Listening to Leoiki

8/6/2019 Listening to Leoiki

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Biography 32.1 (Winter 2009) © Biographical Research Center

listening to leoiki:

engaging sources in hawaiian history

noelaniarista

Leoiki means small voice. Leoiki is also the name of a woman who becomesa central gure in my retelling of a familiar history, that of an “outrage,” anarmed assault on an American mission station in Lahaina, Maui in October1825 by a mob of English and American sailors.

Leoiki was one of many Hawaiian women sold or traded to foreign sailorsand ship captains in the Hawaiian Islands since the late eighteenth century “discovery” of Captain James Cook had sketched Hawai‘i in amidst the Pacif-

ic waste of ocean that had formerly taken up space on Euro-American maps. Whaling ships began to arrive in Hawai‘i in 1819, their numbers increasingyearly, part of what would, in a decade or so, become a vast New England whaling eet hunting the ocean from Hawai‘i to Aotearoa.

In placing Leoiki at the center of this history, I think about the uncanny symbolism of her name—small voice—and how the story of her life has beenforgotten to Hawaiian memory and history. Writing Leoiki back into history is important because it became apparent through my research that hers is the

center of a larger story about the ways in which Hawaiian history has been written over the last two hundred years. Considering Leoiki’s story will alsosuggest to scholars particular ways of approaching and reading sources.

By 1825 Hawai‘i was a favored stopping point for ships of different na-tions in the North Pacic. New England and English merchant vessels werealready commonplace visitors to the islands, engaging in the mostly triangulartrade between the Northwest coast of North America, Hawai‘i, and China.

Sometime between March and October of 1825, a kapu prohibiting women from going out to ships for the purpose of prostitution was proclaimedby the ali‘i (Hawaiian chiefs), altering that familiar trafc of the burgeoningPacic seaport towns. Enraged that they could not cajole, coax, or coerce Ha- waiian women into violating the kapu, the sailors turned their frustrations on



Arista, Listening to Leoiki 67

the American missionaries, whom they blamed for the emergence of this new unreasonably strict moral law.

Writing on November 30, 1825, to the home ofce of the AmericanBoard of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Boston, the Rev. William Richards, the object of the October “outrage,” provided a vivid de-scription of the attack on his home and family by a mob of sailors made upmostly of crew members from the Daniel IV, a British whaleship. Richards’sletter also revealed that the captain of the whaleship, William Buckle, hadpurchased a Hawaiian woman on his last visit to the islands in March 1825,seven months prior to the outrage. Rather than simply hiring the services of aprostitute while the ship was in port, Buckle had purchased Leoiki from theGoverness of Maui, Wahinepi‘o, after a week of negotiation. The terms of the verbal agreement were such that Buckle was granted permission to keepLeoiki on his ship from March to October 1825, but was required to returnher to Lahaina at voyage’s end.

Richards’s letter describing the outrage and the sale of Leoiki was pub-lished in the Missionary Herald, the monthly magazine of the missionary so-ciety that kept charitable-minded American Christians abreast of the prog-ress of the Gospel, and of their nancial and spiritual investment in heathen

lands (“Outrage”). In letters and ofcial reports, the story of this “outrage”against missionaries found its way from the Pacic to New England. Thestory was also picked up by several American newspapers—the Hampshire Gazette, the Farmer’s Cabinet , and the New Hampshire Sentinel, to name justa few (“Sandwich Islands”).

From direct correspondence between the Sandwich Islands Mission andthe London Missionary Society, Rev. Richards’s story would eventually ndits way to the British secular press, repeating the process of publication that

had just occurred across the Atlantic (Bingham et al., Letter). Members of Buckle’s family became alarmed by the news, and notied him that his seem-ingly unseen actions oceans away could be brought to life in the animated and judgment-laden prose of missionary witnesses whose letters were read, and in whispered tones repeated, in the streets near home.

