Return to Kahiki
Native Hawaiians in Oceania

An important new analysis of Native Hawaiian efforts to construct relationships with other Oceanic peoples as missionaries, diplomats, and tourists.

Kealani Cook (Author)

9781316646991, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 February 2019

269 pages
23 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.35 kg

'Return to Kahiki, as both the title of this book and the kinship intention that informs it, is an important contribution to Oceanic and wider Indigenous scholarship. This book will benefit a wide range of readers, from academic students and teaching staff, to those outside the academy interested in a thoughtful re-framing of Hawaiian relationships in the Pacific.' Hinekura Smith, Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies

Between 1850 and 1907, Native Hawaiians sought to develop relationships with other Pacific Islanders, reflecting how they viewed not only themselves as a people but their wider connections to Oceania and the globe. Kealani Cook analyzes the relatively little known experiences of Native Hawaiian missionaries, diplomats, and travelers, shedding valuable light on the rich but understudied accounts of Hawaiians outside of Hawai?i. Native Hawaiian views of other islanders typically corresponded with their particular views and experiences of the Native Hawaiian past. The more positive their outlook, the more likely they were to seek cross-cultural connections. This is an important intervention in the growing field of Pacific and Oceanic history and the study of native peoples of the Americas, where books on indigenous Hawaiians are few and far between. Cook returns the study of Hawai'i to a central place in the history of cultural change in the Pacific.

Introduction: Mai Kahiki Mai: out from Kahiki
1. Ke Ao a me Ka P?: post-millennial thought and Kanaka Foreign Mission work
2. Among the wild dogs: negotiating the boundaries of Hawaiian Christianity
3. A kindred people: Hawaiian diplomacy in S?moa, 1887
4. The Hawaiian model: imagining the future of Oceania
5. 'There is nothing that separates us': John T. Baker and the Pan-Oceanic L?hui
6. Maka??inana or servants of the dollar? Oceanic and capialist values
Conclusion: the return to Kahiki.

Subject Areas: Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM], History of the Americas [HBJK], General & world history [HBG]