9
Anahulu: The Anthropology of History in the Kingdom of Hawaii, volume I: Historical Ethnography, by Marshall Sahlins. ISBN 0-226-73363-7, ix + 243 pp, tables figures, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index; volume 2: The Archaeol- ogy of History, by Patrick V. Kirch. ISBN 0-226-73364-5, xiv + 201 pp, tables, figures, appendixes, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. University of Chicago Press, 1992. US$45 each. Let me preface my contribution to this review forum by saying that I do not agree with the notion of a review forum. A forum, yes. In a forum all contributors are equally responsible for a constructive contribution to a given theme. A review forum, no. Three contributors are in a privileged posi- tion in relation to the authors. They do not have to context their opinions. They can reduce a hundred-thousand- word book to a few slogans; they are not obliged to answer any questions they ask. They force the authors into defensive poses. They approach the study from the moment of its dreaming stage-what it might be-rather than from what it is once any options have been taken. I would rather not partici- pate in review forums, but have agreed to do so and have my say about them. That being said, I am quite prepared to celebrate the brilliant contributions of Marshall Sahlins and Patrick Kirch to Pacific studies. I doubt if there is anywhere in the world where scholars of such international repute in such different, even competing, disciplines have completed such an integrated study. Their separate volumes are state-of-the-art scholarship in their separate disciplines. Their combined study, done from universities and states thousands of miles apart, is what a myriad centers and area studies pro- grams say they are born to do but never do. Sahlins and Kirch pay us the com- 212 pliment of never talking down and of never retreating to the high position of a personal synthesis of their own expertise. They exhaust all the sources; they explore every disciplinary meth- odology and technique; they provide the means of their own critique; they make a reference point by which all scholars who follow them in Pacific studies must measure themselves. I am very happy to celebrate that achieve- ment enthusiastically and to thank them for it. Let me savor only two of the many splendid qualities of these volumes. The first is that they are true "history from below," probably the first we have experienced in the Pacific. The other is their creative narrative form. "History from below" is not a phrase Sahlins likes. It smacks too much of a trendy and crude Marxist historicism. So I won't labor him with it. "Total History," "Rounded History," "Two-sided History" might be better, but they, too, are phrases skewed by particular approaches. One of the sem- inal books in historical studies of our time surely has been E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. Thompson showed how class is a self-constructing relational process giving identity to self and others at the same time in infinitely complex ways. Sahlins and Kirch are just as seminal. They take an interlocking moment between prehistory and history, when

Anahulu: The AnthropologyofHistory in the Kingdom ofHawaii ......the beauty ofher body). In fact, Sahlins has notonegoodwordto say about Hawaiianchiefly society, which is a marked

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Anahulu: The Anthropology ofHistory in the Kingdom ofHawaii, volume I:

Historical Ethnography, by Marshall Sahlins. ISBN 0-226-73363-7, ix + 243 pp,tables figures, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index; volume 2: The Archaeol­ogy ofHistory, by Patrick V. Kirch. ISBN 0-226-73364-5, xiv + 201 pp, tables,figures, appendixes, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. University of ChicagoPress, 1992. US$45 each.

Let me preface my contribution to thisreview forum by saying that I do notagree with the notion of a reviewforum. A forum, yes. In a forum allcontributors are equally responsible fora constructive contribution to a giventheme. A review forum, no. Threecontributors are in a privileged posi­tion in relation to the authors. They donot have to context their opinions.They can reduce a hundred-thousand­word book to a few slogans; they arenot obliged to answer any questionsthey ask. They force the authors intodefensive poses. They approach thestudy from the moment of its dreamingstage-what it might be-rather thanfrom what it is once any options havebeen taken. I would rather not partici­pate in review forums, but have agreedto do so and have my say about them.

