Hawaiian & Pacific Collections

The below is quoted from an email circulated by the Center for Biographical Research: “Who Am I to Extol Tupaia?” Tahitian Voices in a Māori Project about the Pacific Alice Te Punga Somerville, Department of English, UH Mānoa Thursday, March 7 • 12 noon – 1:15 pm John A. Burns Hall Room 3121/3125 (Third Floor) • East-West Center • 1601 East-West Road When Cook and his crew visited Aotearoa in 1769, Tupaia from Raʻiatea not only acted as translator between Europeans and Māori but also recorded first exchanges in a painting. Reflecting on the role of Maʻohi people during these encounters, Māori poet Robert Sullivan asks “who am I to extol Tupaia . . . who am I to say these things?” How, indeed, do we write about connections between Pacific people? In the Pacific, how can we tell stories of ourselves without telling stories of each other, and yet how do we avoid—as Sullivan puts it—“tak[ing] the middle of your throat[s]”? Dr Te Punga Somerville will consider the contributions of T...

The below message is quoted from an email circulated by the UH-M Center for Pacific Islands Studies: Aloha kākou, Please join us at 12pm on Thursday (2/14) for the first Pacific Connections Seminar of the semester. Bruno Saura, University of French Polynesia, will present “Pulotu, Hawaiki, Kahiki: Remembrance of Ancestral Lands in Pre-European Polynesia” from Tahiti via videoconference. Pulotu, Hawaiki, Kahiki: Remembrance of Ancestral Lands in Pre-European Polynesia Hawaiian people have kept the memory of the land of origin of their ancestors: Kahiki. They have also adopted for one of their islands the designation Hawaiʻi, which throughout Eastern Polynesia and Aotearoa refers to a land of origin as well as to the final destination of the deceased spirits: Hawaiki. Dr Saura will analyze Hawaiians’ inclusion of Raiatea in the concept of “Kahiki,” while the Tahitians call that island Havaiʻi. After considering another concept, Pulotu, which in Western Polynesia corresponds to what is ...

The below is quoted directly from an email circulated by the UH-Manoa Center for Pacific Islands Studies. For more information, see links at bottom, or click on the images at right. Aloha friends and colleagues,  Please join us for films and seminars during the final weeks of the semester:  Thursday 4/19  – Pacific Film Series presents   Shiro’s Head   (Guam) 2008 6:30 pm   Tokioka Room, Moore 319 cosponsored by the Pacific Islands Development Program and Pan Pacific Association  Tuesday 4/24 – Marata Tamaira, PhD candidate Australian National University (CPIS MA, 2009), “Visual Sovereignty and Indigenous Countervisuality: Picturing Contemporary Kanaka Maoli Art Practice in Hawai‘i”,   12:00 pm  John Burns Hall room 3121/3125, East-West Center cosponsored by the Pacific Islands Development Program  Wednesday 4/25 – Semir Al Wardi (University of French Polynesia), “Democracy in French Polynesia”  12:00 pm John Burns Ha...

The below message, regarding a new trans-Pacific seminar series, is quoted from a message circulated by the UH-M Center for Pacific Islands Studies: Aloha friends and colleagues, Please join us for the inaugural presentation in the Pacific Connections Seminar Series featuring Professor Serge Dunis, University of French Polynesia. [Re]connecting Hawai‘i and Tahiti : South Pacific Perspectives on Hawai‘i and Pacific Travel in the Precolonial Period Tuesday, 21 February 2012, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Room 3121/3125, John Burns Hall, East West Center Professor Serge Dunis University of French Polynesia Tahiti Nui It is believed that Hawai‘i was first settled by migrants coming from the Marquesas, followed by a second wave of immigration launched from Bora Bora. Understanding movements during this exciting era relies heavily on interpreting oral traditions, embracing indigenous knowledge, as well as other methods of uncovering t...