he appointed French consul and fellow French Freemason, Charles de Varigny, as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Minister de Varigny As quoted in Kuykendall's Volume II of the Hawaiian Kingdom:

I had by no means concealed, on many occasions, the uneasiness which the covetousness and the ambition of the United States inspired in me. Being convinced of the necessity of rallying against them and of grouping together all the European interests in the Islands in order to make a force capable of resistance, I had cultivated with Mr. Synge, then Consul General for England, intimate relations, which were based upon a perfect harmony of views. (197)

Kamehameha V then moved to reshape the entire government by removing those--including ali'i--he suspected of having American sympathies. Kuykendall adds that:

Relations with the United States were not cordial. Formal diplomatic intercourse between the two governments was kept on a friendly plane, although irritating disputes arose from time to time. But there existed in the minds of many Americans a belief that Hawaiian official sentiment was anti-American. The two diplomatic agents, Thomas J. Dryer and James McBride, who represented the United States in Hawaii during the Civil War period were imbued with this idea and wrote of it in many of their dispatches to the secretary of state in Washington. Newspapers in the United States and thePacific Commercial Advertiser in Honolulu frequently expressed the same view. On the other side, many Hawaiians, official and nonofficial, were distrustful of American intentions with respect to Hawaii. This feeling found apparent justification in the recurrent talk about the possibility or probability of annexation at some indefinite time in the future.

However, Kamehameha V was as mentioned before interested in national development. Although the United States was still at war with itself, it was the only industrial power outside of Europe at the time. Kamehameha V was deeply interested in developing Hawaiian industrial strength and sought to: abrogate and replace the previous Treaty of Friendship with the United States of 1849 with that of a new treaty that included free trade (reciprocity). The King furthermore wanted the United States, France, and Great Britain to sign a tripartite treaty which one: affirm Hawaiian neutrality; declare that the three powers would not intervene in Hawaiian internal affairs; and limit the docking of their gunboats and the use their marines. In exchange, in a separate convention, the Hawaiian Kingdom would monitor its debt and would boost its military and police force to protect their citizens in the islands. Had Kamehameha V been successful in that latter treaty, 1893 probably would not have happened. While France and Great Britain were willing to sign a new treaty recognizing those concerns providing that the United States would also sign it, but the United States used the pretext that since it was in the middle of its Civil War, it could not agree.

To the reciprocity treaty, Kamehameha V dispatched Chief Justice E. Allen. When Chief Justice Allen had arrived in 1864, members of US President Lincoln's cabinet were in favor of a reciprocity as they saw that it would make Hawai'i basically a neo-colony of the United States. In the mind of Kamehameha V, the reciprocity treaty was necessary to ensure the economic well being of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the mean time through the exportation of sugar, potatoes, and other crops which the North was already importing in large numbers since the South was devastated but in the long term the treaty could eventually gain Hawai'i access to American industrial know how. In exchange, for this treaty, Kamehameha V was willing to grant a fee-simple lease to the United States at Pearl Harbor. However, it was made clear to Allen that it was to be a fee simple and should the United States abrogate the treaty, the fee-simple lease would also be voided. This was one of the first times that Pearl Harbor was mentioned as a potential American naval base. US Secretary of State William Seward was interested but the United States Senate was not. Allen ended up returning empty handed while Seward would eventually buy Alaska from the Russians.

Having failed at making any changes in the treaty relations with the United States, Kamehameha V worked towards informal reforms. Originally, Kamehameha V did not want to swear to the Constitution of 1852 as he saw it as a weak constitution granted by a king who was well probably had by that time given up any desire to rule as a king. When the United States had heard about this, US Secretary of State Seward had authorized a show of force by keeping an American warship at dock at all times. At the same time, Seward
did not want the United States to interfere in Hawaiian domestic affairs. This was classic double speak and Kamehameha V knew it. Kamehameha V then did swear to the constitution but while he was negotiating for the above mentioned treaty changes and with the United States still in its Civil War, he moved towards calling for a Constitutional Convention. One of the matters that were debated upon was naturalization and the definition of citizenship. The previous Hawaiian laws were based on the principles of jus soli (law of the soil)--anyone who was born in Hawai'i was a Hawaiian subject. Some in the convention including members of Kamehameha V's cabinet, felt that citizenship should be based on the European and Asian principle of jus sanguinis (law of the bloodline). Jus sanguinis meant that citizenship was only automatic if one or both parents were citizens at the time of the creation of the state or constitution. This also was more in keeping with Hawaiian tradition and even until today most nations use that criteria for citizenship. So it was no something new or radical. However, it would mean that those had naturalized under the flimsy citizenship laws of Kamehameha III as well as their children might lose their citizenship since normally under jus sanguinis, dual citizenship is not allowed unless you acquired citizenship from being born in a particularly place--an advantage that many of the missionary children did not want to lose. For example, if both of your parents were Native Hawaiian but you were born in Boston, you could acquire dual citizenship due to the citizenship of your Native Hawaiian parents and from being born on US soil. However, if your parents were American but you were born and lived in France which operates under jus sanguinis, you were not a French citizen because your parents were American. The same would happen with the missionaries in Hawai'i. The United States Secretary Seward commented that

Citizens of the United States, who have gone to that country for the purpose of remaining, and have been naturalized there, must expect to incur the risks as well as enjoy the advantages from their migration. (Kuykendall, p201)

In the end the proposed new citizenship requirement was thrown out as there was a fear that it could create serious economic problems as well as a pool of disgruntled immigrants. But had it been allowed, Native Hawaiians today would still be the majority of citizenship and would have secured Native Hawaiian political leadership throughout the 19th century. Had the treaties Kamehameha V had began to be ratified, 1893 would have looked very different.

Dollars or Dala?

2011-09-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

Dollars or Dala?

Since the beginning of the 1840s, American currency had been the legal tender currency in the Hawaiian Kingdom. During the reign of Kamehameha V, he made the salaries and government payments strictly in dollars. While other currencies could be exchanged, it would be exchanged for dollars. In essence, Hawai'i was a dollar economy. This shows the high level of trade between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom, not to mention the economic clout Americans in Hawai'i already had.

5 Keneta coin from 1881

In 1880, the then Representative Walter Murray Gibson pushed for a new Currency Law which would create a new Hawaiian currency called the new Hawaiian dollar, the dala. However, to make things confusing, the Hawaiian dollar could be also be called the Hawaiian dollar in English or may be called the kālā (₭). The kālā (₭) was the old monetary system that Kamehameha III tried to implement in the 1830s through the ports and plantations but which did not take off due to the lack of reserves not to mention interest.