A year and a half passed before Captain Buckle got wind of the publishedaccounts which told of his actions. Instead of describing the woman sold assimply a “mistress on board,”1 as Richards had, a joint letter composed by theHonolulu-based missionaries accused Buckle of purchasing a “female slave”(Bingham et al., “Outrage”). It was this letter, rather than Richards’s ac-count, that was published and republished in America. Arriving in Honoluluin October of 1827, after yet another six months of whaling, Captain Bucklesought the assistance of the English Consul Richard Charlton in bringing a



68 Biography 32.1 (Winter 2009)

charge of libel against Rev. Richards for the almost certain damage the accu-sation caused to his public reputation, and for the explanations he must of-

fer to his employers, friends, and family back in England. The charge of libelbrought personally against Rev. Richards would be an important line of de-fense for Captain Buckle against the very serious accusation of slavery that the joint letter raised. The English Consul informed Richards of the severity of the charge, since “the purchasing of any person, male or female by any Britishsubject serving on board of any ship, even for the purpose of liberating themfrom slavery is an act of piracy and punishable with death without benet of clergy” (Richards, 6 Dec. 1827).

To protect himself against the charge of libel, Rev. Richards collectedofcial statements—certicates recorded under oath—from Hawaiian andTahitian eyewitnesses to the sale of Leoiki by the chiefess Wahinepi‘o. Thesecerticates are among the rst legal documents produced in Hawai‘i, and were recorded in Hawaiian and English (Certicates).

Still, as important as the depositions were in exonerating Rev. Rich-ards of libel, they are marked by a profound absence, for Leoiki refused togive sworn testimony about whether or not she was sold to Captain Buckleby Wahinepi‘o. If the aim of my historical project was to look for Leoiki’s

“voice,” that voice would not be found in any of the usual archival sources,and certainly not among these certicates. Fortunately, an archivist friendof mine, Kanani Reppun, happened to locate by accident Leoiki’s genealogy while providing assistance and expertise to a colleague at Kawaiaha‘o Church.I could tell from the testimony of the chief Hoapili that Leoiki had conceiveda child from her ve month journey with Captain Buckle. While Hoapili not-ed that, “the child of the bargain is big,” he provided no information aboutthat child’s name. The offspring of Leoiki and Captain Buckle was not men-

tioned in any of the conventional sources I had found. Indeed, most of themissionary correspondence—letters, journals, and reports—was concerned with the wrong done and the threats made against the lives and property of American missionaries. The outrages did not concern the “female inmates,”“the slaves,” nor the “prostitutes” themselves; instead, the outrages were com-mitted by transient foreigners—American and English sailors—against for-eign settlers—American missionaries who had taken up residence a scant fourand a half years before the kapu was pronounced.

Even the certicates themselves, while frequently describing the sale of Leoiki and the conversations that occurred with her and about her, work pur-posefully toward proving Rev. Richards innocent of the charge of libel. Forthe most part, the depositions are unconcerned with bringing Captain Buck-le to account for his purchase of Leoiki, except to demonstrate that such a




transaction had taken place. The serendipitous discovery of Leoiki’s genealogy yielded a startling piece of information that I will argue is the closest thing to

Leoiki’s testimony that we are going to get. According to the genealogy, Leoikinamed this child, a boy, William Wahinepi‘o Kahakuha‘akoi Buckle.2

This is where my practice as a historian is informed by culturally literate ways of reading Hawaiian texts. We are not going to nd Leoiki’s little voice if we look in all the usual places. And yet, though she declined to provide asworn statement, Leoiki “recorded” her testimony in the ne Hawaiian tradi-tion of naming her child. Most people can understand naming a child afterhis father, but why does her son carry both of Wahinepi‘o’s names? Leoiki’snaming of her son both for the chiefess who sold her and the man who boughther is an act simultaneously respectful and critical. In Hawaiian custom, chil-dren are named for ancestors, or in this case, for the chief Leoiki served, as a way to remember those ancestors coupled with the hope that the child willbe imbued with the spiritual strength, grace, and skill—in other words, themana—of those who came before. In this way, parents honor their genealogy and the legacy of their ancestors in the birth of a new child.

