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King Kamehameha IV’s Ascension Speech, 1855
King Kamehameha IV’s Address on the occasion of taking the Oath prescribed by the Constitution. Extr. from Polynesian, published on Jan. 13, 1855: I solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, to maintain the Constitution of the Kingdom whole and inviolate, and to govern in conformity with that and the laws. Give ear Hawaii o Keawe!… — read more
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The Royal Pets
When the Mormon missionary William Root Bliss arrived in Honolulu in 1873, he reported that “Every family keeps at least one dog; every native family a brace of cats.” Indeed, for many generations a Hawaiian household consisted of grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, children, cousins and an assortment of animals such as dogs, pigs, chickens, and later… — read more
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Some thoughts about Pono
“At the very beginning of the path to Enlightenment there are twenty difficulties for us to overcome in this world and they are:1. It is hard for a poor man to be generous.2. It is hard for a proud man to learn the Way of Enlightenment.3. It is hard to seek Enlightenment at the cost… — read more
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Broken but Beautiful
When Hawaiians of old broke a bowl, they did not discard it. Instead, they mended it using another type of wood and shaped it in the form of a fish (known as the pewa design) or a butterfly (known as the lepelepe o Hina design) as part of the mending process. The more it was… — read more
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Some thoughts about Queen Kapiʻolani
I n the dining room of my grandmother’s house before in Papakōlea, there used to be two photographs. One was of Queen Lili’uokalani and the other was Queen Kapi’olani (the one depicted here with the dark velvet dress serving as a backdrop for her lei hulu manu). I talked a little bit about my family’s… — read more
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Pre-Cook Foreigners in Hawai’i
In King Kalakaua’s Legends and Myths of Hawai’i, he devotes a several passages and an entire chapter (“The Iron Knife”) about possible foreigners who had visited or lived in Hawai’i before the arrival of Captain Cook. The late king lists, for example, oral traditions recounting foreigners–Japanese and Spanish–who were shipwrecked in Hawai’i. Although this does… — read more
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Queen Lili’uokalani
In honor of Queen Lili’uokalani’s birthday this year, I decided to write some thoughts about what Queen Lili’uokalani means to most Hawaiians, including myself. As a boy, I can remember a portrait of the Queen hanging in the living room of my grandmother’s living room. Her portrait always hung above the pictures and photographs of… — read more
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The Role of Hawaiian Women
One of the side affects of colonialism in most areas in the Pacific had been the introduction of a rigid system of gender roles. In my own understanding of traditional cultures through Oceania, most indigenous peoples acknowledged not two genders but three. The Bugis in Sulawesi in Indonesia for example have five genders. In other… — read more
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Pono
I thought I would post a note here. I am beginning to deeply regret now sharing what I shared on this blog about what happened to my own family. Not because of non-Hawaiians but because of the responses from Hawaiians themselves. For example, on the Lawful Hawaiian Government Facebook group someone directly plagiarized an entire… — read more
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1893
Instead of writing my unusual blog posts which is normally sprinkled with Hawaiian laws and other references, I thought I would write a more personal post. For an indigenous Hawaiian, its sometimes very difficult to maintain an emotional distance in talking about certain events in our past. Among these events is what happened in 1893.… — read more
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Adam Keawe Manalo-Camp 