Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 17 Article 21 Issue 1 May 2003 A History of the Pacific slI ands (Review) Joan Seaver Kurze Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Kurze, Joan Seaver (2003) "A History of the Pacific slI ands (Review)," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 17 : Iss. 1 , Article 21. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol17/iss1/21 This Book or Media Review is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Kurze: A History of the Pacific Islands (Review) duction which is accompanied by small archival photographs of this image to Hawai'i. A generous financial gift from the Ha­ installations/displays before and after renovation. waiian societies to the museum made possible the restoration The bulk of the catalog text was written by Norman Hurst and exhibition of other artifacts in the Pacific Collection. The of the Hurst Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hurst divides catalog (pp. 12-13) gives a succinct account of two years of ne­ his text into six sections: Sculpture and Image, Weapons and gotiations, debates, and litigation regarding this image, but an Warfare, Tattoo and Ornament, Trade and Exchange, Barkcloth, even fuller report is contained in a recently-published article by and Technology. Each section is illustrated by full or half-page Angela J. Neller, "From Utilitarian to Sacred: The Transforma­ color plates. A catalog of sixty-five artifacts follows the text; in tion of a Traditional Hawaiian Object", in Pacific Art: Persis­ the catalog, each artifact is illustrated by a postage-stamp-sized tence, Change, and Meaning, University of Hawaii Press, 2002: colored photograph. Polynesian and Fijian artifacts predominate pp. 126-138. in this collection. Also included, however, are bowls and weap­ Probably because of its role, large color photographs of ons from Belau and Kiribati in Micronesia, two lime spatulas front and reverse views of this Hawaiian image frame the text of from the Massim region of New Guinea, and a single canoe this museum catalog. One wonders why the image retains its prow figurehead from the Solomon Islands. museum number in this catalog, published in 2002 after the re­ According to the Introduction, the artifacts came to the turn of the image to Hawai'i in 1998. Partly because of the man­ museum from two principal sources: the Providence Franklin ner in which this catalog features the Hawaiian image, the im­ Society and the Jenks Museum of Brown University. Pertinent age and its role at the museum, but also because of the superb and detailed information regarding their intended functions ap­ Pacific collection, the catalog Circle of the Sea, Creations from pears in the catalog. Many, if not most of the artifacts would Oceania will remain as one of significance among catalogs of appear to have considerable age and are excellent examples of Pacific collections. their type. It is definitely a collection worth seeing. Barring a trip to Rhode Island, this catalog makes acquaintance with the collection possible. Among the artifacts in the collection, cer­ A History ofthe Pacific Islands tain ones perhaps deserve particular notice. Readers of Rapa Steven Roger Fischer, 2002 Nui Journal should note that three images from Rapanui, a ISBN 0-333-94976-7 paperback crouching figure (E3198), a very fine moai kavakava (E3098) Palgrave', Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire G21 6XS and a moko (E191O) are featured on the front and back covers of and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 the catalog. The crouching figure and moko have been estimated to be of late eighteenth or early nineteenth century date, and the Review by Joan Seaver Kurze moai kavakava to be of early nineteenth century derivation. rts The 20,000 Pacific Islands have already been well recorded by donor, a Captain W. P. Salisbury, was "master of the China the likes of Thor Heyerdahl, Douglas Oliver, Peter Bellwood, trade vessel Hanover from 1833 to 1838". He apparently never Roger Greene, Patrick Kirch and others. Why another book on actually went to Rapa Nui so must have obtained the figure the subject now? Steven Fischer answers this question in the somewhere else on his voyages. Preface and Introduction to his History ofthe Pacific Islands. The collection contains several pieces of barkcloth. Par­ The University of Exeter asked Fischer to write this book ticularly noteworthy, to this writer, are two barkcloth shawls or as an addition to their Palgrave Essential Histories. It will be, cloaks (ahu fara) from Tahiti. One (E3517) is dated "circa "very useful in a range of undergraduate courses", states the 1790s" and the other (E3282) "circa 1800-1910". A very fine University of Auckland's Hugh Laracy. So, to