What I learned from reading A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief by Patrick Vinton Kirch.
What I learned from reading A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief by Patrick Vinton Kirch.
[2:34] Hawai‘i is politically dynamic.
[10:26] You can’t understand the political history of Hawai‘i without understanding the unique geography of each island.
[18:40] Disaffected elites choose between war and exile.
[20:00] Not all chiefs are pono.
[22:41] We can’t escape history.
“Hawai‘i is the most isolated archipelago on Earth. It is astonishing that Polynesian explorers in double-hulled canoes–lashed together with coconut fiber and propelled by sails of woven mats–discovered and settled these islands roughly a thousand years ago. They came upon a verdant island chain with a subtropical climate, rich soils, and abundant natural resources. Nurtured by this salubrious environment, their descendents multiplied, founding an island civilization that remained unknown to the rest of the world. Independently of what was happening in China or Japan, in Mesoamerica, or in Europe, the Hawaiian people constructed their own unique society.”
Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Hawai‘i Reader.
I’m your host, Sterling Higa. And together, we’re learning from the stories of Hawai‘i.
Today we’re reading and responding to the book, “A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai‘i” by Patrick Vinton Kirch.
Kirch is a distinguished archaeologist who conducted field research across the Pacific during his 40-year career.
He was raised in Mānoa Valley on O‘ahu and attended Punahou, with undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and graduate education at Yale.
Kirch began his research career at the Bishop Museum and eventually became a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.
A Shark Going Inland is my Chief is the story of how Hawaiian society evolved from one based on kinship or family ties to a society organized by the principle of divine kingship.
Kirch’s method is, in his words, “To integrate the knowledge gained from archaeology with the indigenous record of history preserved in the mo‘olelo o Hawai‘i.”
In other words, his effort is to harmonize Western science with Native Hawaiian oral history.
In the preface, Kirch acknowledges that “History is never entirely objective; the facts do not speak for themselves. The past is a foreign country . . . and any voyager into history brings along his or her own intellectual and cultural baggage, no matter how lightly we try to pack.”
So too for this podcast.
I will read and respond to selections of Kirch’s work.
Of course, my perspective biases the way I interpret the book.
And I include my own thoughts alongside those of Kirch.
I recommend you read this excellent book yourself and come to your own conclusions.
This podcast is organized into five lessons, so navigate to whichever lesson you’re most interested in through the shownotes.
Or listen on!
If Hawaiians arrived in the islands around 1200 AD, then it was only three hundred years until the land reforms of Mā‘ilikūkahi, an O‘ahu chief, around 1500.
Those reforms established the ahupua‘a system that we recognize today.
And about three hundred years later, the islands were united by Kamehameha with the surrender of Kaua‘i in 1810.
Where will Hawai‘i be in 2100?
It’s tempting to imagine the future as a perpetual present, with our existing government and institutions preserved in their current form.
But the only constant in Hawaiian history is change.
So to shape the Hawai‘i of 2100, we must first see the arc of history through the last 800 years, and that’s one reason Hawai‘i Reader exists.
Around 1200, the first voyagers arrived in Hawai‘i, in double-hulled canoes powered by woven mat sails.
“The canoes held a precious cargo necessary to reestablish life on new landfalls: bundles of living taro shoots, breadfruit seedlings, and slips of sugarcane, along with other plants to establish new gardens. A floating menagerie of pigs, dogs, and chickens wallowed about in the bilge water. Little rats the polynesians called kiore, the size of a house mouse, either hid themselves in the cargo or may have been taken along on purpose as a food source.”
The islands the voyagers found were favorable. Reefs and lagoons teemed with fish, and “gently sloping inland valleys offered fertile volcanic soil in which to plant their new gardens.”
In 1778, when Captain Cook arrived in Hawai‘i, he found a Hawaiian civilization based on the principles of divine kingship, similar to earlier archaic states in the Near East, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes.
Hawaiian society was divided into two great classes. The vast majority were commoners who worked the land. A small cadre of elites included warriors, priests, and chiefs. And “at the pinnacle of society was the divine king, the ali‘i nui.”