An example of a ₭5 bill from 1839

The new 1880 law stated that the new currency would on the same monetary basis as the US dollar and would be in silver and gold, as to not to upset the market which was already beginning to use the gold standard for external trade payments (i.e. debt payments) but silver for basic internal payments (i.e. buying clothes from a store). The law was also supported by the then Wilder Ministry.

Most Native Hawaiians were in favor of it as it would finally be another visible symbol of nationhood. One must also remember that in 1880, there were very few visible symbols of Hawaiian nationhood. The brick and stone 'Iolani Palace we know today wasn't built yet. The King at that time was living in one of his private residences as Ho'iho'i 'Ea Palace (where the monarch lived) was in termite eaten. The Kamehameha Statue was also not built yet either. There was no Hawaiian army or navy.

In addition, King Kalākaua at that time was desperately trying to garner support the legitimacy of his reign as many Native Hawaiians on O'ahu were still pro-Queen Emma and believed Wilder, Greene, and others had bribed the legislature in order to gain Kalākaua's election as sovereign. On the other islands, King Kalākaua had support because he was known as being a nationalist but also as someone who was overall the type of guy you would want to have an Heineken with. So the new currency idea was also popular with Kalākaua as a symbol of his legitimacy both as a monarch and as a nationalist.

Business people, mainly from the American community, did not see much harm in having a new currency providing that it was on par with the United States dollar. So there was very little opposition.

In 1882, Wilder was replaced by Walter Murray Gibson as Minister of the Interior. Gibson pushed through a Loan Act to help implement the new currency. The Loan Act allowed Gibson to issue one million dollars worth of bonds at 6% percent interest in order to purchase the silver and gold from the San Francisco Mint necessary to create the new currency. Most governments at that time would simply contract the mint itself and offer the bonds directly to that mint. However, Gibson authorized his friend Claus Spreckels to buy the entire bond amount and to personally arrange the payment and production of the new money by the San Francisco Mint as well as the right to re-sell the bonds on the government's behalf. John Kapena, then Minister of Finance, was told by the United States Treasury department that the whole arrangement was highly unusual and "rather queer" (Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, Vol 3, p89). What Spreckels did next was not highly unusual or queer but had shades of Bernard Madoff.

Despite the fact that Loan Act of 1880 provided that the new currency would be on a bimetallic standard, Spreckels ordered one million Hawaiian dollars in silver coinage. Then for the coinage, he reduced the silver content of the coins to 83% of the silver content of US coins at that time. This had two effects economically and one effect to Spreckels. First, this forced the Hawaiian kingdom to be on a silver standard at a time when the world was transitioning to a gold standard and when loan and economic payments from the Hawaiian Kingdom to the United States was paid in gold. This would meant that with the new Hawaiian dollar, you had to buy gold in order to make a payment abroad in dollars instead of having to simply directly convert the ₭ into US$. This would make all future payments more expensive due to the fluctuating market price of silver to gold. The second effect was that by reducing the silver content to 83%, it reduced the monetary value by 17%. The Hawaiian dollar was then in fact reduced in value by 17%, again adding additional costs and increasing inflation. The end result of all of this for Spreckels was that he gained the 6% interest on the one million dollar loan in addition to an extra $150,000 in profit by his devaluation of the silver as well as ensuring that in the future, the Hawaiian dollar would not be worth as much as the US dollar therefore making business more profitable for importers like himself. The United States officials in San Francisco, businessmen in Honolulu, and even Finance Minister Kapena, warned both Spreckels and Gibson about the consequences of their actions, but were ignored. US officials believed that Gibson was more concerned about pleasing his friend than in sound economics.

In late 1883, the new coins were introduced. This instantly created major issues of inflation as exporters (i.e. the sugar planters) had to buy gold on the open market to make their payments for tariffs and good abroad. William R. Castle, William O. Smith, and Sanford B. Dole sought an injunction at the Supreme Court against the new coins. What is interesting is that people such as the Emmanites (pro-Queen Emma) supported this injunction as they not only feared the economic repercussion but just did not want to have to stare at Kalākaua's profile everyday. The Emmanite understanding was that the coins would have different profiles such as in the United States there were the profiles of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc. But the new coins had the same profile--that of the king. So they were a bit annoyed. In addition, Hawaiians wondered why were the new coins and money only in English when government issued bonds and coins previously in the 1830s were issued in both Hawaiian and in English.

On January 7, 1884, in order to prevent the injunction, the Privy Council held an emergency meeting and declared that the new coins were of the "same fineness" as US coins. They then decided to authorize to buy (with the silver coins) gold in order to save the country's exporters further costs. So Spreckels went back to San Francisco to order the printing of gold certificates (i.e. paper bills) which could be exchanged for payment in gold using the silver coins as reserves. Hence the origin of bills such as this:

The Supreme Court rendered the injunction moot as the Privy Council was in the process of correcting the problem. When Spreckels then tried to re-sale the bonds he bought, no one would buy it. To make up for the additional costs, the Hawaiian government had to sell (though this time on its own) an additional US$100,000 worth of bonds. However, due to the high demand of gold payments from the US and being that Hawaiian customs only accepted payments in gold, that amount was not enough.

When the new coins and bills were finally circulated in 1884, the coins were seen as both quite beautiful but were becoming a Weimar Deutchmark as stores and even government officials did not want payments in the new silver as everyone by that time feared the upcoming inflation. The King and Minister Kapena then had to take the unusual move of having to directly negotiate with banks and Chambers of Commerce in Hawai'i, the United States, and London for them to accept gold certificates in the new currency in lieu of actual gold and to allow for the conversion of the silver coins into gold at a fixed rate of 6 to 8% in order to prevent heavy losses from exporters. In addition, they began to force stores and other places to accept the new currency at face value rather than at a discounted 17% which is what was going on. This financial instability plunged Hawai'i into a deep recession as the new costs of importing and exporting were now felt by the consumers.

Gibson accused the missionary families and other haoles of conspiring against him and the King and creating the recession. The business men shot back that Gibson had created the problem by allowing his friend to profit from the deal and by ordering too much of the new currency. To the businessmen, only ₭ or $2 to 400,000 were actually needed. But Gibson by doubling the amount of what was actually needed and doing so only in silver, created inflation and distrust. In the middle of this, there was an election in the National Legislative Assembly. Due to Gibson's handling of the economy, the missionary families began to unite politically. This would have repercussions in 1887. Dole, Smith, and Castle--the three who filed the injunction--won seats in the Legislative Assembly. Gibson also retained his seat.

