Hawaiian cultural systems and archaeological site patterns Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Hommon, Robert J. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 05:44:32 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/554776 HAWAIIAN CULTURAL SYSTEMS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE PATTERNS by Robert John Hoimnon A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the. DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of ' MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 7 2 STATEMENT BY.AUTHOR This' thesis-has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library, Brief quotations.from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author, . SIGNED; APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved.on the date shown below; g s - 7 2 .: ■WILLIAM A,U LONGACRE - Date Associate.Professor of Anthropology TO JIGGIE WITH ALOHA iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge the efforts of. the following people who helped in the preparation of this thesis 0 First5 I wish to thank the three members of my thesis committees Dr0 William A„ Longacre (chairman)| Dra T0 Patrick Cnlbertj and Dr0 Raymond H 0 Thompson, as well as Mr a Edwin Ne Ferdon, Jre, for their patience, aid and con­ structive criticism during the years of its preparation» I gratefully acknowledge the special efforts of Dre Harry T0 Getty whose aid in smoothing out the administrative process enabled me to write and submit the manuscript while remaining in Honolulu0 I particularly wish to thank Mrsc Hazel Gillie who typed the final draft for submission6 I am indebted to the following archaeologists for the infor­ mation and points of view derived from countless discussions of Hawaiian archaeology and ethnohistorys Mr0 William Barrera| Dro Kenneth P0 Emory; Dr. P. Bion Griffin; Mr. Patrick V. Kirch; . Dr. T. Stell Newman; Mr. Paul H. Rosendahl; Dr. Yosihiko H. Sinoto; and Dr. H. David Tuggle. I am grateful to Dr. Marshall D. Sahlins, Mrs. Dorothy Barrere and Mrs. Marion Kelly for providing information concerning the ethnohistory of ancient Hawaii. To my wife, Jiggie, I am deeply grateful for the patience she displayed and the confidence she instilled during the final stages of the production of this thesis. iv TABLE OF'CONTENTS - Page ABSTRACT 0 ........ ........... vii Xo INTRODUCTION .. ......... ...... ...... X Purpose and Limitations . ......... X GeographicaX Background „ . „ . ..... ....... U The TemporaX Framework . „ . ......... 6 Ethnohistoric Sources . ..... 7 The PotentiaX of Hawaiian ArchaeoXogy ........ XU PART I t THE HAWAIIAN PRIMITIVE STATE MODEL .... 18 2. PRIMITIVE STATE SOCIETY: FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS . 19 The Value of Definition . ...... 20 The Sociopolitical Aspect . ..... ........ 21 Monopoly of Political:Powers The Mechanism of Integration . © . @ . .%.. ... * . * .... 22 , Kin and Powers Integrating Mechanisms and Levels of Integration ................. 26 The State Society; An Outline of the Maximal Corporate Unit ....... V, ........ 28 The Socioeconomic Classes » . ....... 32 Other Aspects of the Primitive State Model ...... 33 The Economic System . .. ........ 3li The Religious System ............... 35 30: THE HAWAIIAN PRIMITIVE STATE HYPOTHESIS- b'. ..... 37 The Hawaiian Community . ....... .... „ „ 37 The Hawaiian Government . ........ h i The Hawaiian Primitive State ... ..... ...... 68 . PART II; THE HAWAIIAN PRIMITIVE STATE HYPOTHESES; THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE ....... 81 h o A FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF HAWAIIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES o e . # . o 00 o o 0.0 . o . o . .0 . o . 82 v TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued Page Archaeological Sites of Economic Function 0 85 Archaeological Sites of Food Production 91 Archaeological Sites of Production of Non-Food ItemS o o » o » » o o o o'o 6 o d o dd e d d O O llU Archaeological Sites of Storage Function » d . » o 118 Archaeological Sites of Social Function 120 Trails and Gaming Sites . * ...... 120 Habitation Sites ■ ................. 125 Archaeological Sites of Political and Religious PunC UlOn o e e o. 0 . o . c 0 .«e . .. o o lk3 Sites of Worship and Political Administration . lij.3 Sites Associated With Warfare ........... 161 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF HAWAIIAN SITES AND THE PRIMITIVE STATE HYPOTHESIS; SUMMARY . ........... 168 The Community . » . « .... .... 168 The Government. .. , . .......... 171 LIST OF REFERENCES . .......... 175 ABSTRACT In Part Is a model of the characteristic features that serve to distinguish a primitive state society from other types of socio­ cultural systems is presented* The ethnographic, historic and ethno- historic data concerning the sociocultural systems that existed in the Hawaiian islands, prior to and for a few years after contact with European cultural influences are then compared with the model The Hawaiian community segment, governmental segment and their interre­ lationships are emphasized* The Hawaiian primitive state hypothesis, that is,"primitive state societies had evolved in the Hawaiian islands prior to contact" is supported by these datas In Part II, the portion of the archaeological data that is available in Hawaiian non-portable artifacts, classified according to sociocultural function (economic, social and ideological) and pertinent sociopolitical groups (family, community, and supra- community or state society) is presented in support of the Hawaiian primitive state hypothesis* vii CHAPTER 1 ' INTRODUCTION ; Purpose and Limitations The introduction is presented in five sections* The first outlines the logical framework and hypotheses discussed in the body of the thesis and sets forth the limitations of subject matter and approach that I have found, necessary to impose in order to produce a thesis of manageable size* The second section sketches the geography of the islands* Section three presents the temporal framework that is important to the present study. A brief discussion of the ethno- historic sources comprises the fourth section and five concerns the potential of Hawaiian archaeology. The main body of the thesis is presented in two parts. The first part is an exploration of the hypothesis that at least one of the Hawaiian sociocultural systems operating at the time of first ■ European contact (1778) was a state rather than a chiefdom. The method is used to present various parts of the Hawaiian sociocultural system as they have been observed and analyzed by various ethnohis- toric authors and to compare these data with commonly accepted features of the type of society known as the state. The ethnohistoric sources are those written by native, European and American authors based upon personal observation, and participation as well as library research during a period of nearly two centuries from 1778 to the present day. Some of the problems involved in using such sources in the present study are discussed in the fourth section. The second part of the thesis5 entitled "The Archaeological Pattern," is an outline of the various types of non-portable archae­ ological artifacts of Hawaii, their formal attributes, their function^ and their spatial patterns as they were.related to the operating sociocultural systems in general and to the factors. relating to the statehood hypothesis in particular. In view of the general goals of the thesis — the delineation of an entire sociocultural system on the one hand, and a discussion of a large portion of the available archaeological material on the other — both data and approach had to be severely limited for reasons of space and clarity of presentation, .Limitations on data consist primarily of a lack of emphasis on the details of various ideal types developed in both the archaeological and the ethnohistoric literature through the years in favor of examples which suggest the real ranges of cultural phenomena. This real-ideal dichotomy is discussed fur­ ther in the fifth section. The limitations of approach can be summarized by the word "synchronic," Since an operating system and the spatial pattern of the archaeological features associated with it are subjects of re­ search, a. single relatively short period would provide the appropriate data for this study. In view of the possibility that the development toward statehood may have occurred relatively late in the aboriginal sequence, the ideal period, of study would seem to be immediately prior to initial European contact. Some ethnohistoric and archaeological data can be identified as pertaining to the Hawaiian culture as it operated immediately prior to European contacte The most obvious examples would be those cultural traits described in the journals of the Cook expedition. These sources are, of course, rather limited in scope.