History and Politics Through Hawaiian Language Sources
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Ka `Olelo No Ke Ola: Understanding Indigenous Hawaiian (PDF: 9
pages)History and Politics Through
Hawaiian Language SourcesNoenoe K.
Silva and J. Leilani BashamDepartment of
Political Science and Department of Hawaiian
LanguageUniversity of Hawaii at
ManoaHonolulu, HI
96822E-mail noenoe @ hawaii.edu and jbasham @
hawaii.eduUa lehulehu a manomano ka
`ikena a ka Hawai`i.The knowledge of the
Hawaiians is myriad and great.(traditional
saying)United States colonialism in
Hawai'i resulted in several generations of Native Hawaiians being schooled in
English, unable to speak the mother tongue of their ancestors. It has also meant
that the study of the history, politics, and anthropology (among others) of
Hawai'i has been conducted almost exclusively in English, ignoring the wealth of
source material available in Hawaiian. More than seventy-five newspapers in the
Hawaiian language are preserved on microfilm, ranging in date from 1834 to 1948.
In these papers, Hawaiians wrote their own histories, literature, political
opinions and analyses, as well as poetry and religious thought. The language
revitalization movement of the past twenty-five years has created a new
generation of scholars now able to read the writing of their ancestors. In this
paper, we will present examples of how Hawaiian history looks from indigenous
Hawaiian points of view. These include how the myth of Hawaiian non-resistance
to colonialism was exploded by the recovery of the history of the organized
political resistance of the 1890s and a new understanding of the role of
political songs in the same resistance movement. Many more examples abound, and
in our individual and collaborative work we continue to research and publish
these.1 The importance of such indigenous views of the past to students of every
age and level would be difficult to overestimate, as they finally are able to
see their ancestors (and, thus, themselves) in history. This paper should be of
interest and value to other indigenous scholars engaged in recovering their own
histories.
Posted: Tue - January 29, 2008 at 10:27 PM