First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2014. xix, 180 pp. (Illustrations.) US$21.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-87071-673-7.
In her first book, Hawaiian linguist and geographer Katrina-Ann R. Kapā‘anaokalāokeola Nākoa Oliveira provides insight into Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) geographies and their intrinsic relation to place, time, ancestry, and history. Oliveira makes a laudable effort in bringing classic texts on Hawaiian cosmology, kinship, and kingship in conversation with each other through, as she asserts, her own original interpretation. Her meticulous unrolling of different historians’ accounts reflects the highly valued characteristic in Hawaiian language, kaona, whereupon words often have multiple, hidden meanings. This in turn also allows the reader her/his own interpretation of the material. English is interwoven with Hawaiian, for instance as recited chants and stories are bilingual, and the numerous graphics incorporate Hawaiian words with English captions. While readers unfamiliar with Hawaiian may find it cumbersome to flip between text, glossary, and endnotes, Oliveira’s intentional use of Hawaiian words signifies the central role of Hawaiian language in the linkage between people and places. The overview of Hawaiian concepts of place-making is accompanied by a focus on the author’s ancestral home Maui, from whose lands she, literally, composes this book. This writing setting allowed her to “listen to the lessons that the ‘āina [land] and my kūpuna [ancestors] were about to reveal to me” (xv).
The book approaches Kanaka geographies through five avenues, and is accordingly structured in five chapters: genealogical relations to cosmos, gods, and ancestors (cosmogony); social rank; fluidity of place; performance cartographies; and sense abilities. The first chapter “Mele Ko‘ihonua” refers to cosmogonic genealogies, including the most known Kumulipo, which trace the connections between Native Hawaiians, land, ancestors, gods, and the elements. Chapter 2, “Places to Stand,” explores how social rank shaped one’s ties to the land due to the respectively different experiences of chiefs and commoners: the former often ruled temporarily over a particular land division that the latter dwelt on more permanently. In chapter 3, the reader learns about the “Fluidity of Place” underlying the Kānaka worldview that Oliveira groups into heavenscapes, landscapes (including a discussion on the commonly used term ahupua‘a), land-sea continuum, and oceanscapes. In the past, people’s intimate relationships with their immediate surroundings resulted in the naming of particular heavens, regions, or depths of the ocean that is not captured in the common conceptions of the “environment.” In chapter 4, “Performance Cartographies,” Oliveira acknowledges the tricky category of cartographic mapping, as it was not a Hawaiian practice, and redirects our attention to the performance in performance cartography. Recited stories and proverbs, chanted songs and danced hula transport one to specific places, which is illustrated through a selection of songs and their respective background stories. Hawaiian place-making implies a conception of places not merely holding memories but allowing for the reciting of their stories. This is comprehensibly illustrated with the story of an elder, who recalls place names and stories at his last family reunion. Both these chapters also offer vivid graphics that illustrate the interconnections of place with time, and how these are reflected in Hawaiian descriptive terminologies. For instance, the book visualizes four directionals (“a‘e,” “iho,” “mai,” and “aku”) that denote both spatial and temporal proximity and distance. Finally, chapter 5, “Ancestral Sense Abilities,” details the commonly known sense abilities of sight, listening, taste, touch, and smell, which are accompanied by those of connecting to the na‘au (guts), to a place and ancestry (kulāiwi), ancestral ways of knowing (au ‘āpa‘apa‘a), such as the Hawaiian moon calendar, and lineages of insights and traditions (mo‘o).
While the first two chapters explore geography through social structure, and the subsequent two chapters deal with the performative dimensions of Hawaiian place-making, it is the final chapter that gets most crucially at epistemological foundations. The sense ability of mo‘o entails a definition of culture as “mo‘o of footsteps taken by our kūpuna” (110), which the author conceives of as a cornerstone of Hawaiian societies. In this understanding, culture is sense ability, with senses being knowledge sources and abilities being practiced knowledge. At the outset, Oliveira explains that this book is an “intensely personal view” (xvii), and that writing on her ancestral land was important for that process. Here one anticipates the book to provide accounts of how this listening and learning from the environment and ancestors play out. Oliveira hints at these sensory ways of knowing, for instance, when she describes how she noticed the change from hearing to listening during a nearby flash flood. Yet more of such ethnographic depictions and other, richer examples in addition to the elder recalling place names and events at the family reunion could have strengthened the book’s thesis, especially the described sense abilities.
In light of the growing literature that engages both Hawaiian ancestral knowledge and practice-oriented educational materials, teachers in preschool, K-12, higher education, and other learning programs will find this book very practical for their classrooms. Beyond Hawai‘i, it will be of significance to students and teachers interested in indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in the field of geography, linguistics, anthropology, regional planning, and related fields. Ancestral Placesdemonstrates that the European legacy of dividing matters into distinct academic disciplines is not conducive to indigenous—perhaps not even nonindigenous—epistemologies, and that instead, language is central to place making, hence to geography. It can be anticipated that this book will inspire further scholarship that offers more connections to literature on place making across the intersecting fields of ethnographic, indigenous, linguistic, sensory, and space studies.
Mascha Gugganig
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada