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First edition | |
Author | James A. Michener [1] |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | November 20, 1959 [2] |
Media type | |
Pages | 937pp. |
Hawaii is a novel by James A. Michener [3] published in 1959, the year that Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state. It has been translated into 32 languages. [4]
The historical correctness of the novel is high, although the narrative about the early Polynesian inhabitants is based more on folklore than anthropological and archaeological sources.[ citation needed ] It is written in episodic format, like many of Michener's works, and narrates the stories of the original Hawaiians who sailed to the islands from Bora Bora, the early American missionaries and merchants, and the Chinese and Japanese immigrants who traveled to work and seek their fortunes in Hawaii. The story begins with the formation of the islands themselves millions of years ago and ends in the mid-1950s. Each section explores the experiences of different groups of arrivals.
For Hawaiian history, Michener researched at the Hawaiian-Mission Historical Library and consulted experts on island history, volcanoes, botany, pineapples, and Chinese culture. His technical adviser, noted Hawaiian scholar Clarice B. Taylor, explained customs, language, family names, and nuances of Hawaiian culture to Michener. Taylor said, "The things you want are not in books...all this material you want has to come out of my head. A book cannot tell you how a Polynesian acts or how he talks." [5]
Several characters in the novel are inspired by actual individuals. The character Reverend Abner Hale is a caricature of true-life missionary Hiram Bingham I. [6] Asa Thurston was also a model for a missionary character in the novel. [7] Chinn Ho, the "Chinese Rockefeller", was popularly considered to be the inspiration for the character Hong Kong Kee. [8]
The novel tells the history of Hawaiian Islands from the creation of the isles to the time they became an American state through the viewpoints of selected characters who represent their ethnic and cultural groups in the story (e.g. the Kee family represents the viewpoint of Chinese-Hawaiians). Most of the chapters cover the arrivals of different peoples to the islands. [9] With the exception of Chapter 1, all the chapters are of standalone novel or novella length.
Chapter 1: From the Boundless Deep describes the creation of the Hawaiian land from volcanic activity. It goes into flavorful detail describing such things as primary succession taking root on the island to life finally blooming. [10]
Chapter 2: From the Sunswept Lagoon begins on the island of Bora Bora, where many people, including King Tamatoa and his brother Teroro, are upset with the neighboring isles of Havaiki, Tahiti etc. because they are trying to force the Bora Borans to give up their old gods, Tāne and Ta'aroa, and start worshiping 'Oro, the fire god, who constantly demands human sacrifices. Tamatoa suggests to his brother and friends that they should migrate to some other place where they might find religious freedom. After finally agreeing to this plan, his brother secretly sets fire to Havaiki to take revenge for the human sacrifices they have been demanding from Bora Borans. Later they take the canoe Wait for the West Wind and sail to Hawaii. Later some return to Bora Bora to bring back with them some women and children and an idol of the volcano goddess, Pele. [11]
Chapter 3: From the Farm of Bitterness follows the journey of the first Christian missionaries to Hawaii in the 1800s and their influence over Hawaiian culture and customs. Many of the missionaries become founding families in the islands, including the Hales and Whipples.
Chapter 4: From the Starving Village covers the immigration of Chinese to work on the pineapple and sugarcane plantations. The patriarch of the Kee family contracts leprosy (a.k.a. the ‘Chinese sickness’) and is sent to the leper colony in Molokai. Chapter 4 includes a fictionalized version of 1893 historical events known as the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Chapter 5: From The Inland Sea focuses on Japanese workers brought to the islands to replace Chinese laborers; the latter begin to set up their own businesses. It also covers the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Chapter 6: The Golden Men summarizes the changes in Hawaiian culture and economics based on the intermarriages of various groups in the islands. [12]
The film Hawaii (1966), starring Max von Sydow and Julie Andrews was released in 1966. [13] The film focused on the book's third chapter, ‘From the Farm of Bitterness’, which covered the settlement of the island kingdom by its first American missionaries. [14]
A sequel, The Hawaiians (1970), starring Charlton Heston, covered subsequent chapters of the book, including the arrival of the Chinese and Japanese and the growth of the plantations. [15]
Hawaii is a state in the Western United States, about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the U.S. mainland in the Pacific Ocean. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state in the tropics.
Alaska is a 1988 historical novel by James A. Michener. Like other Michener titles, Alaska spans a considerable amount of time, traced through the gradual interlinking of several families.
Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham I, was leader of the first group of American Protestant missionaries to introduce Christianity to the Hawaiian islands. Like most of the missionaries, he was from New England.
Huahine is an island located among the Society Islands, in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Leeward Islands group (Îles sous le Vent). At the 2017 census it had a population of 6,075.
Pōmare IV, more properly ʻAimata Pōmare IV Vahine-o-Punuateraʻitua, was the Queen of Tahiti between 1827 and 1877. She was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Tahiti.
