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construction. They were moved by the images of in-dividual faces, not influenced in their interpreta-tions as I was by salvage anthropology's history ofde-individualizing North Pacific Rim people or ofthe museum's historical interest in constructing ty-pologies to answer Western questions about origins,race, and historical connection. They did not leavethe exhibit bothered by the dehumanization of na-tive peoples in the dioramas in the American Mu-seum of Natural History, displays that continue tofix indigenous cultures in nature.

Perhaps, then, the exhibit curators should belauded for their efforts. They seem to have suc-ceeded in bringing life to the frozen dioramas in theHall of the Northwest Coast Indians. They havegranted the individuals photographed a dignityothers have denied them, enough, at least, to in-spire the museum-goers with whom I spoke. Per-haps, then, we need to rethink what it means tosalvage salvage anthropology.

Mascia-Lees, Frances E. and Patricia Sharpen.d. An Oblique Look: Race, Gender, and the Politics of

Looking (Back). In Taking a Stand in a Post-FeministWorld: Essays in Engaged Cultural Criticism. Albany:SUNY Press. Forthcoming.

Miller, Thomas Ross, and Barbara Mathe"1997 Drawing Shadows to Stone. In Drawing Shadows

to Stone: The Photography of the Jesup North Pacific Ex-pedition, 1897-1902. Laurel Kendall, Barbara Mathe",and Thomas Ross Miller with Stanley A. Freed, Ruth S.Freed and Laila Williamson, eds. Pp. 19-40. New York:American Museum of Natural History.

Taussig, Michael1993 Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the

Senses. New York: Routledge.

Visweswaran, Kamala1998 Race and the Culture of Anthropology. AmericanAnthropologist 100 (1): 71-83.

• • •

References

Clifford, James1988 The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century

Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Massa-chusetts and London: Harvard University Press.

Dominquez, Virginia1987 Of Other Peoples: Beyond the "Salvage" Para-

digm. In Discussions in Contemporary Culture, #1. HalFoster, ed. Pp. 131-137. Seattle: Bay Press.

Freed, Stanley A., Ruth S. Freed, and Laila Williamson1997 Tough Fieldworkers: History and Personality of

the Jesup Expedition. In Drawing Shadows to Stone: ThePhotography of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition,1897-1902. Laurel Kendall, Barbara Mathe", and ThomasRoss Miller with Stanley A. Freed, Ruth S. Freed andLaila Williamson, eds. Pp. 9-17. New York: American Mu-seum of Natural History.

Haraway, Donna1987 Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the

World and Modern Science. New York and London: Rout-ledge.

Harvey, Penelope1996 Hybrids of Modernity. New York and London:

Routledge.

Kendall, Laurel1997 Preface: Exotic Images and Early Anthropological

Photographs. In Drawing Shadows to Stone: The Photog-raphy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-1902.Laurel Kendall, Barbara Mathe", and Thomas Ross Millerwith Stanley A. Freed, Ruth S. Freed and Laila William-son, eds. Pp. 7-8. New York: American Museum of NaturalHistory.

E LUKU WALE E ... DEVASTATION UPON DEVAS-TATION. Honolulu Advertiser Gallery, The Con-temporary Museum, Honolulu. (Through March18, 1998)

MARJORIE KELLY

University of HawaiiLeeward Community College, Pearl City

The federal highway connecting the windward andleeward sides of O'ahu is designated H-3 but it goesby other names as well; e.g., the ($1.3) Billion Dol-lar View. In Washington, it is known as Danny'sHighway after the senior senator from Hawai'i,Daniel Inouye. In the photographic exhibition pre-sented this spring by Honolulu's ContemporaryMuseum, the highway represents "E Luku Wale E... devastation upon devastation." If the names en-gendered by the highway speak of money and poli-tics, it is no misnomer. Nor is it likely that manyisland residents who enter the gallery to view thephotographs of the highway's construction do sofrom a neutral perspective. Certainly photogra-phers Mark Hamasaki and Anne Kapulani Land-graf (known collectively as Piliamo'o) do not claimpolitical neutrality, and their work's documentaryquality can easily be interpreted as an expressionof alienation, depending on viewer perspective.

58 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 22 NUMBER 2

1. He hai onaoha keia September 15, 1991. Photo courtesy Piliamo'o.

An explanation of the exhibition's subject mat-ter may be in order for the non-residents of Hawai'iwho helped pay for the world's most expensive high-way (at an estimated $ 112 million per mile). Duringthe Vietnam era, H-3 was conceived of as a defensehighway, connecting the Kane'ohe Marine CorpsAir Station on the windward side of O'ahu with thePearl Harbor naval base on the leeward side. Thatroute justified the federal government picking up90 percent of the highway's cost; but it also meantthat, given the distance of the bases from Honolulu,O'ahu's considerable traffic problems remainedlargely unaddressed and unaltered.

The highway was originally intended to runthrough Moanalua Valley, but socially prominent

and environmentally conscious citizens undertookthe valley's defense via litigation. In 1976, the U. S.Supreme Court let stand the circuit court of appealsruling that Moanalua Valley was entitled to protec-tion as a historic site. Far from killing the project,however, the court's decision meant that the high-way was simply rerouted to the nearest availablevalley (Halawa), thereby doubling the estimatedcost, adding two miles to its length, and requiringthe construction of more complicated tunnelsthrough the Ko'olau Mountains. (See Goldsberry,McClaren, and Moan, 1992 for a detailed account.)

The United States Department of Transporta-tion approved the new route in 1980, despite the factthat all the land under the highway was designated

2. Hanehane na kumupa'a i miTeha 'eha, July 29, 1990. Photo courtesy PUiamo'o.

conservation land and the military's electrified an-tenna field lay directly in its path on the windwardside. Believing the route to be dangerous due to le-thal shocks and unknown radiation effects, theNavy twice refused access before relenting on condi-tion that the state assume all liability. (The fieldwas permanently shut down the year the highwayopened.) The final nail in the environmentalist cof-fin literally took an act of Congress. In September of1986, Congress passed an appropriations bill thatincluded Senator Inouye's amendment to exemptH-3 from all environmental law.

However, an archaeological survey of the routeremained to be carried out. Could regard for cul-tural heritage succeed where environmental law

had failed? In 1987, the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Mu-seum was awarded a pair of non-bid, open-endedcontracts to conduct the project's archaeological re-search. The contracts' value mushroomed from aninitial $700,000 to an estimated $17.3 million, butas this is being written in March of 1998, the finalreport has yet to be completed. (Meanwhile, thehighway itself opened on December 10,1997.1 Noneof the archaeologists who supervised the project re-main on the museum's payroll; indeed, most left themuseum years ago. The museum's official interpre-tations of the nature and value of the archaeologicalsites have been hotly contested by the Native Ha-waiian community (and others). In 1992, the clashresulted in protest marches, public hearings, and a

60 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 22 NUMBER 2

five-month occupation of the proposed routethrough the Halawa Valley by Hawaiians (Kelly1995).

Beginning in March of 1989, Mark Hamasakiand Anne Kapulani Landgraf began documentingthe construction of the highway. Realizing the bat-tle had been lost, they had no expectation of stop-ping H-3; rather, their goal was to record the impactof its construction on the natural environment. Ini-tially, the only way into the windward side's Ha'ikuValley was by trail, so the two often had to carry in35 to 40 pounds of equipment—at times throughwaist-high mud. Working without external fund-ing, they continued taking pictures each Sundayuntil 1992, when they were denied access by StateDepartment of Transportation personnel. By thenthey had taken over 2000 pictures, 85 of which ap-pear as the black-and-white photographs chosen forthe exhibition.

At a March 5, 1998 slide presentation for theHawaiian Historical Society, Hamasaki stated thatthey had not tried to be objective in their choice ofphotos for the exhibition; indeed, they had deliber-ately chosen to exclude images with any semblanceof beauty from the show. The contrast between thenatural environment and modern man-made struc-tures is starkly portrayed. Inevitably the photostrigger questions: who approved of this transforma-tion; who is responsible for protecting what re-mains of Hawai'i's natural beauty andarchaeological sites? Based on the visual evidencepresented, it certainly is not the state or federal gov-ernments, the Bishop Museum, or the archaeologi-cal profession (with noted exceptions). Shouldanyone miss the point, the rear wall of the exhibi-tion contains a timeline and several dozen quotesfrom interested parties who either challenged or de-fended what transpired.

For those unfamiliar with the construction proj-ect, the photos may come as something of a shock:for the highway was not built as a flat, divided road-bed nestled in subtropical foliage. The Ha'iku Via-duct, for example, consists of 23 pairs of massiveconcrete piers, some of which rise more than 100feet above the valley floor. To quote Dennis Higa,the construction coordinator for H-3, "Each pierrests on a rebar cage mounted on a concrete pedes-tal that is rooted by piles to solid rock. We drill ashaft and pour the concrete down to 170 feet"(quoted in Goldsberry, McClaren, and Moan1992:34). Among the photographs are images of

these concrete masses which soar into the air tocompete for space with relatively diminutive trees.

If Hamasaki and Landgraf decided to excludebeauty in their choice of photographs, the imagesare nonetheless artfully composed. One strikingphoto of the interior of a tunnel resembles nothingso much as the proscenium arch of New York's RadioCity Music Hall (fig. 1), with a dwarfed piece ofequipment barely visible in the dimness where aRockette would be. The most compelling images inthe exhibition are found in a set of four photographs.Each was shot from the same vantage point over atwelve-month period to dramatically illustrate thesite's progressive destruction (fig. 2). Another effec-tive technique placed construction equipment inthe foreground, thereby obstructing the observer'sview of the beautiful Ko'olau Mountains (fig. 3). Theresult is a growing sense of irritation on the part ofthe viewer. Indeed, I found myself wanting to leanto the side to see around the equipment in order toget a better view of the mountains that I knew to bethere.