By the time Captain Cook landed, the Hawaiians had already expanded across the archipelago. By this point, they occupied the lowlands and valleys of all the main islands. “Eventually, as the better lands became scarce, the population pushed into the hot and dry leeward regions where a living was not to be so easily wrested from the rocky lava slopes.” More on this later.
By 1778, Hawaiians had also evolved an archaic state based on the principle of divine kingship.
“Whereas social organization in chiefdom societies is far from egalitarian, an ideology of kinship nonetheless pervades the society,” writes Kirch. “People may be of higher or lower rank based on their birth order, genealogy, and other factors, but they all see themselves as related to one another through bonds of kinship. Even the highest chief is still a kinsman to his people.”
“In archaic states, for the first time in human history, the ideology of kinship was replaced by the notion of kingship, specifically divine kingship,” writes Kirch. “Archaic states were headed by kings who regarded themselves as descended from the gods, and whose intercession with the gods was deemed essential to the continued well-being of societies. Commoners had separate non divine origins. Archaic state societies were strictly divided into commoner and ruling classes.”
Again, for emphasis, “Archaic state societies were strictly divided into commoner and ruling classes.”
Social control in these archaic states depended heavily on religious ideology. So the royal centers and the palaces and the temples presided over by priests were key institutions in the maintenance of power.
And as we’ll see at times in Hawaiian history, priests play a large role in orchestrating political events, sometimes even encouraging usurpers to the throne.
So how did the elites support themselves?
Taxes.
“Taxation, usually in the form of food and produce but also to some degree of prestige wealth items, was collected as tribute in the name of the state gods and stored in warehouses adjacent to the palace and temple complex,” writes Kirch.
This is called ho‘okupu, the collection of “gifts,” of tribute, offerings or what we might today call “taxes” from the people.
Religious ideology was, as it often is, backstopped by threat of violence.
“In early states, the king and elites who surrounded him maintained their control over society through a monopoly of force,” writes Kirch. “Divine kings held the right to decide life or death; their own royal burials were not infrequently accompanied by numbers of sacrificial victims.”
So by this point in 1778, at the time of Cook’s arrival, there’s a clear distinction between the ali‘i, the ruling chiefs, and the maka‘āinana, the people of the land.
Maka‘āinana “did not even keep genealogies that extended beyond their immediate parents and grandparents. A commoner who dared to claim a genealogy faced likely death, his body offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of the king’s war temple.”
Now the title of the book is A Shark Going Inland is My Chief which refers to the proverb: “He manō holo ‘āina ke ali‘i.” Translated: “The chief is a shark that travels on land.”
Note the reverence coupled with a recognition of brute power, and perhaps, appetite.
Imagine, writes Kirch, “Resplendent in flowing cloaks and crested helmets gilded with thousands of red and golden bird feathers, surrounded by courtiers and warriors, these god-kings controlled a highly developed economic system based on intensive farming and aquaculture.”
The annual cycle alternated between a season for war and a season for peace. Lono, the god of agriculture, was supreme from early November through Spring, the season of planting and harvest. At this time, chiefs sent their priests to collect tribute.
After harvest season, the season for war began. Kū, god of war, was supreme. War was permitted, and human sacrifices were offered at the war temples.
All this sets the stage for Cook’s arrival in 1778.
“Centuries had passed without a sail piercing the endless circle of the horizon,” writes Kirch. “Meanwhile the descendents of those early navigators had prospered in their sub-tropical, verdant archipelago so far from other islands or continents. Each year, when the star cluster Makali‘i (the Pleiades) first twinkled in the northeastern sky after sunset, the Hawaiian priests offered prayers to Lono, he who had returned to Kahiki. They entreated Lono to revisit their islands, bringing rain, fertility, and bountiful harvests. And always, Lono came as rain clouds, as thunder, and in other signs interpretable to the priests.”
But more on Cook in another episode.
The bottom line is to realize that through the 800 or so years Hawaiians have been on the islands, change has been constant.
Hawaiian society evolves. And though we no longer have rigid boundaries between the elites and commoners, it’s worth reflecting on the classes of old and wondering whether they still exist today.
Do we still have ali‘i, divine chiefs?
Warriors?
What about the luna or konohiki, the managers, the caretakers of the land and people?
