THE KANAKA AND THEIR ISLES OF SANDWICH And yet — in fact you need only draw a single thread at any point you choose out of the fabric of life and the run will make a pathway across the whole, and down that wider pathway each of the other threads will become successively visible, one by one. — Heimito von Doderer, DIE DÂIMONEN HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS “Sandwich Islanders” in Chapter 1, paragraph 3a of WALDEN: Henry Thoreau referred to the Kanaka under the name currently in use in New England: WALDEN: I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and every where, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Brahmins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders “until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach;” or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars, –even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolas to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra’s head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up. In 1788, when Captain James Cook belatedly arrived at this island arc of Hawaii in the central Pacific –since he was a white man and had been funded by a white man, the Earl of Sandwich in England– he decided that he would improve these unknown-to-white-people islands and award to these unknown-to-white-people men and women the honor of a white-man name. (To make a long story short, the Kanaka then bashed in his head with a beach pebble and cut out his heart.) Thoreau had some interest in all this because a fellow he had once chummed around with in New-York, Giles Waldo, was serving as a vice-consul at Lahaina. Turning to the JOURNAL, we find: After December 23, 1845: I wish to say something tonight not of and concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as to and concerning those who hear me –who are said to live in New England. Something about your condition –especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world –in this town. what it is –whether it is necessarily as bad as it is –whether it can’t be improved as well as not. It is generally admitted that some of your are poor find it hard to get a living –haven’t always something in your pockets, haven’t paid for all the dinners you’ve actually eaten –or all your coats and shoes –some of which are already worn out. All this is very well known to all of you by hearsay and by experience. It is very evident what –a mean and sneaking life you live always in the hampers –always on the limits –trying to get into business –and trying to get out of debt –a very ancient slough called by the Latins aes alienum anothers brass –some of their coins being made of brass –and still so many living and dying and buried today by anothers brass –always promising to pay –promising to pay –with interest tomorrow perhaps and die –to day –insolvent. Seeking to curry favor to get custom –lying –flattering voting –contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility– or dilating into a world of thin and vaporous generosity –that you may persuade your neighbor –to let you make his {Nineteen leaves missing} HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1779 February 14, Sunday: I filosofi immaginari, a dramma giocoso by Giovanni Paisiello to words of Bertati, was performed for the initial time, at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. People were trying to kill each other at Kettle Creek, Georgia and at Cherokee Ford, South Carolina. AMERICAN REVOLUTION At the island chain to which the Yorkshireman Captain James Cook had awarded the name of his patron John Montague, 4th Earl of Sandwich,1 an attempt was made by a detachment of Marines to entice Chief Kalaniopuu to climb aboard a launch in order to take him to their ship. This was prevented by the islanders, who were rightly suspicious. In the fighting a number were killed. The Captain was killed by Ku’a, a Hawaiian chief who had come to doubt that the Yorkshireman was a reincarnation of the god Orono. Portions of Cook’s ribs and breastbone would be distributed to shrines located around the island. After this loss, Lieutenant William Bligh would become the new English master navigator. 1. The Earl was so enthralled by his constant card games of basset, ombre, and quadrille that he could not bring himself to stop for a proper meal (however, an official biographer has suggested an alternate account — that the original “sandwich” may have amounted to a working lunch consumed while the Earl was preoccupied at his desk in the Admiralty). HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1789 Namaateerae, a one-eyed Hawaiian, demonstrated that he was able to dodge 5 spears thrown at him from a distance of about 10 yards. He accomplished this feat by dodging the initial shaft with his body while grabbing it about mid-shaft, and then employing that shaft to knock aside the following 4. He then demonstrated that he was able to knock such shafts aside using only a dagger. HAWAIIAN ISLANDS HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1794 November 21, Friday: Honolulu Harbor in the Sandwich Islands was discovered by white people, for what that’s worth. The legislature of New Jersey passed “An Act for Supporting Idiots and Lunatics and Preserving Their Estates.” This early public policy seems to have been more preoccupied with the protection of their property than with proper care for the patients.2 PSYCHOLOGY 2. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994 HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1802 December 6, Monday: Paul Émile Botta was born in Torino. Since he was born in Italy and since his father Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo Botta was a historian specializing in that region of the world he would sometimes be considered to be himself Italian — but as an adult, after a period as a naturalist in California and Hawaii, he would be a diplomat not for Italy but for France.3 3. Botta would collect mammals, birds, and insects in California, and observe the life of native Americans, during the late 1820s. A valley pocket gopher of the southwestern United States and Mexico would be designated Thomomys bottae: VALLEY POCKET GOPHER THOMOMYS BOTTAE HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1803 August 9, Tuesday: The 1st horses arrived in the Hawaiian Islands (on a boat). Robert Fulton exhibited the 1st prototype steamboat on the Seine River in Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1804 The Russians attempted to stake a claim to the Hawaiian Islands, which they preferred to denominate the “Cook Islands.” Later on in our trajectory as a nation, a colonialist named A. Grove Day would depict this attempt as if Oahu had the proximity to San Francisco that Havana has to Miami, Florida: had this Russian mission succeeded, our popular writer announced breathlessly, Pearl Harbor could have come to constitute “a menacing Soviet bastion offshore from California.”4 Here is this menacing Soviet bastion offshore from California as it would appear in 1854: 4. ROGUES OF THE SOUTH SEAS (Honolulu: Mutual Press, 1986). In a similar vein, President Ronald Reagan once pointed out that Nicaragua was only a two day march from Texas (he didn’t specify whether he feared that an army of Texans was going to invade Nicaragua or that an army of Nicaraguans was going to invade Texas). HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS Not to mention December 7th, a day that shall live in infamy: Jap Planes Menace Soviet Bastion Offshore From California HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1810 Kamehameha I (circa 1758-1819) became king of all Hawaii. HDT WHAT? INDEX HAWAIIAN ISLANDS SANDWICH ISLANDS 1813 January 21, Thursday: John Charles Frémont was born in Savannah. Georgia. In the diary of Francisco de Paula y Marin, counselor to King Kamehameha II, we find an entry mentioning the planting of pineapples (from the Caribbean) and oranges (from the Old World) in the island chain to which we now refer as the Hawaiian Islands. Friend Paul Cuffe was named to the committee tasked to rebuild the local Friends’ meetinghouse. Completing a trip of 55 days, Lowell Mason arrived in Savannah, Georgia from his home in Medfield, Massachusetts.