fulfill a mission Hawaiian lei niho palaoa (E2278), a necklace comprised of a thought by some scholars to be overly vast and complex a sub­ sperm whale tooth suspended from coils of braided human hair ject for one volume, Fischer produced 304 pages of text, seven (lauhoho) which contained the genealogical mana and presence maps, and a strong "Selected Further Reading" section of stan­ of an ancestor represents one of the more significant artifacts in dard Pacific sources that includes the most recent available lit­ the collection. erature. Without doubt, the most distinctive artifact from this col­ To Fischer, Pacific Islanders are not the "eternally passive lection (and I use the word "from" deliberately) is a Hawaiian victims" described by Oliver nor are they "eternally active image (ki'i lka'au) which formerly supported weapons. The im­ agents". Instead he prefers a more recent analysis -- one that age (E2733) had been donated to the museum by Daniel Tilling­ speaks of 'Islander Agency' and how Islanders responded to hast Aborn, born to New England parents in Hawai'i in 1790. the invaders as "doers and receivers". Fischer sets out to ana­ He apparently visited New England several times and donated lyze, in a chronological fashion, how new environments af­ several artifacts to the Providence Franklin Society, one of the fected "sociocultural systems" that Pacific Islanders had con­ two sources of artifacts in the Pacific collection of the Museum structed for themselves way before the "western invasion". In of Natural History. other words, he wants to explore, the "interplay between event This rare Hawaiian image played an important and contro­ (history) and structure (culture)." versial role during its tenure at the museum. Attempts to sell it Fisher's focus on the post-colonial positions of Pacific Is­ in order to finance restoration of the Pacific Hall were aborted landers in his History differs from that of most other studies by Hawaiian organizations, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and with their emphasis on prehistory and colonialism. In Fischer's Hui Malama I Na Kupuna '0 Hawaii who, with the aid of offi­ closing chapter, The 'New Pacific', he examines changes in Is­ cials representing NAGPRA (The Native American Graves Pro­ landers' ethnicity as well as alterations in their economies. The tection and Repatriation Act), were able to secure the return of effect colonialism had on the role of women also is discussed, Rapa Nui Journal 69 Vol. 17 (1) May 2003 Published by Kahualike, 2003 1 J Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 17 [2003], Iss. 1, Art. 21 and Fischer concludes that, except for Melanesia, their status Fischer bases his hope for the future of Pacific Islanders has risen in the past hundred years. A modem mobility among on what he terms, a "Union of Pacific Islands". Of the two bod­ Pacific Islanders, he writes, has brought large numbers of them ies that have "dominated" the governance of Pacific Islands to live and work in New Zealand and the USA. since the end of WW II (the European influenced Secretariat of We already know most of the prehistoric material that the Pacific and the indigenous South Pacific Forum), he backs Fischer presents. The Pacific's earliest immigrants left Sunda, the indigenous Forum as most productive for Islanders. How­ the prehistoric Asian continent, reaching Sahul (ancient Austra­ ever, he admits that it will be the super challenge of the 21 51 lia) where, by 50,000 years ago, they had become the true century to unify an area still struggling internally with econom­ Dreamtime ancestors of the Aboriginal Australians and Archaic ics and, in some places, still politically cursed by colonialism. Papuans (a map of ancient Sunda and Sahul would have been Fischer has written this book as a scientist and a linguist, useful). so students may find words like "positivisitic" a bit of a mouth­ Fisher claims that, "The 'Pacific Islands' as a human ful. His students in Pacific Island History 101 would do well to habitat began in New Guinea and the Bismarck and Solomon keep an OED nearby! Archipelagos" about 12,000 years ago as the seas began rising. Archaic Papuans stayed close to home in Near Oceania proba­ I PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin's bly due to the lack of flora and fauna east of the Wallace Line Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers that could not support their communities. When Southern Mon­ Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press, Ltd). goloid Austronesians sailed onto the scene about 4500 years ago, they lived separately but amicably with the Papuans for a L£TT£~~ £DITO~ while and then, about 3000 years ago, began voyaging farther TO TH£ and farther into Remote Oceania.