Quickly after the opening of the new Legislature, a new Currency Act of 1884 was passed. Dole had submitted the first draft then this went back and forth in committee until a final draft emerged. The government was order to take $550,000 worth of the silver coins and buy and maintain $550,000 in gold reserves plus an additional 16% margin to keep as an additional emergency reserve. The Bishop's Bank (the future First Hawaiian Bank) then agreed to accept government issued "gold certificates" in lieu of actual gold coinage or bullion payment on a permanent basis providing that the government keep silver reserves at 25% of the number of certificates it issued. The Chamber of Commerce then agreed to help permanently accept gold certificates in silver providing that the government keep 16% of its silver in reserves. So the currency issue seemed to be stable but the mistrust continued.

The real value of the coins, however, would not be realized until 1893. When the new Plutarchy (a government ran by an oligarchy of the wealthy) took over, they immediately began to seize the silver coinage and melted it down. US currency was back as the legal tender. The possession of Hawaiian coinage became an act of rebellion against the Plutarchy (i.e. Provisional Government). So for many nationalists, the real value of the coin became that of an act of asserting Hawaiian nationality itself.

Therefore it was not unusual for Hawaiians to use the coins in the form of hand bands, belt buckles, belts, and baptismal gifts. This was particularly true of royalists who held the coins to one of the most tangible reminders of the Monarchy era.

In 1894, the highly unpopular Republic of Hawai'i issued its own dollar notes.

The Republican money was on par with the US dollar and if one notices, it is also the similar shades of green and black that the US dollar was at the time. Again, it shows how the Republican government tried to show itself as being part of the United States already.

When the United States proclaimed that Hawai'i would be an incorporated territory of the United States in 1898, the Republican money was declared as voided. Unlike the coins of King Kalākaua, they were not missed and many embraced seeing the US dollars over the Republican ones.

As a side note, after 1898, the San Francisco mint could no longer mint all the needed money for the new American colonies of Hawai'i, Guam, American Samoa, and the Philippines. So Bishop's Bank was subcontracted to mint and produce US coins and dollars for the entire Pacific. The Philippines would eventually get permission to mint its own coins until the end of WWII, Bishop's Bank printed US dollars.

Kamehameha III's Forgotten Joint-Ruler?

2011-09-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Kamehameha III's Forgotten Joint- Ruler?

The Affair of Kamehameha III and Kaomi Moe

In official biographies of Kamehameha III, one would find that the standard text would say something King Kamehameha III's reforms towards constitutional government, the Great Mahele, and his problems with the French and English. In some biographies, one would also find references to his dealings with half sister, Kuhina Nui Princess Elizabeth Kina'u and his attempts to marry his real sister, Nahi'ena'ena. But only in Hawaiian language newspapers and in Kamakau's work, "Ruling Chiefs", does one find out that Kamehameha had a joint ruler (mo'i ku'i) and had publically announced in 1831 that he was in a 'aikane relationship with that person--much to the horror of his half sister, Kina'u, and to the missionaries.

That person was Kaomi.

In the 1830s, the young Kamehameha III began to rebel. When Ka'ahumanu was still alive, she would force the young king to attend church and to give sermons to the Hawaiian people on the evils of Hawaiian culture. Under Ka'ahumanu, nearly everything Hawaiian was banned--from tattooing to boxing to hula. Then suddenly in 1832, she died but before her death appointed her successor, Kina'u. Immediately upon her death, the 'Aha 'Ula, the governing council of chiefs (three-fourths of whom by this time had been appointed by her), drew up the proclamation and announced to Kamehameha III that Kina'u was now his hanai mother and she was to be his kuhina nui. Kamehameha III was at that time a short (he was only 5'4 or 5'5) bubbly 18 years old. He was no longer a minor. But then, a realization had set in. The foreign consuls told Kamehameha III directly that:

'You do not rule the country. It is Ka-ʻahu-manu who rules. In our countries the law does not apply to the king but only to the chiefs and common people. This is a law of the missionaries.' So the king was angry, and after Ka-ʻahu-manu's death all Oahu turned to evil ways. (Kamakau, p335)

At this time, his major political supporter was Kaomi, the person whom he had been living with for the last several years. According to Kamakau in "Ruling Chiefs":

...Kaomi was the son of a native of Borabora named Moe, and a Hawaiian woman named Ka-hua-moa, so he was part Boraboran and part Hawaiian. He was a friend of Ka-ʻahu-manu's brother, Ka-hekili Keʻe-au-moku, and became a favorite of the king not because he was well-educated and intelligent, but because he knew something of the art of healing, could tell the symptoms of diseases, had learned from Boki and Ka-ʻoʻo how to diagnose a disease by feeling the body of a patient and [could prescribe] the proper medicine to cure it. Since his advice was successful *.he king conceived a great liking for him. He had moreover the power to tell a funny story entertainingly, and for these reasons he was admitted to intimacy with the king. When the king took up sinful ways he gave Kaomi the title of 'joint king, joint ruler' (moi kuʻi, au-puni kuʻi) [My note to the readers: ku'i in Hawaiian is a very strong word and it implies a union or marriage. The word ku'i was in fact used in the Hawaiian translations of some marital rites], appointed chiefs, warriors, and guards to his service, and made his name honorable. Any chief, prominent citizen, member of the king's household, or any man at all who wanted land, clothing, money, or anything else that man might desire, applied to Kaomi. He had the power to give or lend for the government. Landless chiefs were enriched by Kaomi and landless men also received land through him. The king's love of pleasure grew, and evil ways that had been stamped out were revived. The natural impulses of the old days—prostitution, liquor drinking, the hula—came back. The liquor distilleries were again opened. Only in the district of Waialua was the distillation of liquor not allowed. All kinds of indulgence cropped up. People poured in from Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, for on Oahu the marriage laws were not observed, but on the other islands the rulers were strict in their enforcement of Kau-i-ke-aouli's law. Such infringements of the law as knocking out the teeth, tattooing, tobacco smoking, and other small sins were punished by working on the road. ... No one of the chiefs dared attempt to turn the king back to right living. Not even his foster mothers, Kinaʻu and Ke-ka-ulu-ohi, could utter a word. The king's mind was set. Only once did his mind seem to give way and that was when his sister, Harriet Nahi-ʻenaʻena, came to take him to Maui to live until the confusion ceased on Oahu. This was in June, 1833, and the king consented to please his sister; but on the night for sailing, June 21, when his sister had called for him at Kapamoʻo and they had gone hand in hand down to the boat, the sister's arm about her brother's neck, as they came close to Mr. French's house he excused himself to her to enter the house and did not return. He had vanished leaving his sister weeping and wailing for her brother.... (p. 335-336)

From that paragraph, one can see that Kamehameha III was not living with his sister (as some biographies claim) but with his Kaomi on O'ahu (though the capital at that time was Lahaina). As a side note, one finds an interesting cultural note: the custom of removing teeth (the Hawaiian term could also be interpreted as blackening the teeth)--a practice that is still observed in parts of Indonesia and Micronesia.