Names can also act as mnemonic devices for the remembrance of storiesand particular events. With William Wahinepi‘o Kahakuhaha‘akoi Buckle

we see both of these modes of meaning making in play. The rst would causepeople to hear the name and think that she was honoring her chiefess, hop-ing for the mana of the ali‘i to be connected to her son, and also hoping thatsuch a connection would benet her family. But, if we think about the sec-ond tradition of memorializing events in names, we see the critical functionof Leoiki’s naming her son after the economic intercourse between her chief-ess and the child’s father that resulted in his conception.

This kind of culturally literate interpretation of the genealogy-as-source

is invisible to historians who lack Hawaiian cultural and linguistic uency,because all they may see when looking at a genealogy are names. But this way of reading is to some extent also rendered invisible to Hawaiian scholars, be-cause this way of reading may be so obvious that the writer may overlook thenecessity of unpacking the cultural signicance of naming children for events,or bestowing upon a child a name imbued with mana. Such writers may feelthat these things need not be discussed, written about, or held up as the loca-tion of Leoiki’s “voice,” due to the commonplace or mundane nature of cer-tain cultural practices in our community.

I cannot overemphasize the scene I envisioned when I saw this name inthe genealogy for the rst time. Young William Wahinepi‘o Kahakuha‘akoiBuckle is walking through town, on his way to church on Sunday. People stopto say “aloha” in greeting, and when he continues on his way, the kinds of




shaking of the head, the whispering in the corner, or the incredulous shrug-ging that took place in his wake, as the people recounted to themselves and

to each other the story of his mother’s sale and his conception. Each time herson’s name was spoken, each time he was praised, reprimanded, or called to,the community was reminded of Leoiki’s story.

With this vision I had a new impetus to look for Leoiki’s canny, intelli-gent negotiation of an impossible situation in the sources I had already ana-lyzed. Because of the discovery of her genealogy, I felt compelled to go back to the depositions and consider trying a fresh approach to their reading. A deposition by a man named Namale seemed available to a different inter-pretation than the one I previously constructed. Namale described the ex-change that took place between Leoiki and the chiefess Wahinepi‘o: “Whenshe [Leoiki]had been on board two days she came on shore with eight dollars[dubloons] which she handed to Wahine Pio, saying, here is the money of theforeigner, he wishes you to give me to him for his—the money is yours, but if you take it, I am to go with him to a foreign country” (Certicates).

Rather than focusing on Leoiki as someone forced to carry the money that is her own price between buyer and seller, I want to use Namale’s wordsto illuminate the complexities of Leoiki’s relationship to her chiefess. By plac-

ing the money in Wahinepi‘o’s hands, Leoiki “tells us” that she has an in-timate relationship to the chiefess. We might also then speculate that she isreminding her chiefess at that moment of the intimacy of their ties throughthe casual brush of ngertips across Wahinepi‘o’s palm, or perhaps the tonein her voice, or the way in which she carried her body in a deferential manner.Like the naming of her son, these gestures—which included the placing of money directly into the hand of her chiefess—can be construed also in termsof both honor and critique, for only the most trusted people are allowed to be

so close to those in power. From Leoiki’s physical proximity to Wahinepi‘oin this moment, we can infer something of Leoiki’s status and social impor-tance. While in humbled circumstances in relation to the ali’i, Leoiki’s ges-ture reminds Wahinepi‘o of the power she wields, but also that the seemingly absolute power of the ali‘i is tempered by the social mores of kuleana. Name-ly, if the ali‘i wished to maintain their rule, as well as the hierarchies of powerupon which society was shaped and in which civilization functioned, one of the duties of the ali‘i was to care for the welfare of the people, those who by genealogy were imbued with less mana. Several depositions emphasized thebinding nature of the chiefess’s decree; if Wahinepi‘o said that Leoiki had togo with Captain Buckle, Leoiki could not refuse.