Over and over, nature's lushness is contrastedwith the rawness of construction activity. The land-scape is slashed, trenches gash the earth, and tradi-tional Hawaiian rock walls and foundations areexposed and crumbling. Water flows not in clearstreams but from drain pipes or —worse yet—liesstagnant in polluted pools. Heavy equipment risesabove the vegetation like science-fiction monsters.The fact that the gentleness and beauty of the Ha-waiian landscape are dimly visible in the back-ground makes the photos all the more evocative andtheir implicit condemnation of the highway all themore damning.

For Native Hawaiians it is not just a matter ofaesthetics or anguish at the disrespect shown theirheritage—although those qualities are surely pres-ent, if unspoken. It is also a matter of desecration,as the poem which introduces the exhibition makesclear. The fact that the photos are labeled in Hawai-ian (rather than in English) was a matter of somecontroversy and makes a strong if subtle statementabout who should have the last word in evaluatingwhat occurred. The previously mentioned timelineand quotations from concerned parties which aremounted on the gallery's rear wall.are in English,however. Many of the quotes are taken from newsaccounts, as befits the exhibition's venue: the gal-lery is located off the lobby of the headquarters ofHawai'i's major newspapers.

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3. Panka'a i na i'a hao o ka "aina, April 16, 1989. Photo courtesy Piliamo'o.

62 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 22 NUMBER 2

While the photographs document the physicaland spiritual results of the highway's construction,the timeline and quotes document the political, eco-nomic, and anthropological aspects of the construc-tion process. Dates, dollar amounts, andindividuals are named. Since many of those citedare archaeologists and anthropologists, the mate-rial functions as a form of reckoning and, rare forHawai'i, a means of being held publicly account-able. Not a few of those quoted are unhappy abouthow their profession handled the challenges of H-3.Contradictory opinions are often juxtaposed; for ex-ample,

The preservation of a Hawaiian religious sitehas low priority when compared to the buildingof a highly political military highway.—MarionKelly [former Bishop Museum anthropologist],4-11-92No sacred sites were disrupted. There are Ha-waiian sites, but they're simply agricul-tural.—Lynn Miller, Bishop Museumarchaeologist, 5-3-97As the following quotes illustrate, this was not

archaeology's finest hour.We were literally following the bulldozers, tosee what they might turn up. It was appall-ing.—Ross Cordy, State Historic PreservationOffice archaeologist, 5-12-97The final [archaeology] report will become theresponsibility of someone who has never seenthe sites that they are expected to report upon.Is this science?—Lisa Anderson [former BishopMuseum archaeologist], 10-7-91Anthropologists who harbor hopes of conduct-

ing research in the Hawaiian Islands should beaware that the attitudes that they might encountermay well be part of the H-3 legacy (cf. Cypher). Thephotographs of E Luku Wale E help to explain whythat is the case.

REFERENCES

Cypher, Mahealani1997 H-3 Hidden History. Honolulu Weekly December

10-16, p.7.Goldsberry, Steve, Clemence McClaren, and Tamara Moan

1992 H-3: What Price? What Purpose? Honolulu26(9):32-37+.

Kelly, Marjorie1995 Native Hawaiians and Bishop Museum: Negotiat-

ing Ownership of the Island Past. Curator 38(4):228-45.

AETHIOPIA: PEOPLES OF ETHIOPIA. Exhibitionat the Royal Museum for Central Africa, TervurenBelgium. March 21,1996-January 12,1997. Pro-jected itinerary in 1998-2000: Amsterdam, Mu-nich, Osnabruck, Charlevifle-M6zieres.

Accompanying publications:X. van derStappen, ed. 1996. Aethiopia, Peoplesof Ethiopia: History, Populations, Belief, Arts andCrafts. Berlin: Gordon and Breach /Arts Interna-tional, and Tervuren: Royal Museum for CentralAfrica, 375 pp. (in French, Dutch, German, Span-ish and English editions).

Aethiopia, Ob jets d'Ethiopie. Catalogue de I'Ex-position. 1996. Tervuren: Royal Museum forCentral Africa (Annals of the Human Sciences,vol. 151), 142 pp.

Aethiopia. Voices of Nomads and Shepherds.Compact-Disc (Sabam XVDS 22).

JON ABBINK

Senior ResearcherAfrican Studies Center

Leiden University, The Netherlands

The Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren,Belgium, and the private Belgian organizationCultures & Communications (a small non-profitagency specializing in research on non-Westernmaterial cultures, arts and crafts, and in thepreparation of exhibitions) recently hosted an am-bitious display of Ethiopian cultures. The exhibi-tion will tour Europe in the next few years. Theexhibition in Tervuren, Belgium, opened in March1996 after more than three years of preparationwhich included field research, photographic docu-mentation, recording of music, collection of hun-dreds of material objects, and the editing of a bookwith contributions from many specialists. In addi-tion, many Ethiopian artifacts were borrowed fromother sources, notably the Staatliches Museum furVolkerkunde (Munich) and private collections.

Any such project is a huge challenge both be-cause of the staggering diversity of the ethnic andreligious cultures of Ethiopia, and because of the re-sulting difficulty of choice and theme presented bythis country with its long and dynamic historical