H awa ii an m i s s i on H ou s es Hist o ric Sit e a nd Archives present s
Tuesday, February 21,
2017 • 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
-
H
Ululani Hale at Ka‘iwakiloumoku Hawaiian Cultural Center on the
Kapa-lama campus, Kamehameha Schools
awaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives announces a symposium, “Letters from the Ali‘i: From Process to
Product” on the newly translated and digitized collection of letters, on Tuesday, February 21, from 7:00 – 9:00 PM at
Ululani Hale at Ka‘iwaki-loumoku Cultural Center located on Kamehameha Schools’ Kapa-lama Campus.
In a project organized and led by Hawaiian Mission Houses (HMH), more than 225 letters written by 42 different ali’i, or high
ranking Hawaiians, between 1820 and 1907 have been digitized by HMH and then transcribed, translated and annotated by interns
under the direction of Puakea Nogelmeier and the Awaiaulu Foundation. The originals and translations are now all available at www.
missionhouses.org. The letters were part of three different collections, which HMH assembled and received permission to digitize.
TEXT for WEB PAGE
The collections included Hawaiian Mission Houses own Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society Collection, the Hawaii Conference
United Church of Christ Collection (Hawaiian Evangelical Association) which HMH stewards, and the ABCFM Collection owned by
its successor Wider Church Ministries and stewarded by Harvard’s Houghton Library. The project was supported by HMH through a
grant from the Atherton Family Foundation.
HMH Executive Director Dr. Tom Woods and Awaiaulu Executive Director Dr. Puakea Nogelmeier will provide background
for the historical period and the project. Awaiaulu student interns Jon Yasuda, Kaliko Martin, and Hilina‘i Sai-Dudoit will discuss
their work on the project and highlight a letter they have each chosen. Finally, Dr. Kapali Lyon, professor of Religious Studies at
UH-Ma-noa will analyze the letters and their significance to Hawaiian history and language studies. Audience questions will follow
the presentations. There will be light refreshments and discussion with participants and the audience after the symposium. The
symposium is free and open to the public.
Awaiaulu Foundation was created to train young scholars to understand, translate, and interpret Hawaiian language resources
for English and Hawaiian speaking audiences. These words from the ali‘i themselves, newly translated under the guidance of
Awaiaulu, give us a remarkable lens through which we can view nineteenth century life in our islands.
Free and open to the public