So was Kamehameha III "da kine"?

The relationship between Kaomi and Kamehameha III was well known and publically acknowledged even by the missionaries themselves. Kamakau writes that the relationship between Kaomi was even known to Ka'ahumanu before her death.

The gossip among the chiefs and abroad in country places was that it was Kaomi who had seduced the king, but this was not true for he had shown a fondness for such tempting delights even before Kaomi became his favorite. Even when Ka-ʻahu-manu was alive, at the time when they were making a tour of Maui and Hawaii, gossip about him had been raised at Kailua and was known to Ka-ʻahu-manu. She tried to put a stop to it by reminding the king how they had labored to teach to the people righteousness according to the word of God, and how the king had himself laid down the law that "the chief or commoner who commits adultery shall be punished by being put to hard labor," but the king would not listen to her. "The lover has been deaf even from ancient times." The king said, "Let me work at hard labor as the law that I have made for my kingdom says." Ka-ʻahu-manu gave him a young chiefess to become his wife by marriage, but he would not consent. (p334)

Indeed, same gender marriage-like (I use the term "marriage-like" since the concept of "marriage" is different in the Hawaiian sense) were not unusual. Lt. Charles Clerke, who became captain of the Endeavor after Captain Cook's death noted in his journal that:

[E]very aree [ali'i] according to his rank keeps so many women and so many young men (I'car'nies ['aikane] they call them) for the amusement of his leisure time; they talk of this infernal practice with all the indifference in the world, nor do I suppose they imagine any degree of infamy to it.

Although heavily Christian forty years later, people such as Kamakau and David Malo saw very little need to cover up the exact nature of the relationship between the king and Kaomi as that was a common ali'i practice, though they also had to rebuke it since they were after all writing about it to a largely Christian audience. The interesting point, however, is that English language sources completely cover up. Kuykendall and others while mentioning Kaomi by name, only briefly talk about the relationship or how Kaomi held the title of mo'i ku'i. However, this was one of the first times in Hawaiian history where the 'aikane relationship would have a strong political and cultural impact on the Hawaiian nation.

Everyone knew that Kamehameha III basically hated his half sister and wanted a return to the Hawaiian ways of his father's period. Levi Chamberlain wrote in his diary on February 8, 1833 that:

... There are a good many things which look as though the King meant to bring things round to his will; or at least to make the attempt. He probably feels restricted and he wishes to follow his own inclinations more fully without so much regard to the chiefs as he has been heretofore under the necessity of paying. (Kuykendall, History of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Volume 1. p 135

Among the decisions that Kamehameha III and Kaomi disliked was the way that Kina'u and the other chiefs were leasing land (remember this is pre-Great Mahele so no one owned the land but only leased the land) to their favorites at the expense of the common people. Kaomi's mother was a commoner. Kaomi felt a great degree of sympathy for the maka'ainana. That is probably another reason was his advice was sought. On March 15, 1833, the king issued the following decree:

These are my thoughts to all ye chiefs, classes of subjects and foreigners respecting this country which by the victory of Mokuohai was conquered by my Father and his chiefs—it has descended to us as his and their posterity. This is more—all that is within it, the living and the dead, the good and the bad, the agreeable and the pleasant—all are mine. I shall rule with justice over all the land, make and promulgate all laws: neither the chiefs nor the foreigners have any voice in making laws for this country. I alone am the one [another translation could be, I am the sole authority]. Those three laws which were given out formerly remain still in force, viz. not to murder, not to steal, not to commit adultery; therefore govern yourselves accordingly. (Kuykendall, 135)

At some point, Kina'u basically said to hell with this and decided to preempt the inevitable. So she went to see Hoapili, Liliha's father. When Kamehameha II was still alive, he had appointed Boki and Liliha as the kahu of his brother, Kamehameha III. Therefore, there was a great personal relationship between Liliha and Kamehameha III. Kina'u knew that Liliha would be appointed as kuhina nui in her place and decided to up the ante. So she went to Liliha's father and said:

...On a night of November, 1833, when the consuls, prominent white residents, chiefs, officers of the government, and members of the army were gathered for the appointment of Liliha and Paki, Hoa-pili came with Ke-kauaʻi-ʻeleʻele to Kinaʻu's house where Ke-ka-ulu-ohi and her companions were staying. Kinaʻu said to Hoa-pili, "I sent for you to give your opinion in a matter of right or wrong." "What is it about?" "This is what it is about: Tonight Liliha is to be apponted premier of the kingdom. This will perhaps be to your advantage for she is your daughter but we must suffer." Hoa-pili bowed his head and then lifted it again and said to Kinaʻu, "My daughter is but a tenant, the house is yours. You are the daughter of Kamehameha; we are but tenants." Kinaʻu said, "It must perhaps be as the king wishes." Hoa-pili, without thought for his own advantage, replied, "If you want the premiership of the kingdom the place is yours." "How can that be? [she asked]. No chief is allowed to enter the king's place. It is guarded by soldiers with guns and byoreign guards. A chief who enters dies." "They would only fire off a gun" [Hoa-pili answered]. So it was agreed to go that night to the king's house at Hale-uluhe on the Beretania grounds.

Some days later the party met the king again, namely, Hoa-pili, Kua-kini, Ka-iki-o-ʻewa, Kinaʻu, Ke-ka-ulu-ohi, Liliha, Ke-kau-ʻonohi, and the rest, and the king agreed to appoint Elizabeth Kinaʻu his premier and the governor of the island of Oahu and of the fort, in place of Kua-kini; and Kua-kini returned to Hawaii and continued to serve as governor of that island.

The party consisted of Elizabeth Kinaʻu, Ke-ku-anaoʻa, and two armed men, Kani-ku and Ka-ʻai-puaʻa; Ke-ka-ulu-ohi and Ka-naʻina with two armed men, Halali and Kilinahe; and Ulu-maheihei Hoa-pili with Ke-kauaʻi and Ka-ʻumiʻumi. The yard was lined with soldiers armed with guns and swords, foreigners behind them, and officers mounted on horses and carrying swords. Ulu-maheihei went first, then the young women, and after them the escort. In defence of the dignity of their rank as chiefs they risked their lives, and did not wait to be announced as daughters of Kamehameha. As they drew close to the white soldiers they were recognized and someone told the king. He called out, "Come in!" and wept aloud as he kissed his foster mothers whom he saw again for the first time, and the foreign soldiers hearing the wailing withdrew. The king asked Hoa-pili, "Why did you come here?" Hoa-pili replied, "We came because we had heard rumors that you were going to appoint Liliha premier of the kingdom. You must first kill me before making my daughter premier lest I be blamed as her parent. Here is the daughter of the house of Kamehameha. Let her serve you. My daughter is but a tenant here." The king answered, "I love these two and I also love Liliha, but these two I love because they keep my laws." Hoa-pili said, "Do me this favor to place the duties of the kingdom upon her who is here ready to serve you." "I consent, but Liliha must hear of this," said the king. Liliha was called and was found drunk.