Raiatea or Ra'iatea is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. The island is widely regarded as the "centre" of the eastern islands in ancient Polynesia and it is likely that the organised migrations to the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand and other parts of East Polynesia started at Raiatea.
Hawaii is a 1966 American epic drama film directed by George Roy Hill. It is based on the eponymous 1959 novel by James A. Michener. It tells the story of an 1820s Yale University divinity student who, accompanied by his new bride, becomes a Calvinist missionary in the Hawaiian Islands. It was filmed at Old Sturbridge Village, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, and on the islands of Kauai and Oahu in Hawaii.
The Covenant is a historical novel by American author James A. Michener, published in 1980.
Hotu Matuꞌa was the legendary first settler and ariki mau of Easter Island and ancestor of the Rapa Nui people. Hotu Matuꞌa and his two canoe colonising party were Polynesians from the now unknown land of Hiva. They landed at Anakena beach and his people spread out across the island, sub-divided it between clans claiming descent from his sons, and lived for more than a thousand years in their isolated island home at the southeastern tip of the Polynesian Triangle.
The Hawaiians, released in the UK as Master of the Islands, is a 1970 United States historical film based on the 1959 novel Hawaii by James A. Michener. It was directed by Tom Gries with a screenplay by James R. Webb. The cast included Charlton Heston as Whipple Hoxworth and Geraldine Chaplin. The performance by Tina Chen led to her receiving a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actress.
Chinn Ho was an entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist, and self-made millionaire who pioneered Asian involvement in the Hawaiian business community.
The Kingdom of Bora Bora was established during the early 19th century with the unification of the island of Bora Bora and official recognition by France and the United Kingdom in 1847 through the Jarnac Convention. It was one of a number of independent Polynesian states in the Society Islands, alongside Tahiti, Huahine and Raiatea in the 19th century, which all shared a similar language and culture and whose rulers were interrelated by marriage. Besides Bora Bora, the Kingdom encompassed the islands of Tupai, Maupiti, Maupihaa, Motu One, and Manuae. The Kingdom was finally annexed to France in 1888 and its last queen Teriimaevarua III was forced to abdicate in 1895.
Likelike was a high chiefess and member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Before the standardization of the Hawaiian language, her name was sometime written as Rikériki. She was the favorite wife of Prime Minister Kalanimoku, a powerful chief and statesman during the early years of the Hawaiian monarchy, and she would accompany him on his interactions with visiting Western explorers and American missionaries to Hawaii. Likelike and her newborn son Lanihau died shortly after the baby’s birth due to the shock caused by cannons fired to celebrate the royal birth. Her funeral was conducted under traditional Hawaiian customs with the exception of a Christian sermon, which was the first performed on a Hawaiian royal.
Bible translations into Oceanic languages have a relatively closely related and recent history.
Teriitaria II or Teri'itari'a II, later known as Pōmare Vahine and Ari'ipaea Vahine, baptized Taaroamaiturai, became Queen of Tahiti when she married King Pōmare II and later, she ruled as Queen of Huahine and Maiao in the Society Islands.
Marie Mariterangi, Marie Mariteragi, Marie Terangi or Marie was a singer, songwriter of Polynesian pop music, guitarist and ukulele player. She was born on May 3, 1926 in Hikueru in French Polynesia and died on April 27, 1971 in Papeete in French Polynesia.
Tamatoa is a name of Polynesian and Tahitian origin.
Ephraim Weston Clark is most remembered for his decades of work helping to translate the Bible into the Hawaiian language, and his subsequent work on the 1868 revision of the translation. He was the third Kahu (pastor) of Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu, and served in that position 15 years. His early years as a missionary were spent on the Hawaiian island of Maui; while serving as Kahu of Kawaiahaʻo, he also spent several months with the Hawaiian Missionary Society in Micronesia.
The annexation of the Leeward Islands or the Leewards War was a series of diplomatic and armed conflicts between the French Third Republic and the native kingdoms of Raiatea-Tahaa, Huahine and Bora Bora, which resulted in the conquest of the Leeward Islands, in the South Pacific archipelago of the Society Islands in modern-day French Polynesia.
Kalaikuʻahulu was a kānaka maolialiʻi and kahuna nui of Kamehameha I in pre-Christian Hawaii who was considered a prophet for his prediction of; "Ke Akua maoli" and a message to Hawaiians never seen before. After the arrival of the Christian missionaries in 1820, Kaʻahumanu and others believed the prophecy to be fulfilled. He was also genealogist for Kamehameha, who placed his wives, Kekāuluohi and Hoapiliwahine, under his tutelage as genealogy students.
Chinn Ho breached Hawaii's white power structure to become a multi-millionaire businessman, but was perhaps better known in the other 49 states as the basis for the character Hong Kong Kee in James Michener's novel Hawaii.