What about kāhuna, the temple priests? The preachers of ideology? The artisans?
And among the commoners, among the maka‘āinana, can we still find the kaua, the outcasts.
Times have changed, but if you squint, you might see a residue.
Kirch makes a compelling case that the climate and topography of the islands affected their political evolution.
For example, O‘ahu and Kaua‘i had deep, fertile valleys suitable for stream-irrigated agriculture. This allowed surplus production of taro. And this surplus supported a large population.
Meanwhile, quoting Kirch, Maui and Hawai‘i island “had to depend to a far greater extent on rain-fed cultivation, which–as any modern farmer (or commodities trader) knows–is a much riskier business than irrigation farming.”
If geological estimates are believed, Kaua‘i could be 5 million years old. And Hawai‘i island is still a work in progress. That’s a lot of time for rain and wind to work their magic. Erosion is slow.
And if you’ve ever been to or seen a picture of Waimea Canyon on Kaua‘i, this isn’t hard to believe. Compare Waimea Canyon to the flat slopes of Haleakala or Mauna Loa.
Thus, even though Maui and Hawai‘i were bigger islands, they had smaller populations than O‘ahu or Kaua‘i.
On page 154 of the book, there’s a dramatic table. Well, as dramatic as a table can be. The table includes Kirch’s estimates of how much land on each island is suitable for irrigated cultivation.
Kaua‘i and O‘ahu combine for 93.3 square miles of land suitable for irrigated cultivation.
Meanwhile, Moloka‘i, Maui, and Hawai‘i island combine for 28.6 square miles.
That means that Kaua‘i and O‘ahu combine for three times as much land suitable for irrigation.
As a note, this difference in topography led to a difference in religious worship.
On O‘ahu and Kaua‘i the primary cult was that of Kāne, the god of sunlight and water who reigned supreme over the Hawaiian lo‘i fields.
But in the early fifteenth century, Maui and Hawai‘i island began intensive dryland cultivation.
“These new cultivation systems did not enjoy the waters of Kāne. They depended instead on the beneficence of a rival deity, Lono, god of thunder, lightning, and life-giving rains. Lono’s sacred crop was the sweet potato, ‘uala. It was to Lono that the farmers of Hawai‘i and Maui prayed for rain and an abundant crop. On these dynamic large islands, the cult of Lono grew and thrived, along with the cult of the war god, Kū …” writes Kirch.
“And–perhaps as a result of the periodic droughts and famines that could not be averted–their leaders were drawn increasingly to engage in war and territorial conquests.”
In addition to being drier, Maui and Hawai‘i were large and difficult to unify. And it is from these islands that the most politically dynamic Hawaiian leaders emerge, including the first King Kamehameha.
But before Kamehameha there was ‘Umi, the farmer king.
“‘Umi was Hawai‘i’s most famous warrior king, the first unifier of the island’s dominions, and–it must be noted–a prodigious conqueror of women’s hearts.”
Kirch devotes an entire chapter to ‘Umi, and it’s one of the best chapters in the book.
‘Umi was the son of the chief Līloa, who ruled the Hamakua and Kohala regions of Hawai‘i island.
At the time, incest among chiefs was normal, with the goal of concentrating the high-ranked bloodline to keep it as pure as possible.
Thus, Līloa had a son with his royal wife who happened to be his aunt. That son was Hākau, who was destined to succeed his father as chief.
But one day, Līloa stumbled upon a woman named Akahiakuleana while she was bathing in a river. He lusted after her.
She became pregnant with his child, and before leaving her, he gave her the symbols of his chiefship: the feathered cape, the pendant of whale-tooth ivory, his feathered helmet, and his wooden spear. If the child was a boy, Akahiakuleana was to send him to Līloa with the regalia.
The child was a boy.
The boy’s name was ‘Umi.
And when he came of age, ‘Umi went out in search of his royal father.
By this time, ‘Umi had already attracted a follower, a boy named ‘Oma‘okamau.
‘Umi and ‘Oma‘okamau set out on an adventure.
Along the way, two more boys joined their party, awed by ‘Umi’s royal regalia and presence.
These were Pi‘imaiwa‘a and Waiko‘eko‘e.