Elizabeth Kinaʻu became premier [again] during a period of riotous pleasure-seeking. Law was set at naught. Fighting, murdering, adultery, prostitution, plural marriage, disregard of the marriage law, drunkenness, and the distilling of liquor went on all over Oahu as far as Kalae-okalaʻau and Kaʻieʻiewaho. Beyond these points the laws were effective. In Honolulu lips smacked over the flesh of baked dog. The chiefs who took part in this new regime were Liliha, Paki, and many chiefs of high and of low rank, government officials, and all of the household of the king. They did just as they pleased, neither standing up nor prostrating themselves in the presence of the king. Kaomi, the joint ruler, reigned supreme...."
As mentioned earlier, Kaomi's father was from Borabora. Borabora, Tahiti, and Ra'iatea were the heartlands of the arioi, a Polynesian religious sect which preached in egalitarianism and a form of monist (not to be confused with monotheism) theology centered around Oro. Those who believed in Oro believed that all humans were his children and the distinctions between ari'i (ali'i) and manahune (commoners) were artificial and that the real distinction were those who were initiated in the sect and those who were not. Marriage, chiefly tabus, and other restrictions were not a big thing for arioi. All of this is pre-European which shows that Polynesian cultures were not static museum displays but rather vibrant and sometimes sudden radical changes. It also shows that Polynesians indeed had their own prophets and philosophers. In the case of Kaomi, his father was probably a practitioner of the arioi which is why he had such a strong dislike of authority and celebrated the pre-Christian past.

After a year, some of the Christian chiefs began to plot against Kaomi and an assassination plan was hatched.

...Some people were delighted with the government of Kaomi, and some were disappointed and angry, but their wrath was in vain for the king himself indulged in sinful pleasures, disliked advice in these matters, and would not be "enticed to do right," as he himself put it. Some of the chiefs murmured against the king because his mind was so fixed on evil ways, and they made a secret plan to kill Kaomi, and a certain chief named Ka-iki-o-ʻewa was to carry it out. He went with a servant named Ka-ihu-hanuna, carrying a war club in his hand, to the yard of Kaomi (near the present publishing house of the Kuʻokoʻa) and ordered the servant to tie Kaomi's hands behind his back with a rope. Kaomi did not order the guards to kill Ka-iki-o-ʻewa in accordance with the law that "the chief who enters Kaomi's house shall die." He allowed himself to be bound and put to death if death it was to be. Ka-iki-o-ʻewa led him into the presence of Kinaʻu inside the fort. When she saw Kaomiwith his hands tied behind his back she cried out in alarm to her uncle, "Alas! what are you doing to the king's favorite? The king will think that I have a share in this. Let him go, or this crime will rest upon us all!" Ka-iki-o-ʻewa said, "Who is ruler over the kingdom? You are the ruler. Give your consent to the death of this trouble-maker." At this moment the king hurried in, dressed in the scant clothing he was wearing when a guard had run to inform him that, "Kaomi is being killed by Ka-iki-o-ʻewa." The king himself untied Kaomi's bonds. Ka-iki-o-ʻewa sprang forward and grappled with the king, over and under they fought until the king held Ka-iki-o-ʻewa fast. Then words poured from Ka-iki-o-ʻewa's mouth declaring, "You are not the ruler over the kingdom if you keep on indulging yourself in evil ways!" but the king did not answer him. Kaomi was released and went back with the king to Ka-hale-uluhe, and the king's place was made tabu; no one was allowed to enter it.
During this troubled year of 1834 some of the young chiefs died, among them Ke-ola-loa, the son of Pauli Ka-ʻo-lei-o-ku and the brother of Konia, who was to have been the husband of Princess Harriet Nahi-ʻenaʻena, and Ka-ʻuaʻa-moku-o-Ka-manele, the daughter of J. A. Kuakini, governor of Hawaii, who was affianced to Kamehameha III. Both these young chiefs were about twenty years of age.....(339)

Kamakau then continues that:

...Ulu-maheihei Hoa-pili who acted as the King's leading kahu, and Ka-iki-o-ʻewa who was also his guardian, were induced by Elizabeth Kinaʻu and Miriam Ke-ka-ulu-ohi to live on Oahu and observe from the outside the doings of their ward. Even they however dared not cross his wishes lest he become morose, although when religious people came to him he always met them graciously. It was also observed that when one said, "Here comes Ulu-maheihei," he quickly bade, "Hide the rum!" That might have been because Hoa-pili was the king's kahu, but for John ʻIʻi also when those outside exclaimed, "ʻIʻi!" the glasses were immediately flung aside. So with the missionaries and the pious people however humble who went to visit the king. He was deferential and agreed affably to stop his pleasure-seeking and intoxication. It was believed that the only reason why he was so slow to quit drinking was because he was influenced by certain chiefs—Liliha, Paki, and others. The entire blame of his conduct however was laid upon Kaomi, the joint king.
Then the rumor went about the city and spread to the other islands that "Elizabeth Kinaʻu is to become ruler of the kingdom." The king with Kaomi, the chiefs, and favorites, made a circuit of the island, and it was rumored that there would be a fight when the king returned to enter the city. Some said, "Perhaps it is only Ka-iki-o-ʻewa's ravings." When the king's company reached Moanalua a mounted cavalcade set out from Honolulu to meet it. The end of this cavalcade was at the school at Kaiwiʻula when the king's mounted company entered the fort. There the king met his foster mother Kinaʻu and the chiefs, and the sound of wailing arose as they greeted each other.
The king associated himself graciously with the pious chiefesses and his guardians and allowed Kinaʻu and Ulu-maheihei to put a stop to dissipation outside the city, but the chiefs insisted upon distilling liquor and there were many stills in Koʻolaupoko, in Kona, in ʻEwa, and in Waiʻa-nae. Ulu-maheihei was appointed marshal to put a stop to liquor drinking and distilling. At Kailua he smashed a still belonging to a chiefess, named Ka-lola, related to the king; and poured out the liquor. The still belonging to Kaomi and a company of chiefs at Kekele was [also] broken up, and other stills in Koʻolau were demolished. Ulu-maheihei went around by ʻEwa as far as Waiʻanae where two stills were reported which belonged to Kuini Liliha and the old chiefess Puʻu-heʻewale, a relative of Toti; and these were not spared by Hoa-pili, but broken up and the liquor poured out. Liquor distilling and drinking ceased in the country districts except when the king was present. Another important act of the chiefs was to restore wives and husbands to their legal spouses on the other islands. Among these were some lesser chiefs and prominent citizens, but they were for the most part commoners. In the midst of wailing they were arrested by the chiefs and placed on ships bound for Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii. There was great excitement but it rapidly subsided, peace was restored, and as a result the whole nation turned to do right according to the word of God....(340)

In the end, what happened to Kaomi?