That being said, I am quite preparedto celebrate the brilliant contributionsof Marshall Sahlins and Patrick Kirchto Pacific studies. I doubt if there isanywhere in the world where scholarsof such international repute in suchdifferent, even competing, disciplineshave completed such an integratedstudy. Their separate volumes arestate-of-the-art scholarship in theirseparate disciplines. Their combinedstudy, done from universities and statesthousands of miles apart, is what amyriad centers and area studies pro­grams say they are born to do but neverdo. Sahlins and Kirch pay us the com-

212

pliment of never talking down and ofnever retreating to the high position ofa personal synthesis of their ownexpertise. They exhaust all the sources;they explore every disciplinary meth­odology and technique; they providethe means of their own critique; theymake a reference point by which allscholars who follow them in Pacificstudies must measure themselves. I amvery happy to celebrate that achieve­ment enthusiastically and to thankthem for it.

Let me savor only two of the manysplendid qualities of these volumes.The first is that they are true "historyfrom below," probably the first wehave experienced in the Pacific. Theother is their creative narrative form.

"History from below" is not aphrase Sahlins likes. It smacks toomuch of a trendy and crude Marxisthistoricism. So I won't labor him withit. "Total History," "Rounded History,""Two-sided History" might be better,but they, too, are phrases skewed byparticular approaches. One of the sem­inal books in historical studies of ourtime surely has been E. P. Thompson'sThe Making of the English WorkingClass. Thompson showed how class isa self-constructing relational processgiving identity to self and others at thesame time in infinitely complex ways.Sahlins and Kirch are just as seminal.They take an interlocking momentbetween prehistory and history, when

BOOK REVIEWS

archaeology loses its usual anonymityof place and artifact, and history byreason of state systems creates a parti­cularist archive. The whole landscapebecomes individualized. Instead of an"ethnographic present" where history islost in superimposed generalizations,the enlarging characteristics of cultureare uncovered where they actuallyhappen. Sahlins and Kirch do not lookat the interlocking moment, like mostscholars have, for its generalized eth­nography. They have made a wholenew Hawaiian past. They have discov­ered a whole new historical past forHawaiian history. It is history from"below," but because of their relationalconcepts-kama'aina/ali'i, landscape/event, island/world systems-it is nota crude oppositional class history. Noone, but no one-from the lowliestundergraduate essayist to the PhDstudent to those who make academicstudies "relevant"-can now ignore thefact that a whole new population isavailable for those who want to writehistory as it actually happened. In onestep Sahlins and Kirch have takenHawaiian history out of the antiqua­rianism that has largely dominated itinto state-of-the-art historiography.Those who do not know this new his­tory are doomed to repeat the old.

Given the sad connotations of theword, Sahlins and Kirch might not feelcomplimented when I say that I thinkone of the graces of their book is itsnarrative form. They tell a story insuch a way that the reader knows thatevery particular detail is larger thanitself, and that history is never just"one damn thing after another," buthas a dramatic form. At the heart ofevery cultural act in Sahlins and Kirch's

213

history is what Aristotle called cathar­this 'enlightenment'.

The first chapter of Sahlins's vol­ume, Landscapes of Tradition, must bethe most satisfying piece of historicalethnography in all of Pacific studies.Some of Sahlins's earlier writing onHawaiian historical ethnography wasbedeviled by his own genius. He wastoo good for the rest of us, who be­came impatient with his vocabularyand were "conned" into thinking thathis procedures were easy. His criticsthought that all they had to do wasread the superficial historical sourceseveryone knew about, invent their ownvocabulary, negate Sahlins, and be­come instant historical ethnographers.None of his critics that I have read hascome near to Sahlins's dedication toexhaust every historical source. All ofthem, even the loudest, even the mostprestigious, have been butterflies to hismole. In Landscapes of Tradition,Sahlins is patient enough to spell out allhis deepest insights and to give histori­cal substance and image to his theoreti­cal understandings. In all the greatanthologies of anthropology in all itsdimensions, when did you last find onewithout a contribution from Sahlins?As historical ethnography moves intoanother gear because of Anahulu, youwill find Landscapes of Tradition theprime example of how it should bedone.