‘Umi snuck into the palace and met his father, who recognized him by the symbols of his chiefship.
Līloa was joyful to meet his son and arranged for him to be circumcised and marked as an ali‘i chief.
His three companions were invited to live in the palace and train as warriors.
Of course, this infuriated Hākau, who resented his new brother.
Later, on his deathbed, Līloa left his kingdom to Hākau.
But he surprised everyone by leaving to ‘Umi “the responsibility of caring for the feared war god, the “government-snatching god,” Kūkā‘ilimoku. With its “skin” of brilliant birds’ feathers, flashing eyes of pearl shell, and gaping mouth edged with rows of dogs’ teeth, this god traced back to Līloa’s own ancestor Pili.”
To avoid Hākau’s wrath, ‘Umi fled, hiding Kūkā‘ilimoku in a cave and taking up residence in Waipunalei.
In hiding, ‘Umi met a priest named Kaleiokū, whose name means the necklace of Kū.
Kaleiokū unmasked ‘Umi as the chief that he was.
But instead of turning him in, Kaleiokū helped ‘Umi plot against Hākau.
Hākau had become somewhat of a tyrant, overtaxing the people and disrespecting the temple priests.
So with Kaleiokū’s help, ‘Umi began training an army in Hāmākua.
Two priests of Waipi‘o, Nunu and Kakohe, went to visit ‘Umi.
When Līloa was alive, they had been custodians of Kūkā‘ilimoku.
But Hākau had spurned them.
There’s a lesson here that’s repeated a few times throughout the book, and it’s “don’t piss off the temple priests.”
Nunu and Kakohe enjoyed ‘Umi’s hospitality and pledged to help him win the kingdom from Hākau in Waipi‘o.
They instructed him to sneak his army into Waipi‘o Valley at the end of the Makahiki season.
Hākau’s chiefs and warriors would be away gathering wood for the human sacrifice which marked the start of the war season.
On the assigned day, ‘Umi’s men descended into the valley carrying stones wrapped in kī leaves.
Hākau saw them descending and was alarmed.
But the treacherous priests Nunu and Kakohe reassured him that they were his own men, bearing sweet potatoes.
‘Umi’s warriors surrounded Hākau and hurled stones at him until he was buried in a great heap.
Then they carried his body to the altar of the Honua‘ula heiau.
The sacrifice of Hākau marked the start of the war season, the season of Kū.
Now, ‘Umi was high chief, and he repaid his supporters with titles and land.
Then, through intermarriage and warfare, ‘Umi united Hawai‘i island. And under his rule, the island enjoyed peace and prosperity.
‘Umi expanded the irrigation network in Waipi‘o valley and “oversaw the expansion of the vast upland gardens on the rich volcanic slopes of Kohala, Hualālai, and Mauna Loa.”
‘Umi also helped enshrine “the division of the people into distinct classes of chiefs, priests, specialists of various kinds, and general laborers.
“And just as Ma‘ilikūkahi had done earlier on O‘ahu, ‘Umi brought the land system on Hawai‘i into order, with a hierarchical system of ahupua‘a, subdivided into ‘ili, and on down to the individual plots cultivated by the maka‘āinana farmers.
“All of this was administered through a parallel hierarchical system of temples, of which ‘Umi constructed and dedicated a great many.”
Infrastructure development, civil service reform, land reform, and the propagation of ideology.
‘Umi did it all.
And ‘Umi would serve as the blueprint for Kamehameha’s later rise to power, though that’s a story for another day.
But the tales of ‘Umi and Kamehameha cannot be told and understood without an understanding of Hawai‘i island: large, dry, and fertile for war.
The last lesson was quite long, so I’ll keep this one short.
One important concept in the book is status rivalry.
“In a society where everyone is ranked by birthorder status, rivalry plays itself out between senior and junior brothers, between higher- and lower-ranked lineages, between greater and lesser polities,” writes Kirch.
“Status rivalry drove the Hawaiian ali‘i to be more powerful, more glorious; to control more land; to make more high-ranked marriage alliances.”
And for little brother chiefs or spurned priests, the choices were war or exile.
‘Umi and Kamehameha were disaffected elites who chose war.
