First we have the arrival of native Hawaiians. In Bora-Bora, near Tahiti, a king and his brother are driven out by a clever high priest of a new god named Oro. Oro demands respect and reverence; the high priest is able to suppress opposition by accusing anyone of irreverence and immediately have their head clubbed in as a punishment and sacrifice to Oro. Rather than wait around until their own inevitable head-clubbing, the king and his brother go into voluntary exile with a loyal crew, seeking a fabled land to the north. After several weeks at sea, they miraculously find Hawaii.
Nearly 1000 years later, Hawaii is being regularly visited by New England whalers. A young Hawaiian looking for adventure, actually a member of the royal family named Keoki Kanakoa, ends up converting to Christianity and pleads for young divinity students at Yale to come help his people as missionaries. Extremely awkward and obnoxious Abner Hale makes his application to the missionary board … but is dismayed that unmarried missionaries are not accepted. (Apparently the single ones just get into too many … situations with the native girls.)
(Note – all the people in the book are fictional, but generally based on real counterparts. For instance, Abner and the other missionaries were likely based on Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston. Keoki Kanakoa is kind of like Henry Opukahaia.)
Actually, lack of a spouse was not that great of a problem. Apparently it was quite common for “shotgun weddings” among prospective missionaries and any young gal who would assent, usually a cousin or other acquaintance. For Abner, the senior guy on the missionary board considers this a prime opportunity to marry off his spinster (ie. mid-20s!) niece, Jerusha Bromley, who keeps saying she’s waiting for her whaling captain beau but heaven knows a missionary husband would be much more respectable.
The trip out on a small brig, with a dozen or so newlywed missionary couples crammed into 3 small cabins, was miserable. Nearly everyone was seasick and constipated (“billiousness”). Abner spends the weeks trying to convert the crew and convince Captain Janders to give up his worldly novels. (And force feed Jerusha some disgusting bananas, which was a bit weird. “This is what we’ll be eating for the next several years, so you’d better learn to like ’em!”) At this point in the story, and a little later when the missionaries are in Hawaii, I was struck by the similarity between the religion of the ancient Bora-Borans and that of the Calvinists. Convincing sailors that they are sinners, destined for eternal fire in hell unless they submit to the edicts of the church, is nearly as nasty as the high priest having men clubbed. (Not quite though.) Plus both groups were extremely superstitious, attributing coincidence to divine actions. I liked the words later in the story of Dr. John Whipple, another missionary who becomes much more nuanced: “I don’t think the Hawaiian gods sent the winds, and I don’t think the Christian God sank the ships.” Sometimes, things just happen yo!
The Hawaiians accept that Jesus is more powerful than their gods (see what big, fast ships and strong weapons the white man has!) but see no reason they can’t accept Him and His blessings as an addition to their own gods. Hawaiian customs too are somewhat incompatible with church teachings, such as the tradition of Hawaiian girls stripping naked and swimming eagerly out to greet the whalers (and make some money sleeping with the sailors) entering port after long months at sea. Some other interesting traditions: the leaders were fed huge meals from an early age so they would grow big and fat. This was a mark of a successful settlement, and also the leaders were supposed to be kept well-fed and strong, able to defend the settlement from enemies. To show grief when such a leader died, breaking out your teeth or gouging out an eye was totally appropriate. (ewwwww)
A main source of conflict in this section in the book is Jerusha’s whaler captain, Rafer Hoxworth, who nearly kills Abner when he finds out he’s married his girl. But then later on, Rafer has a house built for Jerusha, and many years later his half-Hawaiian daughter ends up marrying Abner’s son. Abner stays pretty insufferable, insensitive, and brainwashed throughout his life. He’s also plenty racist – even though he strives to save their souls, he despises and fears the Hawaiians, refusing to allow his children to mingle with Hawaiians or even hear Hawaiian being spoken. He also refuses to even consider the idea of ordaining Keoki Kanakoa as a minister. Keoki, crushed at this rejection, turns his back on Christianity in favor of his ancestral religion and obligations.
The descendants of the missionaries are very prominent in the rest of the book. Indeed, nearly everyone is named Hale, Hoxworth, Whipple, Janders, or Hewlitt (another missionary who provoked scandal after marrying a Hawaiian when his wife died). Or combinations thereof — Whipple Hoxworth, Hewlitt Janders, and Hoxworth Hale are all character names in later chapters… it honestly gets a bit ridiculous and stale, but there you go. After making a fortune servicing whaling ships, the missionary families get into the shipping, sugar cane, and later the pineapple business. The idea is that raw agricultural products are shipped out, on the family-owned ships, to the mainland, where the cargo is sold and replaced by lumber and other finished goods which the islands lack, which are then brought back to Hawaii and sold at a profit.
Hawaiians suffered greatly from Western diseases in these days (roughly the century after first contact via Captain Cook in the late 1700’s – an incident not portrayed in Michener’s “Hawaii”, by the way) so Chinese were brought in as a labor force. Kee Mun Ki, a Punti gambler bound for Hawaii to make his fortune like his uncle recently did in California during the gold rush, agrees to transport a Hakka slave girl to a brothel in Hawaii. Though the two peoples have lived side by side for centuries, Punti and Hakka distrust each other and don’t even speak each other’s language. Mun Ki bucks tradition and decides to keep the girl as a concubine for himself – though always insisting his real wife is back in China. Indeed, he informs the Hakka girl, Char Nyuk Tsin, that when they go back to China he’ll take the kids (who are legally his only) to live with him and his real wife, while she can go back to her Hakka village. Nyuk Tsin’s father was caught up and executed in some revolution, and so Nyuk Tsin, who has no family to go back to, worries about this eventuality.