Mostly such ethnographic descrip­tions are set apart. They make a sort ofdisembodied "ethnographic present"beside which the main story is told.This is not true of Landscapes of Tra­dition. It permeates the whole ofSahlins's narrative. Look at the titles ofthe parts of the first volume: "I Con-

214 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. SPRING 1994

Patrick Kirch and Marshall Sahlins'stwo-volume study of the Anahulu rivervalley will no doubt be hailed by someas a great work, but probably not byNative Hawaiians. Following in a long

quests, to 1812," "II The SandalwoodEra, 1812-183°," "III The WhalingPeriod, 183°-186o," "IV KawailoaSociety in the Mid-Nineteenth Cen­tury." You will think you are about toread another Kuykendall. But no, youare not. It is only that Sahlins has aban­doned for a time his penchant for crea­tive, mesmerizing titles (it is the onlycriticism of the book I have). This is noKuykendall. This is sensitive narrativeof the interplay of a cultural landscapewith periodized-that is, dramatized­historical events. This is context as itshould be written.

Over the years, it has been my expe­rience that the pleasure of history mak­ing is more in the writing of it than inhaving written it. The author does diein the production of a book, but read­ers are also born. I am sure Sahlins andKirch will have sadness mixed withpleasure on completing such a majortask with the assistance of such greatHawaiian scholars as Dorothy Barrereand Marion Kelly. I am sure they arealready feeling the distance that allauthors feel from their creations. Ithink, however, that they should knowthat Hawaiian history will never be thesame after their book, because theywill have created so many thousands ofreaders down the years who make itdifferent.

* .-

GREG DENING

Melbourne

*

line of foreign denigrators of Hawaiiansociety-people like Hiram Bingham,Sheldon Dibble, Lorrin Thurston, andWilliam D. Alexander-the Sahlinsanalysis of Hawaiian history (happilyaccepted by Kirch), will be used by thecolonial powers, and their academicsupporters, to attack the Hawaiiansovereignty movement.

The main thrust of Sahlins's argu­ment is that Hawaiian chiefs were"venal" and "draconian" and were toblame for the loss of Hawaiian sover­eignty (118), implying that the chiefswere hated by the commoners, whomthey terribly oppressed. Those whooppose Hawaiian self-determinationand Hawaiians regaining political con­trol of our country have already begun(in the local press) to cite the Anahulustudy and Sahlins's historical analysisto excuse the American takeover ofHawai'i. IfHawaiian chiefs were sobad, weren't commoner Hawaiiansfortunate to have been conquered bydemocracy-loving Americans? Thishistory will be loved by those who loveto hate Hawaiians.

Of course, in many ways the Ana­hulu study can be called a great work.A team of noted scholars participatedin the research-including MatthewSpriggs, Marshall Weisler, andDorothy Barrere-as well as Kirch andSahlins. The stated project objectivesare long overdue: the excavation of asite established in historical times inconjunction with a concurrent exami­nation of pertinent land records.Although one wonders why an anthro­pologist, rather than a historian, waschosen, the research and findings willprove valuable to many scholars. Ifound Spriggs's chapter on irriga-

BOOK REVIEWS

tion systems most enlightening, andas usual Sahlins presents a meticu­lous array of quotes from primarysources not often cited. Had the au­thors confined their analysis to Ana­hulu, the work would have been ex­cellent.

However, much of volume r is notabout Anahulu land awards, which isnot surprising since Anahulu never hasbeen terribly central or important atany time in Hawaiian history. Instead,Sahlins uses the historically inconse­quential place, Anahulu, as a vehicle topresent an allegedly novel view ofHawaiian history, although the analy­sis is not so new. He argues for a famil­iar litany of evil, oppressive chiefs,lazy, disgruntled commoners, lowcontact population, constant warfare,and selfish Hawaiian women abortingor murdering their children to keeptheir bodies beautiful (although if awoman bears a child and then kills it,the damage has already been done tothe beauty of her body). In fact, Sahlinshas not one good word to say aboutHawaiian chiefly society, which is amarked departure from his previouswork, Islands ofHistory, wherein headmired and celebrated Hawaiianchiefly culture.

As a native Hawaiian, I was disap­pointed in Sahlins, because I had mis­takenly supposed him to be one of thefew foreign academics who had alohafor us, but his unremitting attack onHawaiian society and its chiefs wasdepressing for me to read. No society isever that bad, and if Hawaiians wereso awful, one wonders why he bothersto study us at all.

