Hilo, HI: Pili Productions, 2016. x, 242 pp. (Illustrations, maps.) US$12.00, paper. ISBN 978-1535550345.
Kalapana is a significant place in Hawaiian imaginaries. It was one of the few Hawaiian communities to survive as such into the twentieth century. It also lies in the shadow of Kīlauea, the most active of the Hawaiian volcanoes and home of the goddess Pele. Under the Volcano, authored by Langas and kūpuna (elders), is divided into three parts. In part 1 (chapters 1–2), Langlas describes the abandonment in 1819 of the priest-led religion of heiau (temples), the subsequent conversion to Christianity, and the multi-layers of property-making enmeshing Kalapana: for instance, the overlapping land stewardship regimes associated with the different strata of pre-contact Hawaiian social organization—ahupua‘a, moku, and kuleana; the mid-1800s Māhele (land division); and the impact of the subsequent splitting of land into government lands, crown lands, private property, and homesteads. While this history of land reform played out throughout the Hawaiian archipelago, certain distinctive features set Kalapana apart. For instance, while no commoners received kuleana awards in Kalapana, the sale of government land in combination with the Hawaiian practices of joint family inheritances as well as of sharing land, meant that “a class distinction between owners and non-owners” (27) did not develop. This emphasis on egalitarianism is a key characteristic of Kalapana, as is the vibrant hybrid culture that emerged as a result of absorbing the changes in land ownership and beliefs.
Part II (chapters 3–9) forms the bulk of the book and details life in Kalapana in the twentieth century, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s. It is organized topically around the following: a subsistence fishing and farming economy, family life, growing up, community relations, healing and religion, relations with the outside, and the 1986 lava flow and subsequent community renewal. Methodologically, the section is based on oral history interviews conducted by Langlas and some of his Hawaiian students from the University of Hawaii, Hilo, between 1986 and 1990—just prior to the 1990 lava flow that covered the area and forced mass evacuation. While he acknowledges that in anthropology the emphasis is on participant observation field-research as a means to uncover the reality of social life and the “obvious difficulties” (29) in relying on interviews for this purpose, the book is emphatically ethnographic. This is a consequence of his sensitivity to the subject, the engaging narrative structure of the chapters that are peppered with excerpts from the interviews, and importantly, his obvious long and deep immersion in Hawaiian culture and language.
A recurring theme is the tension between Hawaiian tradition and the social change wrought by missionization, a cash economy, formal education, and other markers of westernization. Similar to other ethnographies of Hawaiian communities, though scholarly works are limited, Langlas identifies the persistence of distinctive Hawaiian values and culture irrespective of the intrusion of a powerful American political economy and individualist value system. This tenacity is expressed, for example, in cooperative work, the sharing of food and wealth, the existence of extended family households, and their self-sufficiency. It is also apparent in the persistence of hānai (adoptive) and kin relations, gender roles, common ownership of resources, health and healing rituals, and the syncretization of Christianity with pre-contact beliefs. Langlas describes, for example, how Kalapana residents variously employ Ho’oponopono healing services and beliefs in ancestral spirits alongside Christian services. Hawaiian culture is also expressed in the relationships between people and the environment, which in Kalapana takes on the immediacy of an active volcano and the presence of Pele. Langlas writes of the 1986 lava flow, “I heard talk about the flow from the kūpuna and I was struck by two repeated themes, that the flow was a punishment sent by God or Pele, and that the land belongs to the deity, so we should let him/her take it” (105).
The 1986 and 1990 lava flows forced the dispersal of most of the Kalapana community. Even dispersed, however, groups arose to preserve the culture, protect fishing rights and mālama (care for) the marine resources. And, when possible, people returned to the area. Langlas states “as of 2014, four lot holders were living in newly-built houses…a fifth was finishing his house, and a few others were clearing their lots to build and putting in cesspools” (106). Leroy Kikito, a returnee, speaking of his hope that other families might follow, remarks “when they come again, eh, we make noise again. And walk to each other house. All that kind of stuff” (108).
This monograph is a very rich account of a Hawaiian community. Langlas is an expert at foregrounding the voices of his participants. Their experiences of a hybrid Hawaiian culture, as lived in the environment of an active volcano, are meticulously detailed. This commitment to a grounded ethnography is masterfully balanced with an anthropological sensibility. While Langlas allows his anthropology to conceptually shape the material, it never forces a rigid theoretical construct on the ways of life recounted, nor does it direct a particular analysis of the data. Indeed, in part III, the final section of the book, the life histories of five kūpuna are retold in their own, very expressive, words.
Fiona McCormack
The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand