Ka'a'awa: Hawaii in the 1850s

University of Hawaii Press
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
$24.95
eds. 1972, 1973, 1980

I happened upon this book in an airport, returning home from Hawaii. It is a wonderfully rich novel about missionary Hawaii. The humor and cultural values are authentic as far as I can vouch, my family being from Hawaii, but the most enthralling subject of the book was the interweaving of the destinies of native and haoles. The complexities of how an ancient culture merges uncomfortably into a modern world are deftly detailed by O.A. Bushnell, whose characters alternatively provoke sympathy, anger, love and awe. The author captures perfectly the unique balance native hawaiians try to maintain between their respect for their unshakable, cultural beliefs and their adopted Christian religion. Bushnell encapsulates in ths novel a remarkable period in Hawaiian history, without persuading the reader as to a right or a wrong position to have. He begins the novel with a Hawaiian king sworn to the task of surveying the politics of Oahu. He ends the novel with that same king having obligated a sympathetic and sometimes unlikable haole to finish the story that he had started. His request is only that this same man, Saul, include his own story in the retelling. In much the same way, the Hawaiian Islands have become a place of interwoven stories. Each person, native or visitor, kanaka or kamaaina, is a part of the story of Hawaii, and from generation to generation, this story is passed on.