I would never argue that Hawaiianchiefs were perfect; few political lead-

215

ers attain that state, and Hawaiianscertainly made their share of mistakes-allowing any foreigners to live in ourcountry was perhaps the foremost ofthese. But, considering the overwhelm­ing array of disasters that befell Hawai­ians-including foreign epidemics,precipitous depopulation, maraudingwarships enforcing the demands ofrapacious capitalists, and worst of all,self-serving Calvinists who proclaimedtheir love for the natives while plottingwith the American military to takeHawai'i for themselves-one mightexpect a few mistakes. Despite all this,Hawaiian chiefs managed to retain thesovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdomlonger than any other Pacific nation,save Tonga.

I disagree with so many aspects ofSahlins's history that it is difficult to beas brief as this review requires. Hiswhole analysis imputes foreign motivesfor native actions by both chiefs andcommoners, creating a set of meta­phors and models foreign to Hawai­Ians.

I most object to his contention thatcommoners resented their chiefs (r14),which is a ludicrous assertion. In fact,commoners have always loved theirali'i, and continued to do so until afterthe overthrow. In all accounts of theali'i nui processions through theislands, Hawaiians delighted in bring­ing forth ho'okupu 'gifts' to honor andcherish their leaders. This custom con­tinued after the r848 Mahele, duringthe reigns of Kamehameha IV and V,Lunalilo, Kalakaua and Lili'uokalani,when commoners, holding privatetitles to land, had no need to fear evic­tion by their "draconian" chiefs. At thetime of the r893 overthrow, when by

Ji;;WWi1e¥MMIMq;WHl&llflM P¥U'MMM6I

216

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THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING I994

Sahlins's reasoning commoners shouldhave resented the long oppression oftheir chiefs most keenly, thousands ofcommoners gathered to support theirAli'i Lili'uokalani, saying, "There ismuch love in the heart, much love inthe breast, for our Queen Lili'uokalani,the Queen foremost in our aloha,standing firm and preserving thepeace" (Ka Leo 0 ka Lahui, 17 January1893-my translation).

After the Queen was arrested, acommoner wrote a Mele Ko'ihonua noLili'u 'Political Chant for Lili'u':

Oh Lili'uokalani,sacred Queen of Hawai'i,The beloved of the Native people,the precious leader of the Pacific,Consecrated by the Heavens,by the all-powerful sacred Lord,To work on behalf of the Kingdom,to lead the Native people,For you are the heavens,for you are foundations of the earth,For you is the sea,for you is the land,[your mana is everywhere],I ask for life for my Hawaiian land,life for my Hawaiian people,Life for Lili'uokalani,until you sit upon your royal throne

again.(Buke Mele Lahui, ed Anton Rosa, 1895)

Sahlins misunderstands Hawaiianculture. The ali'i were like our parents,and while we may dislike the tasks theyhave given us, we love and cherishthem nonetheless.

Sahlins argues that capitalist pres­sures engendered by the sandalwoodtrade caused the chiefs to oppress thepeople of Waialua and quotes fromforeign observers of the period, whofrequently disliked chiefly powerbecause they could not appropriate it

for themselves. Hawaiians did notagree. Samuel Kamakau, who was ofO'ahu lineage and was born and raisedin Waialua during the very sandalwoodperiod described by Sahlins, said:

The foreign races are quick temperedand hold nothing sacred in their anger,not even kings or chiefs.... TheHawaiian nation loves its kings andchiefs. If a chief expresses a wish, hispeople see to it that his words are notspoken in vain.... The Hawaiianpeople welcome the stranger freely; richand poor; high and low give what theycan. The strangers call this love igno­rance and think it good for nothing. (KeAu 'Oko'a, 26 August 1869)

Sahlins implies that the commonerswere oppressed by the "forced labor"corvees for sandalwood, while quotingthe missionary Charles Stewart whosaid Hawaiians worked only four orfive hours a day. However, in 1829,after years of continued cutting andalleged "oppression," at least four hun­dred fifty people volunteered to gowith the high chief Boki to cut sandal­wood in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu),saying,

