ABRAHAM FORNANDER 1812-1887 ABRAHAM FORNANDER—SWEDISH PIONEER IN HAWAII NILS WILLIAM OLSSON In 1959 the University of Hawaii Press published a unique volume of selections of Hawaiian legends based upon the famous Abraham Fornander Collection of Hawaiian folk• lore, gathered in the Hawaiian Islands a century ago.1 The volume consists of seven Hawaiian folk legends, ably edited by Samuel H. Elbert and delightfully illustrated by Jean Chariot. The selections are a distinct contribution to the better knowledge of the native culture of our western-most state and a tribute to the skill of the University of Hawaii Press to publish a high quality work of this genre. The legends are published in parallel fashion on opposing pages in English and Hawaiian. The typography is excellent and the illustrations to the stories are superb. The reader, how• ever, who wishes to enjoy the beauty of the language in the original will need to have mastered at least the first year of Hawaiian or have some previous knowledge of the language. Of particular interest to the readers of this Quarterly, however, is the fact that the collector of these Hawaiian legends, Abraham Fornander, was one of the first Swedes to settle in the Islands, more than 120 years ago. During his 45 years of residence in Hawaii he became one of the foremost champions of Hawaiian language and culture and his contributions to the knowledge and understanding of the Polynesian people are of the utmost importance. The story of his life makes fascinating reading, although un- 1 Selections from Fornander's Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore, ed. by Samuel H. Elbert and Illustrated by Jean Chariot (Honolulu, 1959), 297 pp. 71 fortunately very little is to be found about him in the available literature. Abraham Fornander was born in Gärdslösa parish on the island of Öland, Sweden, Nov. 4, 1812, 150 years ago this year, the son of a well-known clergyman in the Lutheran Church, Anders Fornander. Young Abraham was given the benefit of good education. He attended the schools in the nearby city of Kalmar, after which he matriculated in 1828 at the University of Uppsala. Here he devoted himself to the study of theology and classical languages. After two years at Uppsala, he transferred to the sister institution at Lund. He did not stay there long, for it appears that al• ready in 1830 or 1831, he shipped out as a sailor via Copen• hagen. So far as Sweden was concerned, he now dropped out of sight completely and it was not until many decades later that a report brought back by a globe-girdling Swed• ish sailor confirmed that the missing Abraham Fornander was indeed alive, now residing in the Hawaiian Islands, where he lived in the finest of circumstances, the friend and adviser of kings. Exactly where Fornander spent the years between 1830 or 1831, when he left the University of Lund, and 1842, when he seems to have settled in Hawaii, may never be known. One report, probably drawn from W. D. Alexan• der's Introductory Essay on Judge Fornander in Stokes' Index,2 and reprinted several times in Swedish biographies of Fornander, claims that after the departure from the uni• versity, he sailed widely to America, to Japan and the Kurile Islands; that he arrived in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in 1838; that he had sailed from there on a whaling ship until four years later when he definitely went ashore in Hawaii. That he must have traveled widely throughout the Pacific area seems certain, since his knowl• edge of the people and cultures of this part of the world is much in evidence in his written works. Alexander continues his essay on Fornander by quoting 2 John F. G. Stokes, Index to "The Polynesian Race" by Abraham Fornander (Honolulu, 1909). 72 extensively from the obituary about Fornander which ap• peared in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Nov. 2, 1887, the day after Fornander's death. Among other things we learn that he commenced to plant coffee in the Nuuanu valley for Dr. T. C. B. Rooke. In 1847 he was engaged in surveying Dr. Rooke's lands. The same year he was married to Pinao Alanakapu, a chiefess from the island of Molokai, who died in 1857? Soon after his marriage Fornander was lured to the gold fields in California but he returned to Hawaii in 1852, a very disillusioned man. He now turned his attention to journal• ism and thus takes his place as a pioneer in the history of Hawaiian newspaper publishing. According to Riley H. Allen, he first edited the Weekly Argus, which appeared initially on January 14, 1852 and seems to have been pub• lished until the middle of 1853, when it was succeeded by the New Era and Argus, which was in existence in January and June of 1854 and perhaps as late as 1855.