Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii (54 page)

Read Captive Paradise: A History of Hawaii Online

Authors: James L. Haley

4. Abhorring a Vacuum

23
Stewart,
Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands
, 133. Kalaniopu‘u also had been of lesser bulk than the average
ali‘i
. Malo,
Hawaiian Antiquities
, 52, maintained that “the chiefs and the common people … were the same; they were all of one race; alike in features and physique.” However, he based this on their mythological common descent from Wakea and Papa, a sort of native Adam and Eve, which might not hold up to genetic scrutiny. The editor’s note to that passage at p. 62 echoes the notion of
ali‘i
descending from different ethnic stock as “flattery and bosh,” and attributes their looming bulk to better “feeding and grooming.” Still, one looks back to the first Marquesan settlers’ conquest by Tahitian warriors, and the centuries of
kapu
against marrying into the lower class, and wonders whether
ali‘i
and
kanaka
descended from different ethnicity—politically incorrect speculation against which this author has been gently warned.

5. The New Morality

6. Becoming Little Americans

2
Kuykendall,
Hawaiian Kingdom
, 1: 104. This theme has come to be reiterated often in the scholarly literature. See for example Menton, “A Christian and ‘Civilized’ Education,” 214–15. For Hawai‘i, though, the latter’s assertion that the purpose of the Chiefs’ Children’s School was to put the “civilized” (her quotes)
ali‘i
“in a position to perpetuate the work of the Sandwich Islands Mission” carries disapproval beyond accuracy. Once the king and chiefs were converted, it became their show, with the goal of raising up a Christian nobility to guide the kingdom. True, they might still support, even warmly support, the mission, but the missionaries’ own misgivings about providing a special education for noble children undercut at least some of the modern cynicism.

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