Honolulu Star-Advertiser - September 6, 2010
Native Hawaiians, other Hawai`i residents and visitors gathered to celebrate Queen Liliuokalani's birthday yesterday with hula, mele and prayer on the grounds of `Iolani Palace.
Among others, the girls of Halau La Onohi Mai Haehae, dressed in lavender and white, performed hula and sang songs commemorating the queen, a composer herself of poetry and music, including "Aloha `Oe."
But a number of attendees solemnly walked through roughly 1,500 names handwritten on white placards that lined the lawn of `Iolani Palace yesterday, searching for ancestors who may have signed the 1897 petition against the annexation of Hawai`i to the United States.
The 1,500 names represent just a few of the more than 21,000 who signed the petition against annexation of Hawai`i in 1897.
The petition was retrieved from the U.S. National Archives to Hawai`i in 1997 by Noenoe Silva.
"It's significant because there was a segment of the population that believed annexation was wrong," said Kerry Yen, 56, of Mililani.
Yen was looking for his great-great-grandmother on his father's side, Jane Buckle Clark, who served as a lady-in-waiting to the queen and was imprisoned with her at `Iolani Palace for at least one night. "She was in prison up there," he said, pointing to the palace.
Pomaikai Kinney, 71, said he discovered the first of three relatives' names among the thousands of signatures when a copy of the petition opened up to the page containing R. Kinney, whom he believed to be his great-great granduncle Raymond Kinney.
"My legs just wobbled," he said. "The name was just looking at me."
"What is significant to me is that William A. Kinney tried the queen for treason, so when I saw this book, I said, 'Well at least not all the Kinneys went against the queen.'"
"A lot of people don't know what this meant," he said.
He pointed out that many of the names are not only Hawaiians, but also non-Hawaiians.
About 600 names were first displayed on Presidents Day this year at McKinley High School. Then 1,100 names were displayed at `Iolani Palace on Kamehameha Day, June 12. On July 31, a third display was set up for Sovereignty Day.
A small group, with the aid of U.S. military, overthrew the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893 during the reign of Queen Lili`uokalani.
The petition was later delivered to the U.S. Senate in 1897, while Lili`uokalani was in Washington.
Luwella Leonardi, 62, of Waimanalo said her ancestor, Alexander Auld, was part of a Hawaii delegation that hand-delivered the petition to Washington, D.C.
Leonardi has been participating in the queen's birthday celebrations since 1992, when she, as a University of Hawai`i student, would sit with other students at the corner of the palace under the queen's bedroom and "sing to her all night."
She said her grandmother, Tutu Keleileki, was a seamstress for the queen, and that the queen would stop at their home in Maunawili where she would bathe at a swimming hole.
Leonardi took part in writing the names on the placards, saying, "We were emotional just writing the names," adding, "we could just imagine" what they were feeling as they signed the petition...
Comments
Professor Schweizer actually gave most of the information on the spot at the Iolani Palace on Sept. 5, to the reporter to confirm Alexander Auld and his role in preventing the unlawful 'annexation'.
N. R. Schweizer, PhD—18th-century German classicism, Germans in Hawai‘i, Europeans in the Pacific
The singing was with Dede and Kuhio Vogler's mom, there were other's singing too. Uncle Mel Kalahiki was the person that created the celebration for her birthday each year since 1992. It was all his ideas, desires, and wants for the preservation of the Queen.
I did the research at that time in 1992 that produced the listing of names that attended her birthday, declined, and sent regrets. I gave a copy of this hand-written-list by 'Liliu' to George and Piilani.