“Here is the money of the foreigner, he wishes you to give me to him for his—the money is yours, but if you take it I am to go with him to a foreign country.”




By introducing another anxiety independent of sex, morality, or the corrosiveinuence of money upon Hawaiian society, for the rst time a source reveals

Leoiki not as a mistress, or slave, or a thing that is bought or sold. According toNamale, Wahinepi‘o answered Leoiki by saying, “I shall not give you up, for Ilove you. Return the money to the foreigner, for it is money to take you away forever to a foreign country.” The anxiety that is revealed in Leoiki’s speechand Wahinepi‘o’s reply is one of alienation from homeland and from her placein relation to the chiefess. While the specter of being taken away from hometo a foreign place forever may seem like something that doesn’t need interpre-tation, as a historian I had to think about what tropes or similar events werenarrated in Hawaiian history 3 or experience that resonated with her words, toassist me in understanding what was at the heart of this anxiety, and more im-portantly, to help me adequately interpret the gravity of this kind of expression.The technique I have been employing may be counterintuitive to Americanhistorians, but sources in a Hawaiian oral historical context do not functionaccording to the rules of the contemporary historical profession. Nor can ourmethods be employed without attention to the way in which words and speech were understood and functioned in a Hawaiian context. Words in Hawaiianoral traditions are imbued with power, or so the ‘ölelo no‘eau (proverb), “I

ka ‘ölelo nö ke ola, i ka ‘ölelo nö ka make” (In speech there is life, in speechthere is death) suggests. Words, proverbs, and idiomatic phrases are freighted with their past performances, past echoes, and past resonances, and in this way bear knowledge of past experience that constitutes a collective knowledge, orknowing. Bundles of meaning, emotions, intelligence, and mana may be ref-erenced by speakers and writers who choose particular words or phrases, andby so doing evoke the strength of passed expression, past history. By evokingor repeating these words or phrases, speakers intentionally connect their expe-

riential moment with that of chiey or priestly predecessors, with ancestors or wise individuals, thereby moving forward guided by and drawing upon exam-ple.4 In this way the trajectory of present action is shaped by past experience,through the invocation of the spoken word.5

Hawaiians who were trained to have retentive and relational memories were entrusted with portions of a vast oral tradition. These intellectuals, someof whom were living before the arrival of Captain Cook and the transforma-tion of kapu, became recorders and writers when they reproduced in writ-ten form the mo‘olelo—histories and stories—and all manner of genealogies,chants, and songs with which they were entrusted. These traditions, pub-lished or not, were circulated within a vibrant, written nineteenth century public sphere. In newspapers, manuscripts, letters, and by word of mouth,these traditions were reproduced, revised, at times synthesized, ma ka ‘ölelo




Hawai‘i, in Hawaiian language. I read forward chronologically in these sourcesto train myself to interpret sources such as the certicates of witnesses to Leo-

iki’s, even though the sources I use to understand this document composed in1827 may have been written or recorded much later in the century.6

Almost twenty years after Leoiki’s negotiation with Wahinepi‘o, the Rev. William Richards was dispatched by Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) to Brit-ain, the United States, France, and Belgium to secure these countries’ rec-ognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Accompanying him on this journey in 1842 was Timoteo Ha‘alilio, the Hawaiian chiey envoy. Experiencinghomesickness and illness abroad, Ha‘alilio wrote to the King expressing hisdesire to come home. The King replied that it was better for Ha‘alilio to leavehis bones in a foreign country than to fail in his mission. The idea of dyingabroad, away from friends and family, of leaving one’s bones in foreign soil with no one to care for them, was a deep-seated anxiety for Hawaiians. Con-sidering Ha‘alilio and Leoiki’s situations in parallel, although their stories oc-cur twenty years apart, uncovers a common anxiety about being lost far fromhome, forever, and not having anyone to care for your iwi (bones).7 Creative juxtapositions such as these assist me in understanding what is at stake forthe actors involved, both as individuals and more generally as Hawaiians who

have particular beliefs, behaviors, and cultural knowledge that was passeddown experientially and through oral historical traditions.8