Under pressure from Kina'u (who had Kamehameha III's other family members excert tremendous guilt tripping in letters to the king) and possibly because the relationship between Kaomi and Kamehameha III had soured, Kaomi was first exiled to Kaua'i for a year but secretly rejoined his former royal lover in Lahaina where he died in 1835 or 1836. It was not until after Kaomi died did Kamehameha III began his affair with Nahi'ena'ena.

The real threat posed by Kaomi however was not the type of relationship Kamehameha III had with Kaomi, but the fact that Kaomi was questioning the existing social structure of Hawaiian society. Kaomi's short reign scared the conservative ali'i, who were bend on making Hawai'i into Puritan colony. The real issue laid in the idea of what Hawai'i should be--a nation that allowed individual liberty where commoners had an equal opportunity to govern and a Hawai'i which retained its Hawaiian character or be a nation that modeled after the Protestant Reformer John Calvin but keeping the privileges of the aristocracy?

In the end, an uneasy truce was made where the conservative ali'i continued to rule and uphold the social order while they turned a blind eye on Kamehameha III's other future misbehavior. Kamehameha III would later carry on bisexual affairs with other men and their wives, none of Kamehameha III's 'aikane or mistresses would gain the type of power that Kaomi once had.

The Barracks Revolt

2011-09-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

The Barracks Revolt:
How History is Three Dimensional

On September 6, 1873, a group of 40 Hawaiian soldiers revolted against their Hungarian Captain, Joseph Jajczay, for six days bringing the kingdom to a halt. At the end of the revolt, the entire Hawaiian military was disbanded. In most history books, you'll find this as a minor incident in Hawaiian history. But as the introduction for the HBO series, "The Tudors" says "You think you know a story, but you know only how it ends."

Hawaiian Troops in front of 'Iolani Barracks c 1880s

The Hawaiian Royal Armed Forces in its European form had existed since the time of Kamehameha III who had created a Calvary corps, a rifle corps, an artillery brigade, and a regular army. The irony is that while Hawai'i was an archipelago nation, it was not until 1886--or some 30 years after the army--that a navy was created. The entire Hawaiian Armed Forces was supervised in theory by the King who then appointed generals, colonels, majors, captains, etc. The same also was true for the Hawaiian Royal Constabulary (Police) except that the police in practice reported directly to the Minister of the Interior who reported either to the Kuhina Nui or the King (depending on the time period). However, while the military and police force was composed Native Hawaiians, no Native Hawaiian had been appointed beyond the rank of captain unless he was related in some way to one of the Governors or to the King.

The promotion system within the military force was nepotism at its finest. In the day to day operations, the military force was supervised by ex- missionaries and European expatriates who tended to view Hawaiians in general as lazy, child-like drunks. The Native Hawaiians who held a military rank collected honoriums (either in the form of cash or in the form of expensive military uniforms and equipment) from the Ministry of the Interior but never bothered to show up except for parades. However, the salaries of the men in the military force was nothing compared to what their Caucasian captains were getting. In 1873, the time of the revolt, the average soldier was getting 1 to 3 dollars per month depending the rank. The Hungarian Captain--whom the Hawaiian soldiers called Kāpena Ho'opuka 'ole (Captain Unpronounceable One)--received a salary of 15 dollars per month in addition to other perks. A cabinet minister in the Hawaiian government earned 5,000 dollars per year. The total military allocations were about 30 to 35,000 dollars per year. During the reign of Kamehameha V, there was transparency in the salaries and military allocations. But during the reigns of Kamehameha III and Lunalilo, most of the money did not go to the soldiers except in salaries. Soldiers were buying their own uniforms through salary deductions---a situation that occurs even till today in developing nations.

While history texts tend to mention only the Hungarian Captain as the root cause, he was not. He would later be used as a scapegoat by revisionist historians. In the letters of Theodor C. Heuck, the German architect of 'Iolani Barracks, which were already published by the Hawaiian Historical Society, one finds that in fact there were several key reasons for the rebellion and the Captain merely exemplified the overall grievances of the Hawaiians who were not related to the king nor had connections to the Palace or the Church. According to Heuck, the major issues that the Hawaiian soldiers had were with Adjunctant General Charles Hastings Judd (the son of Gerrit P Judd and whom soldiers accused of pocketing military money); Captain Jajczay's use of discipline; the overall political set up in the Hawaiian kingdom; and the King's constant kowtowing to American interests including his offer to cede Pearl Harbor permanently to the United States in exchange for a reciprocity or bi-lateral free trade treaty.

One of the reasons why the above mentioned items are normally not covered is because it contrasts with the popular image of Hawaiian ali'i as being patriotic and the whole incident embarrasses members of the Judd family. But the truth of the matter is that King Lunalilo was trying to establish a permanent American base in Hawai'i while members of his cabinet and staff, including many prominent ali'i of that time, were openly talking about annexation to the United States in exchange for keeping their salaries. Other prominent ali'i, including then Prince David Kalākaua (himself a holder of an honorary military position though he never underwent military training) and fellow Royal School classmate, Queen Dowager Emma, actually tried to manipulate the soldiers to overthrow King Lunalilo--just as King Lunalilo had plotted against Kamehameha V years earlier.

The Hawaiian soldiers had basically been ticked off with how the entire government system worked. Their previous Adjunctant General John Owen Dominis was hospitable to the Hawaiian soldiers but despite doing an adequate job (some say he was even popular because he showed up to duty everyday unlike the others), he was dismissed by King Lunalilo and replaced with Charles Hastings Judd because Dominis was married to Lydia Kamaka'eha Paki who was the sister of King Lunalilo's rival, David Kalākaua. The Judds were also one of the main financiers of Lunalilo during his campaign in 1872 and were basically being put back in power by Lunalilo after being booted out by Kamehameha V who ran a very tight clean government. To really understand how the missionary families had ran the government during the reign of Kamehameha III and during the short reign of Lunalilo, one has to watch episodes of "The Borgias". Gerrit P Judd, known to Hawaiians as Kauka Kope Kala (an epitome that found its way in Hawai'i's Story by Hawai'i's Queen). For those who do not speak Hawaiian, it translates as "Dr. Money Shovel" because of the way that the G.P. Judd miraculously ended up quite wealthy in land and in cash while the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs (portfolios he once held) were constantly missing funds and slow in issuing royal patents. Now, his son, C H Judd began to try to take his father's place within the Hawaiian government through Lunalilo. The Hawaiians in the barracks resented that. They resented that they were paying taxes to the children of the servants of Christ while seeing a government that was perpetually weak by ali'i who plotted against each other, by foreign business interests, and by the foreign gunboats in the harbor.