Very well! There is no harm in doingthat. The king's debt will soon be paid,then we will cut for ourselves and tradefor clothing and money. The chief hasbeen kind to us and fed us well. Howelse can we repay him? Nothing else wasthought of but the expedition aftersandalwood, and more offered to enlistthan the ship could hold. (SamuelKamakau, Ruling Chiefs ofHawai'i,1961,293)

Sahlins tries to impute a false dis­tance between "foreign" chiefs of Mauiand Hawai'i lineage and the "native"commoners of Waialua, O'ahu. Heforgets how closely related the chiefs of

BOOK REVIEWS

different islands were, and that thecommoners traveled from one island toanother, living where they pleased;they too intermingled with people ofdifferent island lineages.

He begins by describing the ancientO'ahu Mo'r Ma'ilikokahi as a legiti­mate and good king, as opposed to the"foreign" Kahekili and his son Ka­mehameha who were conqueringchiefs, although both descend fromKakuhihewa, a famous O'ahu Mo'r.He also ignores that the good Ma'iliku­kahi had to kill Haka, his predecessorand senior lineage cousin, who was thelegitimate heir. Referring to the chiefsas the ali'i 'ai ahupua'a 'chiefs who"eat" the ahupua'a' in order to showthat chiefs were rapacious, Sahlinsignores that 'ai also means "to rule,"and in Hawaiian 'ai has no connotationof cruelty.

Sahlins describes the rule of Ma'ili­kokahi at length, establishing all thebehaviors required of a good chief­just rule of the land, love of the com­moners, attentive religious worship­neglecting to mention that a similardescription was given for the reign ofKamehameha, whom Sahlins refers toas a "brooding sorcerer" (2). Not onlyis this an unfair characterization ofKamehameha, who was a belovedchief, but the negative connotation ofthe term sorcerer, arising out of theChristian context, is entirely inappro­priate to Hawaiian metaphor. Onewould think that any well-trainedanthropologist would be more sensitiveto the Hawaiian cultural context. Per­haps Sahlins refers to 'ana'ana, whichare prayers and rituals performed forthe gifts of both life and of death.(When Hi'iaka brings Lohi'au back tolife, she does so with the help of 'ana-

217

'ana.) Many practised 'ana'ana, butdespite all the great accomplishmentsof Kamehameha, he was not renownedfor his 'ana'ana.

Using the continued celebration ofthe makahiki festival as a sign of com­moner protest against the chiefs wasanother strange metaphor. Sahlinsconfuses the god Lonoikamakahikiwith the chief of the same name (128).The chief, not the god, was a "victim ofthe usurpers in power." Lonoikamaka­hiki the chief was named for the god,just as his half-brother was named forKanaloa, god of the ocean; such nam­ing was a common practice among thechiefs. It does not mean that the godtakes on the persona of the chief, justthe opposite. In Aotearoa, the Maori(whose arrival in Aotearoa predatedthe chief Lonoikamakahiki) wor­shipped Lono as Rongo, and both weregods of fertility and sweet-potatoplanting. When the commoners cele­brated makahiki-like festivals after thebreaking of the 'aikapu, it was proba­bly because they liked to celebrate, notbecause they identified with a god whowas supposedly a "victim of usurpers"-and who was not a victim in anyevent.

Another peculiar analysis was of the1848 Mahele. Sahlins argues that thechiefs agreed to the private ownershipof land so that they could sell the lands,since they weren't able to squeezeenough money out of the commoners(134). However, the chiefs had arguedagainst private ownership for tenyears, against the constant advice ofthe missionaries.

