The 'olelo above could be interpreted in many ways, and may serve as a guiding principle in helping us to think about the relevance of history to the present. What has been interesting to me in my recent readings as well as teaching a semester in the history department has been to play close attention to people's idea of what they mean when they say, "ka wa kahiko."The question of time came up pretty early in the semester when one of my 200 level introduction to Hawaiian history students asked me, "when are you going to start teaching history?" The question amused me and made me think---well, what did I think was history, that she considered as simply something else.I gave a defensive and pretty smart a** remark, after I realized that what she meant by history was marked by an attention to chronology, of dates that could only arise after the arrival of Captain Cook organized our history into a BC / AC timeline in much the same way the birth of Jesus Christ operated for World Civ, or the Greco-Roman World. Anyway, I tried to explain that the three weeks devoted to Hawaiian history before Cook, was still history, but found myself reverting to phrases like "the oral tradition," and "Hawaiian culture," in ways that sought to legitimate and approximate her idea of "history," but largely failed to communicate----well, it was only the third week of class.As the semester progressed though I found that I was fairly surprised that many of my students applied the phrase "Ka wa kahiko" which they seem to translate as 'in ancient times," to the time of Kamehameha. Through this move, my students granted the early 19th century a patina of antiquity in ways that seem incomprehensible given the wealth of orature that has been passed down through the mouths, memories and pens of Hawaiians, who recorded these traditions during that "wa kahiko."Here's another thing that caught my attention, namely that a lot of people venerate the "wa kahiko." But a time, as process cannot be considered static or captured and neatly bundled as a set of practices or beliefs that never change or transform over time, hence my second difficulty with the "wa kahiko" designation as the past which we mine for "momi" (the current term of art in Hawaiian language and lit circles---which in unsettling ways seem to mimic the practices of strip mining ethnographers of Pukui's time) so that we can map "authenticity" onto our present day lives.Hence my query, my question, a process of searching; how can we problematize and theorize our connection and thinking about ka wa kahiko without making a period of time static, "the source" and well, "history" in its most unflattering sense: the detritus of passed lives that are no longer relevant to today, in other words, that can no longer speak to us in meaningful, deep ways.
It gets even more difficult when the oral and written record becomes muddied by distance in time - there is little to find on the pre-Pa'ao society that isn't flavored or suppressed by the ali'i-based society that dominated for centuries. without those traditional sources, we have little more than archeology to hint at these things. The Mu and the Menehune come to mind. I agree that facile use of terms such as "imperial ali'i" belong in blog comments, but find their way into popular published works, and carry more innuendo that substance.
You point out another interesting twist on "pre-Paao," "Pre-Luakini," ideological arguments. Tie your comment to thinking on time though--------the "pre" -fix which we try to pin down is another attempt at chronology, another stab at figuring out which thing came before another. So what are the ways in which Hawaiians "chronologize?" In other words, according to what "rhythms" was time arranged and organized.
I'm worried too about the facile use of the terms"quasi-democratic," "non-stratified," and "imperial," in these ideologies. Is there a way too that we can look at our sources, whatever they may be, and describe first rather than project. If we are working comparatively those comparisons should shed light on what we are trying to get closer at, rather than erase or displace our own conceptualization of what we are looking at.
It reminds me of the protests of those who profess the values of the "pre Pa'ao" (pre luakini) wā, touting the quasi-democratic, non-stratified society of those times, and blaming the imperial aliʻi class for many of the woes imposed on the majority-turned-makaʻāinana. So how far back you go for the "wā kahiko" indeed is a pertinent factor.
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I'm worried too about the facile use of the terms"quasi-democratic," "non-stratified," and "imperial," in these ideologies. Is there a way too that we can look at our sources, whatever they may be, and describe first rather than project. If we are working comparatively those comparisons should shed light on what we are trying to get closer at, rather than erase or displace our own conceptualization of what we are looking at.