The Hawaiian soldiers began to ask a very critical question: Who were the owners of the Hawaiian nation? Was it the people? Or was it for the privileged few? There were discussions inside the barracks that if Hawaiians could elect a king--as they did for Lunalilo--why could they not elect a president instead? Questions that Hawaiians of today should be asking themselves.

According to Heuck, several of the ali'i had come to the barracks on the first day of the revolt to try to persuade the mutineers to surrender peacefully. These ali'i including David Kalakaua and Queen-Dowager Emma. While Kalākaua and Emma were received warmly as they both were staunch critics of Lunalilo, all of them were kicked out of the barracks. According to Queen Emma in her letters "Coz", David Kalakaua was urging them to overthrow the government and establish a new government. Within the barracks, some of the soldiers favored establishing a new government under Kalākaua and Emma as Kuhina nui--an arrangement that probably would have ended up like the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. Others couldn't tolerate anymore of the ali'i because they believed that the talk of annexation and the ceding or Pearl Harbor by the ali'i themselves showed that as a class, the ali'i could not be trusted.

On the following day, September 7, King Lunalilo called for three of the leaders to go to the Palace so he could understand their concerns. The leaders had a laundry list of demands which included getting rid of the Judd family from government; the resignation of the Hungarian captain, reforms in the military; and, to cease discussions on ceded any part of the Hawaiian nation to the United States. The king dismissed the leaders but issued a proclamation of amnesty. 16 soldiers took up the amnesty offer. The rest remained in the barracks. To quote from Heuck's letter dated September 10, 1873:

"...During the night, they [the soldiers] got hold of four canons from the Palace yard. They were provided with enough provisions and ammunition right within the barracks to hold out for some time. The seriousness of the situation is the fact the sympathy of the people is with the revolters; they were massed around the barracks; they incited each other by exchanging words with those inside...whole wagon load of provisions were given to them...."

The ones that were granted an amnesty meanwhile were passing out propaganda questioning the government system and going as far as to question whether or not the ali'i had the mana (authority) to rule. Again the discussions were brought up that if Hawaiians could elect a king, why couldn't that be a permanent feature? Meanwhile Queen-Dowager and David Kalākaua were lurking with the masses outside the barracks.

By the fourth day, King Lunalilo decided that to ask for the resignation of C H Judd and Jajczay. In an astute move, King Lunalilo appointed William Luther Moehonua to replace Jajczay and to try to deal with the rebellion. Moehonua was the uncle of David Kalākaua and his wife was Kaunuohua, a former lady in waiting and close friend of Queen-Dowager Emma. This effectively undercut Kalākaua and Queen Emma from exercising too much influence with the soldiers. In addition, Moehonua was known to be a strong anti-corruption advocate as well as a nationalist. With the appointment of Moehonua, a few more soldiers surrender leaving the barracks with 24 soldiers.

As day five emerged, the 24 soldiers began to become more militant in lambasting the government system. The crowd around the barracks grow as Hawaiians began to publically express their discontentment with the way the government system operated. Hawaiians began to recount how they were taught one thing by the Christian missionaries but the missionaries did the direct opposite. Some bring up the current conditions of the Hawaiians versus the kolea (newcomers) who easily find jobs within a day while Hawaiians were being discriminated against in their own country unless they were knew someone at the Palace. The question again was brought up, "Who is Hawai'i for?" Around in the afternoon, the Hawaiian soldiers marched to the Palace, seized more weapons and canons in front of King Lunalilo and marched back to the barracks while crowds began to cheer. Within the barracks compound, Heuck wrote that:

...A scoundrel, a solider with a ridiculously old three cornered hat posed on the wall and sang an improvised song in the style of an old mele, using vulgar gestures. Nowehere order, wild and hateful speeches against the haole and many a poorly suppressed glance of hatred in the eyes. I know these people so well because I understand their language well and thus I notice things which escape others....

The tricorne or three cornered hat is normally associated with old European armies but also with the American revolution as it was a hat favored by George Washington and the Minutemen. Its also interesting that they were singing a Hawaiian chant, perhaps a hula ma'i, which was technically banned.

On September 12, the King agreed with all of the terms and again sent a proclamation of amnesty according to the Nuhou, the newspaper of Walter Murray Gibson. The soldiers retorted that they can not trust the king and the ali'i who had become pets of the haole and requested that the king sign an amnesty for each of the 24 remaining soldiers---which the king did. The mutineers then pledged to step down--on their own time. The king, feeling pressured by the American, Russian, and French consuls, then called upon volunteer militias and the gunboats of those nations to suppress the mutineers. According to Queen-Dowager Emma, in a shrewd move, Moehonua had David Kalākaua talk to the soldiers yet again to explain to them that if the Americans and British land their marines to crush them, not only would they be shot on sight, but it would be the end of Hawaiian independence as Moehonua questioned if the Marines would want to leave after coming ashore. The soldiers then agreed to leave the barracks with their promises from the king and their letters of amnesty. In another shrewd move, King Lunalilo as part of his agreement to reform the military, simply abolished the entire the institution as soon as the soldiers left the barracks. The following week, the police moved in.

What the entire incident had illustrated was that there was wide discontent with the way the Hawaiian Kingdom had operated and it shatters several myths that had been perpetuated by certain vested interests and prominent family names. Native Hawaiians were not blindly loyal to the ali'i. They could think outside of the box. Nor were ali'i guided by great emotions of patriotism. Some were indeed nationalists. But others were simply opportunistic Some even were kumakaia (traitors). The Hawaiian Kingdom was not a fairy tale enchanted kingdom where Hawaiians were happily dancing around eating taro. There were deep seated social inequalities that showed itself in ways like family connections, nepotism, and the acquisition of ill begotten wealth.

As Hawaiians, we should be reminded that history is not one dimensional.