This research on Leoiki as well as my work on other projects have assistedme in crafting a particular argument or intervention into ways of reading and writing history that involves a serious consideration of how Hawaiians madesense of experience, how they made history, and the ways in which we need toconstruct historical approaches that account for something more substantialthan the recovery of “native voice.” In order to write Leoiki’s history, I real-

ized the need to learn how to read, interpret, and engage the sources I found. When we want to frame our historical projects in terms of seeking “nativevoice,” Leoiki’s situation within the history of “the outrages” cautions usabout simplistic assumptions about what counts as “voice” in sources, whatcounts as “source,” and whether or not we have the cultural and historicalcompetence to hear and interpret that voice.

notes

1. Richards’s letter was republished in the February 1827 issue of the Missionary Herald (“Outrage”).

2. In a meeting, descendants of Leoiki and Captain Buckle expressed their doubts aboutthe validity of the extended genealogy, noting its recent creation by a relative who haddeposited the genealogy at the church archives. However, they agree that the name of theboy is correct, but should include his middle name, “Kahakuha‘akoi,” to be complete.




3. When I say history, I mean the orally and aurally remembered words and experiencesthat Hawaiians of the nineteenth century wrote down in processes that have scarcely been discussed by historians dealing with what they consider non-literate societies.

4. This is another way in which words participate in a religious context in Hawai‘i; theconnectivity of words with the past is one way in which mana is created, increased, andmoved forward.

5. For the purposes of this essay I am not addressing the ways in which this practice alsoensures movement forward and transformation, which it obviously does.

6. It is because of the attention Hawaiians of this time placed upon the spoken word thatI give veracity and equal weight to ear witnessed testimony, as opposed to the emphasisusually placed in English upon words based on “eye-witnessed” testimony.

7. For Hawaiians and many other Pacic Island peoples, the iwi is the repository of themana of an individual. Bones were considered sacred, and the bones of the ali‘i in partic-ular were ritually prepared after the chief’s death, and hidden to keep them protected.

8. Scholars need to investigate and have more conversations about how orally and aurally disciplined intellectuals made connections over time, and how they sifted through orally preserved “sources.” The method I describe attempts to approach the sources in thissame fashion. What may seem like random juxtaposition to scholars unfamiliar withHawaiian oral traditions labors under logics that still need to be uncovered, discussed,and given our serious consideration.

works cited

Bingham, Hiram, Dr. Abraham Blatchely, Levi Chamberlain, Samuel Ruggles, and ElishaLoomis. Letter to the London Missionary Society. 15 Oct. 1825. Commonwealth Mis-sionary Society/London Missionary Society South Seas Incoming Correspondence.School of Oriental and African Studies, U of London.

———. “Outrage of a Whale-ship’s Crewe.” Missionary Herald 22.7 (July 1826): 26–27.

Certicates of several persons respecting Captain Buckle’s purchasing a mistress to accompany him on a sea voyage. 9 Nov. 1827. ABCFM-HI Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard U.

“From a Correspondent of the New-York Observer (Boston 4 September 1826).” Farmer’s Cabinet 23 Sept. 1826.

“Missionary Intelligence: Sandwich Islands.” New Hampshire Sentinel 8 June 1827.

Richards, William. Letter to ABCFM. 6 Dec. 1827. ABCFM-HI Papers. Houghton Library,Harvard U.

———. Letter to Jeremiah Evarts. 30 Nov. 1825. ABCFM-HI Papers. Houghton Library,Harvard U.

———. “Outrage of the Master and Crew of the English Whaleship Daniel .” Missionary

Herald 23.2 (Feb. 1827): 39–43.“Sandwich Islands: Extract of a joint letter from Missionaries, dated Oct. 15, 1825.” Hamp-

shire Gazette 12 July 1826.

Listening to Leoiki

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