Nā Hunahuna ʻIke Hawaiʻi: Hawaiian Insights

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Read this article in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi

Na M. Puakea Nogelmeier, Ph.D., Executive Director, Awaiaulu

Photo: John Papa ʻĪʻī

John Papa ʻĪʻī is an essential resource for Hawaiʻi today. The knowledge that he documented offers a different window on the landscape of Hawaiʻi’s history that we are striving to regain.

Born in 1800, he served in the courts of the first five sovereigns who established the Hawaiian Kingdom, and he left a huge written legacy of that unique insider perspective that illuminates the work of Hawaiian scholars, cultural specialists, and anyone interested in the history and traditions of Hawaiʻi.

Awaiaulu’s new book, Nā Hunahuna ʻIke Hawaiʻi / Hawaiian Insights, provides access to this treasury with a complete assembly of John Papa ʻĪʻī’s cultural and historical writings, in both Hawaiian and English. Publication will be in June of 2025.

Photo: Awaiaulu team members
The team at Awaiaulu. Seated (l-r): Kainoa Pestana, Puakea Nogelmeier, Marti Steele, Beau Bassett, Kauʻi Sai-Dudoit; standing (l-r): Lehua Ah Sam, Kahoʻokahi Kanuha, Namahana Tolentino, Keawe Goodhue, Kaliko Martin, Kamuela Yim, Hina Kneubuhl, Haʻalilio Solomon, Aolani Kaʻilihou, Pili Kamakea-Young, Jon Yasuda, Heua Sai-Dudoit, Kalei Roberts (w/Kilohana), and Līhau Maioho. (Not pictured: Kapalaiʻula de Silva, Pāʻani Kelson). – Courtesy Photo

Hawaiian newspapers ran from 1834 to 1948, and ʻĪʻī was a respected contributor throughout his life, a time when Hawaiian literacy was framing cultural and national identity. Published from 1838 to 1870, many of his writings were in response to contemporary issues of governance, religion, or education, but others, especially his serial columns, covered the history and culture of the people and land that he loved.

This book begins with his 1838 memorial account of the life of Elizabeth Kīnaʻu, continues with an eight-part serial memoir of his time as a guardian for Princess Victoria Kamāmalu, then spans a six-part serial about Mataio Kekūanāoʻa, the “Father of Kings.” That latter sequence of articles overlapped into his 60-part opus about his experiences in Hawaiian history. As per our mission to bridge knowledge, all 75 articles are presented in modern orthography and with full English translation.

Readers might be familiar with Bishop Museum’s publication, Fragments of Hawaiian History (1963), which gave English readers a glimpse of ʻĪʻī’s work. That English translation was a heavily-edited and rearranged portion of his last serial column “Na Hunahuna o ka Moolelo Hawaii,” which had been published in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa from 1868 to 1870. We are fortunate to now have the full collection of ʻĪʻī’s cultural and historical writings, in the order in which he published them during his lifetime.

Awaiaulu works to bridge Hawaiian knowledge from the past to the present, and we publish historical masterworks for Hawaiian and English-speaking audiences today (see www.awaiaulu.org).

We generate resources and resource people that can reconnect us with the treasury of Hawaiian knowledge documented by experts of the past. Scholars already fluent in modern Hawaiian are trained to find, comprehend, and present anew in both languages the historical materials contained in the massive and largely-untouched Hawaiian-language archive of letters, documents, and newspapers.

That unique archive gives us the opportunity to restore a continuity of history and culture that was obscured by Hawaiʻi’s move into an English-language world. Every text brought to modern audiences adds to the foundation of knowledge upon which we build Hawaiʻi today.

With Nā Hunahuna ʻIke Hawaiʻi / Hawaiian Insights, John Papa ʻĪʻī broadens and strengthens that foundation. The scope of his experience and the specialized content that he documents both expand our toolkit for understanding a world long out of reach. On we build!


“Nā Hunahuna ʻIke Hawaiʻi/Hawaiian Insights,” by John Papa ʻĪʻī, translated by M. Puakea Nogelmeier. www.awaiaulu.org