ʻO Ka ʻŌlelo Hoʻākāka

2011-09-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

ʻO Ka ʻŌlelo Hoʻākāka Introduction to this Blog

E hō mai i ka ‘ike mai luna mai e

O nā mea huna no’eau o nā mele e

E hō mai, e hō mai, e hō mai e

Some time ago, I was on the bane of my existence (also known as Facebook) and after chatting with a few Hawaiian activists, I began to think deeply on the question of what constitutes Hawaiian history these days. As many who know me, history had always been one of my major passions. History to me is like what football is to the European. But I know that for most people, history seems far removed from their everyday existence when in fact our societies today are what they are because of history. The way that Hawaiian history, like most histories, is presented basically as a chronology of kings and mixed in with trivia about missionaries, pretty things at 'Iolani Palace, hula, Pearl Harbor, and "lucky you live Hawai'i". There is very little room for critical thinking. In the words of the Filipino historian, Dr. Renato Constantino, the way that history is often written is "un-usable". It exalts tyrants and traitors but leaves out the people who created the nation in the first place.

When we read biographies of the ali'i or monarchs, there are only two perspectives: one that justifies why things are the way they are and we should be lucky to be American; and, the sovereignty activist point of view where ali'i biographies are written like the hagiography of saints. Both, in fact, are right wing or rightest because both advocate enforcing their own views of tradition, social order, and what it means to be Hawaiian. Whatever each may say about each other the truth is that the only ideological difference between most of the sovereignty activists and the non-Native settler establishment is which tradition or social order should take precedence. This is why most of the sovereignty activists and the settler establish attend the same churches and are often related to each other. This is also why sovereignty activists advocate some sort of 19th century monarchist restoration and emphasize the supremacy of the kupuna rather than looking more deeply at restructuring the social inequalities that had existed even Captain Cook's last temper tantrum. This is also why the settler establishment is quite comfortable with sovereignty movement because the truth is, the sovereignty movement does not meaningfully challenge the status quo. At best it simply wants to revert to some other status quo that existed prior to 1864 or 1893. At worst, it wants a bigger piece of the pie and the continuation of being treated like brown victims. In any case, that is why I began to think more deeply about Hawaiian history because in the heart of how we construct Hawaiian history is how we and others view what constitutes the Hawaiian Nation.

It was not the ali'i who built the canoes. It was not the ali'i who built their temples. The Hawaiian proverb "I ali'i nō ke ali'i i ke kanaka" means that a chief is only a chief because of the people. We are told that the ali'i established Hawaiian independence. They established the nation. They are the older siblings of the Hawaiian people and appointed by Ke Akua to guide the nation. But we are never taught about the revolts against the ali'i that took place prior to Captain Cook. We are not told about how the ali'i installed themselves as our rulers during the time of Pa'ao and established the rigid kapu system and the moe kapu (kowtow). David Malo once said that the ali'i and the maka'aina were as two different races because of the way the ali'i exploited the masses of Hawaiians. Rarely is the fact ever mentioned the first international treaty between Hawai'i and the United States included a provision that $150,000 were to be paid by Kamehameha II in sandalwood. Where did this $150,000 come from? It was the collective debt of the chiefs under Kamehameha I and II. Much of this debt was from the chiefs buying Western clothing, Western guns, and booze--all non-essential items. Paying off the debt of the chiefs cost the lives of thousands of maka'āinana--people whom we do not even know their names. Therefore, in reality, Hawaiian independence was established through the blood, sweat, and bones of the maka'āinana--which is why today we have more descendants of the ali'i than we have of the maka'āinana.

This does not mean we should forget them but rather we should treat them as actual people and not demi-gods. They should be scrutinized and appraised with noʻonoʻo kūpili --yes, we, Hawaiians did have a word and tradition for logical thinking-- for their policy-making, their actions, and their intentions. We should analyze their decisions in the context of their time, their class, and their own vested interests and then see if they truly served the good of the people or if they had betrayed the nation. We should at the same time not forget the maka'āinana who are not just literally the eyes of the the land, but the hands, the backbone, and the feet of the country. They also have a history--a history that is often drowned because it contradicts the official history the settler establishment, Native Hawaiian groups, and others who have an interest in maintaining an illusion of grandeur with their last names. Their version of history is not what we as a people need to re-build our identity and our institutions. Its the history that they are comfortable with.

That and my tolerance level for kukae is very low.

Furthermore, the Queen died in 1917. But through her refusal to name an heir before her death--something she could have done through her Will just as her brother did--she understood that Hawaiians have come to a new era in our history. An era where we can strive to remake Hawai'i into a more fair and equitable society not as ali'i but as kupa o ka 'aina--citizens of this land. In the words of King Kamehameha V, "...[let] the ali'i fade into history." It is time now the wā kupa, the era of the citizen and as such, we have a new responsibility as citizens of Hawai'inuiakea (Hawai'i of the great light, a term for Hawai'i) to honestly learn the truth of our history, to honor people for what they really did and not because of their genetics, and to make Hawai'i proud of herself once again. But we can only do this if we deeply understand our history --no matter how painful it might be to some--so that we do not blindly fall into the same traps that had beset our ancestors.

It is not that I am anti-ali'i. It is that I am pro-Hawai'i, pro-critical thinking and pro-truth. As one can guess by the name Kīna'u, I am also a descendant of the ali'i like thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of other Hawaiians but in this day and age, I believe that such pretensions not only work against Hawaiian unity; but goes against the direction that our history was going towards until it was impeded in 1893.

We should honor our ancestors by protecting the nation by courageously telling it like it is, by admitting the problems, fixing the problems in Hawai'i, and from there, decide on what future we need to embark on. We should celebrate who they actually were not who we wish them to be. We can not simply pretend that Hawaiian history is just kūlolo--sweet but not terribly nutritious. If you want kūlolo history, then I can suggest a few public school textbooks. For myself, Hawai'i is green and not rose-colored. If we are to move forward as a people, then we have to re-examine our history and to analyze the complexity of the country. We need to think so that we can decolonize our minds as well as not repeat the mistakes of the past.

In this blog, I want to demystify Hawaiian history--hopefully with some humor but always with the truth--and to present a more kūkulu kuamoʻo ʻōlelo waiwai ("use-able" historical framework) to examine Hawaiian history in the hope that a new consciousness can be built and to hopefully make people see that Hawaiian history is indeed historical and not just a collection of old photographs and stories. It is time that we have a history dedicated to actually comprehending our past so that we may strive for a real identity, not an identity that the settler establishment, the ali'i societies, and the certain activists with big fluffy hair want you to have. But an identity based on the "histories from below", from the people.

We come from a dynamic culture. We are from a people with a long courageous lineage. Let us rejuvenate Hawai'i. Let us be Hawaiians of today while carrying the na'au of our ancestors.

I lāhui nō ka lāhui i nā kānaka--a nation is a nation because of its people.