Sahlins would have us believe that252 chiefs got 63 percent of the land,dispossessing the commoners who gotonly I percent (135). He fails to men-

tion that it was not the chiefs, but theLand Commission, run by the haolemissionary William Richards, whoawarded land to the commoners, andthat while Richards allo~ted 2-3 acresto each commoner, missionaries re­quested 560 acres each for themselves,knowing that such an amount wasneeded for successful capitalist enter­prise. He also ignores that at the timeof the Mahele no survey of chieflylands was done; they were divided bythe number of ahupua'a 'valleys', andno one knew how much land went towhom until the map surveys of 1880.Moreover, each of these chiefs wasrequired to relinquish control of 50 to75 percent of their holdings, and mostof these (218) were mere konohiki 'landstewards' who had only 'iii 'a smallportion within an ahupua'a' awards(see my Native Land and ForeignDesires, 1992,227-229,274-285). Nordoes he mention that commoners wereallowed to claim parts of the chieflylands, and in the areas of 'Ewa,Kane'ohe, and Kailua on O'ahu, suchclaims were extensive.

After all, however, I must agree withSahlins; Hawaiians did make mistakes.We listened respectfully to and ac­cepted advice from foreigners whomwe thought trustworthy and knowl­edgeable about the western world.Perhaps now Hawaiians should learnfrom the mistakes of our ancestors andreject advice (and attacks) from"knowledgeable" foreigners about oursociety-especially when it comes fromthe brooding sorcerer of Chicago.

LILIKALA KAME'ELEIHIWA

University ofHawai'i at Manoa

..&?MWS'SMj·.

218

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THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. SPRING 1994

These two volumes describe the ethno­history and historical archaeology ofthe Anahulu Valley, O'ahu, within thecontexts of Hawaiian and Pacific his­tory. Volume 1 (Sahlins) is a richlydetailed account of Hawaiian protohis­tory that weaves back and forthbetween events at a local level, espe­cially in the Anahulu Valley, and thebroader historical processes thatprompted them. Volume 2 (Kirch)describes archaeological investigationsin the largely undisturbed upper Ana­hulu Valley (Kawailoa-uka), with ref­erence to documentary history of landownership and use. Threaded throughboth volumes, but more prominent involume 2, is evidence of the greaterobjective that held this project to­gether: to relate ethnohistory toarchaeological features at the level ofdocumented people, structures, andevents, in order to reveal "how thecultural structures and processes ofHawaiian history have been sedi­mented in the ground of the AnahuluValley" (2:1)-the ultimate ambition,no less, of processual archaeology. Theauthors insist that their quest was suc­cessful, and certainly little scholarlyeffort or ingenuity was spared, butbetween documents and diggings therestill remains, in my view, a tantalizinggap across which is thrown a ricketybridge of tailored argument and specu­lation.

Chapter 3 of volume 2 providesexamples of some of the problems.Here, the authors first outline for each'iii in Kawailoa-uka how blocks of landwere apportioned by the mid-nine­teenth-century Land Commission.Many claimants argued that theirrights stemmed from settlement in the

BOOK REVIEWS

area following the arrival of forcesassociated with Kamehameha I in AD1804. The archaeologists then set outto find evidence of this influx, andother events, by attempting to matchhouse sites and other archaeologicalfeatures with recorded individuals. Buteven in 'IIi Mikiai, regarded as thesimplest of the cases, the results arequestionable. In this block, land wasgranted in 1848 to Mailou and Kawai­haomaui. The authors sought Kawai­haomaui's house site on his land with­out success and argued that it hadperhaps been a simple garden house orshed whose remains cannot now beseen. In Mailou's case, several indige­nous Hawaiian coconut palms ob­served on his land grant were regardedas the clue to the location of his housesite on an adjacent terrace. Test pitsrevealed stone artifacts of prehistorictype but no historical remains. Theauthors note the inconsistency of thisresult with the historical record-theyexpected iron, beads, glass, and soforth, as on other nineteenth-centuryhouse sites in Anahulu. A radiocarbondate from a posthole fill gave the cali­brated result AD 1658-1954 at one stan­dard deviation, with the highest proba­bility at AD 1716-1886. One intercept,at AD 18°4, is picked out as a morethan coincidental correspondence withthe date when Kamehameha's forcesarrived in the district, and so the housesite is attributed to Mailou's father andthe lack of historical remains is ex­plained by the relative paucity of theseamong Hawaiians at that early stage.