* Allen goes on to say that the Argus "was established to oppose government restrictions on free speech and free press."5 Luther Severance, U. S. Commissioner to Hawaii says in an official dispatch, dated May 31, 1853: The Argus embodies and rallies the opposition to the government. (it) represents the free liquor interest,op• poses missionary influences, and opposes annexation to the United States, as earnestly as it dare to do, being anx• ious on one side to favor the wishes of its British and French supporters, and to prejudice the King and Prince Liholiho against the ministers; and on the other hand not to offend its American anti-missionary and anti-liquor law patrons without whose support the paper could not exist. ' Ibid. 4 Riley H. Allen, Hawaii's Pioneers in Journalism in The 37th Annual Report of the Hawaii Historical Society (Honolulu, 1929), p. 84. 5 Ibid. It is tempting to think that Fornander may have had another Argus in mind when he became editor of the Weekly Argus, namely Svenska Argus, published by Olof von Dalin in Stockholm 1733-1736, a weekly patterned much after the Spectator in England. Fornander, as a student in Uppsala and Lund, would have been quite familiar with this newspaper, which through its wit, satire and clever journalism was relished by the liberals of another age. 73 In 1856 Fornander became editor of the Sandwich Islands' Monthly Magazine, which appeared between January and June of that year with a total of six issues and then prompt• ly expired. Four years later he assumed editorship of the Polynesian, a government organ, which he edited for three years, after which he bought the rights to publish it privately. After a year, however, it also died for want of support. In 1864 Fornander left his career as a newspaperman and was appointed circuit judge of Maui, where he stayed until the following year, when King Kamehameha V appointed him inspector general of the Hawaiian school system, a position he held until May of 1871, when he was reappointed circuit judge of Maui. Here he stayed for fifteen years until December 1886, when he was appointed one of four judges of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. He died less than a year later on Nov. 1, 1887. Surviving him was one daughter, Catherine, married to Captain John Brown, a Britisher. Two other daughters and one son had pre-deceased him. During the later decades of his life Abraham Fornander devoted a greater part of his spare time to two huge pro• jects, both of them enormously important for the little island kingdom. The first of these was the publication in London in 1878-1885 of a three volume work entitled An Account of the Polynesian Race; its origin and migrations and the ancient history of the Hawaiian people to the times of Kamehameha I. This work which attempts to tell the his• tory of the Polynesian people and the Hawaiian language by placing them in relationship to other cultures and linguis• tic families, was an heroic effort on the part of an amateur scholar, far removed from the world seats of learning, to engage in comparative linguistics. It was published at a time when linguistic science was developing in Europe, and particularly in Germany, an evolution of which he was un• aware. It is nevertheless a work of love and devotion which is a real contribution to our knowledge of Polynesian folk• lore and mores. His second, and by far finest, contribution to Hawaiian 74 culture, is his collection of Hawaiian legends and folklore, referred to earlier. This project he supervised during the 1860's and 1870's by engaging a team of native Hawaiians to roam every segment of the islands in order to record for posterity the songs, legends, chants, mythology and stories of the Hawaiian people. He sought to have this material re• corded verbatim from the lips of those who still had a knowledge of the history and age-old customs of his adopted people. He opposed any attempts to change them, censor them or dress them up. He felt that they were the rich heritage which the Hawaiian people should protect and safeguard for the edification of future generations. Scholars today agree in principle that the tales in the Fornander Collection, therefore, are the most important single source of Hawaiian mythology, and stand as an immortal monument to Fornander, to the collectors, and, in fact, to the genius of the Hawaiian peo• ple.6 After Fornander's death in 1887 Charles R. Bishop pur• chased the collection of manuscripts from his estate and later gave them to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. They became the basis for a very elaborate edition of the folk tales, published in 1918-1920 by the Museum in three series, comprising nine volumes.