But the initial settlers of Hawai‘i were likely disaffected elites of other Polynesian islands who wanted a chiefdom of their own.
They exiled themselves from their homeland to chase the koloa bird to opportunity.
We don’t settle power disputes with clubs and spears anymore, but war still exists. Status rivalry still exists.
What are political campaigns? What is business?
And exile, well…
They say now that more than half of all Native Hawaiians live outside the islands.
What is outmigration if not so many people chasing the golden plover?
Hawaiian language is polysemous, so a word like pono has multiple layers of meaning.
When applied to chiefs, pono seems to describe a state of righteousness.
Another word that could be used in its place is “legitimate.”
I’ll use the word “good.”
Hawaiian history is replete with bad chiefs who abused their power and were deposed.
So what makes a good chief?
First, the good chiefs built infrastructure to feed the people. Think:
The chiefs coordinated vast numbers of commoners to build and maintain infrastructure.
Now, Hawai‘i imports most of its food, and only a few people work in agriculture.
Less than 1% of the population works in active cultivation.
But infrastructure remains: airports, ports, highways, water supplies, sewers, electrical systems, broadband, and less obvious infrastructure: housing, education, healthcare, and the system of laws which regulates business.
The primary role of a chief is to ensure the prosperity of the people by building and maintaining the infrastructure which supports quality of life.
Second, the good chiefs did not overtax the people.
Kirch’s book title references sharks for good reason.
Chiefs roamed around feeding inland, collecting ho‘okupu tribute.
Some chiefs overtaxed the people, which led to unrest and support for rebellion.
There’s a case to be made that Kamehameha the first secured his rule in part by cutting taxes.
Certainly, he negotiated with Chief Kaumuali‘i of Kaua‘i in part by not demanding too much in the way of tribute.
Third, good chiefs were selective in making enemies.
This is not to say that ‘Umi and Kamehameha never made enemies.
They were literal warlords.
But some other chiefs made enemies in foolish ways.
Depriving lesser chiefs of land, underpaying konohiki, spurning kāhuna, disrespecting rival chiefs, et cetera.
Messing with kāhuna was especially dangerous.
There are a few stories in the book in which priests conspire with a challenger to the throne to overthrow the ruling chief.
As it was then, so it is today.
The good chiefs take care of the commoners, manage their elite supporters well, and form alliances through marriage and commerce.
How are our chiefs doing today?
For me, the value of studying history is to learn from great and terrible example.
Eight hundred years of Hawaiian history:
Chiefdom, kingdom, republic, territory, state, and what next?
The psychologist George Lakoff wrote a book called Metaphors We Live By.
Lakoff’s basic idea is that cultures have basic metaphors that inform all language. And language structures thought.
For example, in Western culture we might argue that up is good and down is bad.
We could be “on top of the world” or “down in the dumps.”
But there’s no necessary relationship between altitude and virtue.
It’s a metaphor we take for granted in English.
In the Western perspective, the past is behind us, and the future ahead.
But in Polynesian culture, the past is in front and the future behind.
It’s a far more elegant, and in my opinion, accurate metaphor.
After all, we can’t know the future, can’t see it.
But if we look, if we listen to the stories, we can come to know the past.
And in that past, we just might find a path forward.
I think that we can only understand progress when we understand where we come from, and not in a superficial way.
After all, history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.
There are patterns and poetry in history.
Forms and variation.
Pleasing resolution and jarring surprise.
We can hear the echoes of ‘Umi the farmer king in Kamehameha’s rise to power.
And in the story of rival brothers–of the choice between war or exile–we can see the history of Polynesia and perhaps better understand our present dilemma.
A Shark Going Inland is an excellent book.
When I’m asked to recommend books about Hawai‘i, it’s the first on my list.
There’s a lot in the book that I wasn’t able to cover, including firsthand accounts of Kirch’s archaeological investigations.
So if you found this episode interesting, I hope you’ll buy the book and read it.
I’ll leave a link to purchase in the description along with a link to the full transcript.
Thank you for listening to the Hawai‘i Reader.
I’m your host, Sterling Higa. And together, we’re learning from the stories of Hawai‘i.
Please subscribe and leave a review.
A hui hou.