Fate intervenes however … Mun Ki contracts leprosy and is banished to the colony on Molokai. Though not required to, Nyuk Tsin chooses to go with him, becoming the “pake [Chinese] kokua.” Lepers were just dumped on the shore, with nothing to survive on except for the supplies which also were dumped on shore periodically. It was a lawless, hopeless hell, governed by the strong … until they died off, to be replaced by others. Nyuk Tsin helps Mun Ki until his death, then several others before she is allowed to go back to Hawaii, miraculously never contracting leprosy herself. While she was gone, her four sons – Asia, America, Africa, Europe – were left in the care of a kind Hawaiian couple who sheltered Mun Ki and Nyuk Tsin from the authorities when he tried to run away for a time rather than be banished. A fifth son, Australia, was born on Molokai and given to the supply ship sailors. Years later, Nyuk Tsin finds out that Australia was raised by a Hawaiian family. With the family back together, Nyuk Tsin still insists the boys send money periodically back to their “real mother” in China, as an homage to Mun Ki. Under her direction, and with some help from some friendly haoles, she guides her sons and grandsons to good educations and helps make the Kee family very powerful.
Meanwhile, the missionary families start a conspiracy to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy and become a part of America. The impetus is to avoid the Louisiana and Colorado (beets) sugar lobby’s threatened import tax on foreign sugar, which would bankrupt the families. If they are a part of America, though, then no foreign import taxes! Taking advantage of the Queen’s legitimate efforts to reassert native authority from long time American advisors, the missionary families portray a face of oppression and the need for democracy for Americans living in Hawaii. With the protection of the US military, already present in leased ports, the coup is complete before it even begins.
On the heels of the Chinese, who leave the sugar fields as soon as better opportunities arise as storekeepers or restaurant owners, come Japanese laborers. Kamejiro Sakagawa is one of many sent to tend sugar cane and later pineapples on Kauai. After years of failing to save his target number which would allow him to return to Japan in triumph (much of his failure is due to frequent contributions to Japanese imperial concerns), he caves in after a decade and asks his mother to find him a bride. When the group of brides comes, his intended wife rejects him as too poor. Kamejiro’s friend, who won the bet allowing him to wear the one nice suit that day, is a little upset at the ugliness of his own bride so proposes they trade. This turns out to be a great thing, because Kamejiro’s intended bride is quickly fed up with Hawaiian life and runs away; but Kamejiro becomes happy with his hard-working workhorse of a wife.
There’s an interesting anecdote which illustrates how cultural misunderstanding and the imperfection of memory can drive racial hatred. A German Luna (plantation overseer) is fed up with some Japanese faking sick. One day, when Kamejiro really is sick, the German beats him and forces him to the fields. Later, when Kamejiro recovers, he intends to commit harakiri over the dishonor of being beaten, but decides instead to hit the German with his shoe. This is a grave insult in Japan, but the German is just confused and nothing much happens. Years later, this story gets blown out of proportion; now the Japanese tell of the Germans constantly beating workers in the fields, and of the one time when Kamejiro fought back and beat a German to within an inch of his life…
Fast forward to WWII and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As depicted by Kamejiro, this was a time of confusing torn loyalties for the Japanese on Hawaii. But they largely escaped the internment camps that were the fate of many on the mainland – basically, they were key, trusted members of society and there were so many of them that it would have been impossible. The Sakagawa family proves its loyalty to America when all four boys join the 222 Regiment (based on the real-life 442), fighting in Italy and France.
Meanwhile, the current missionary family scion Hoxworth Hale goes on a military scouting expedition to greater Polynesia to look for potential new military sites. He observes that Hawaii has fared much better than others at accommodating Chinese and Japanese imported labor, but has done worse at treating the native Hawaiians fairly. He contrasts this with Fiji, where the natives are well off but the imported Indian laborers are treated terribly. Then there’s what would be a scandal today, when he and a small group of officers scouting in Bora-Bora are provided pretty young island girls, eager for white babies, for the week…
I thought the post-war years, which encompass the last 15% or so of the book (which was still about 8 hours, as long as some other full audiobooks!) was pretty boring – unions and anti-unions; Japanese coming to power in the legislature. Maybe this was included to show how peacefully Hawaii was able to resolve a land use crisis which led to violence in so many other parts of the world, such as the French Revolution? Anyway, I thought the only interesting character here was Kelly Kanakoa, the descendant of Keiki, who would now be king if the monarchy was still around. Instead, he works as a “beachboy”, nominally a surfing instructor but really a male escort for rich divorcees or widows (lots in immediate post-war years) visiting the islands. One time, a companion gets washed out to sea during a tsunami (after saving Kelly’s life) but the incident never is mentioned again. Later Kelly, a talented singer and guitar player, becomes part of a famous musical duo with one of the Kee girls.
I wonder though, what would Kelly’s life have been like if Abner had allowed Keiki to join the ministry, and if the missionary families hadn’t usurped the Hawaiians – both politically during the coup, but also much earlier economically. Hoxworth Hale as a youth muses on whether his ancestors did wrong in their treatment of the Hawaiians, but – inspired by Yale’s excellent display of James Jackson Jarves paintings which the university basically stole – decides that past wrongs don’t matter nearly as much as what’s being done now. I kind of get it; resentment and anger aren’t worth holding on to and all that; but still I don’t know if Hawaiian sovereignty folks would be very happy with that reasoning.
Finally, overall there were many examples showing almost universal racism by nearly all parties – New Englanders, Chinese, Japanese – and insistence on the importance of pure bloodlines. But not by Hawaiians! They were always shown as very welcoming. The irony of the others racism is that all peoples are related already, anyway.
uniformly uninformative 