All this reads dangerously like spe­cial pleading, in which refractoryarchaeological results are interpretedto fit historical evidence, without rigor-

219

ous consideration of alternative expla­nations. For example, the archaeologi­cal remains indicate that the "Mailou"house is prehistoric, and therefore thatMailou built no house, or a house forwhich undiscovered remains, or noremains, exist elsewhere on his land, asis argued for his neighbor, Kawaihao­maui. Further, particular argumentsconstructed for the attribution of"Mailou's house" are ignored elsewherein Kawailoa-uka when they are lessconvenient. In contrast to the absenceof exotic goods in "Mailou's house," abottle manufactured AD 1790-1810 andsome early nineteenth-century beadswere found in "Kainiki's house"nearby. These are used to support anoccupation span also reaching back toAD 1804, and thus made consistentwith historical records of Kainiki. Soneither presence nor absence of chron­ological markers in the archaeologicalmarkers in the archaeology can alter aconclusion of settlement at AD 18°4,which is desired on documentarygrounds. Then, in the case of "Kalua'shouse," another bottle dated to AD1790-1810 is simply passed over in theargument that the occupation span wasmid- to late-nineteenth century, consis­tent with historic records of Kalua,who was only born about AD 1800 andcould not have taken up the land untilabout AD 1830.

Among numerous similar inconsis­tencies of argument may be noted theemphasis on a large household withvariety and abundance of exotic goodsat site D6-51, which is attributed to thebig man Kamakea, while the other bigman in upper Anahulu, Konohiki, isevidently represented by no house onhis land at all, let alone any signs of

220 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1994

special status. Only several mangotrees possibly mark his former resi­dence. If this is so, then any other his­torical claimants may be equally elu­sive in the archaeological remains, andit is possible that just as some featuresare anonymously prehistoric, othersmay be attributed to unknown contem­poraries of the documented individuals-the probable boundary stoneinscribed without the unrecorded name"Kewe Kamawai," is a case in point(although it is perhaps a misspelling of"Kanawai" whose father, Kalua,owned the adjacent block).

More crucial to the intention of theproject than argument about structuresand artifacts, however, is the use ofradiocarbon dating, for it is largely onthe radiocarbon assays that the post­Kamehameha l expansion into upperAnahulu is perceived in the archaeolog­ical remains. Archaeology has im­proved its understanding of radio­carbon dating since the Anahuluinvestigations, so it would be unfair tocriticize the evident shortcomings ofsampling method too stringently-theuse of unidentified wood charcoal, sothat inbuilt ages are unknown, thedating of only one sample per site, andso on-but the use to which the resultsare put is highly dubious. Calibrationcurves for the last three hundred yearsspread probability such that closerinterpretation of most of the Anahuludates is extremely problematical, evenat the level of one standard deviationthat the authors use (two standarddeviations is the standard range). Thelikelihood that any particular peak orintercept represents the calendar age ofthe event in question is exceedingly

slight, and even if it did, the likelihoodof some inbuilt age in the sampleswould mean that the actual date wasyounger again. Consequently, thereexists no radiocarbon dating supportfor the contention that much of thearchaeological evidence of upper Ana­hulu can be dated to the early nine­teenth century, and certainly none toback the naive, but crucial, claim bySahlins (1:52) that the developmentsdocumented by archaeological remainsin the upper Anahulu "can be dated bycarbon 14 almost precisely to 1804." Infact, there are too few radiocarbondates or any other chronological datato rule out the possibility that many ofthe house sites, andrhe irrigation sys­tems, were first occupied or con­structed prehistorically by people ofundocumented identity.

None of this is to say that the inter­pretations preferred by the authors arewrong. My point about this worth­while and ambitious project is, rather,that for reasons all too frustratinglyfamiliar, it has proven impossible toclose the gap between archive andarchaeology by demonstrating theessential connections that a robust"archaeology of history" must exhibit.Nevertheless, the exemplary expositionof Hawaiian ethnohistory and thearchaeological results, together withscholarly interpretation of the evidencein its own terms, will ensure that theAnahulu volumes are valued andmuch-consulted resources in Pacifichistory.

ATHOLL ANDERSON

University ofOtago

*