Review of A Shark Going Inland is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai’i

Abstract

est book from noted Pacific Island scholar Patrick Kirch. Kirch’s involvement in Pacific Island archaeology is broad, including theoretical contributions as well as information from key Lapita, West Polynesian and East Polynesian sites. For this book Kirch returns to Hawai’i, his homeland and the location of a significant portion of his research, to present an account of Hawaiian history using science, tradition and his personal stories. From the outset Kirch sheds the usual academic prose, instead attempting to convey complex, often contested, ideas with clarity. The reason for this approach becomes clear in Kirch’s first sojourn into personal anecdote. Here, the author finds two elderly fishermen on a beach and, after some discussion, asks what they know of a nearby spit of land. The fishermens’ knowledge extends back to 1816–1817 when a Russian fort was built on the land but not to the laukini heiau (temple of human sacrifice) located there at initial European contact. It is a simple story but in presenting it Kirch clearly conveys that findings published in traditional sources often do not reach beyond the bounds of academia. The book is composed of three parts. The first part, Voyages provides background to the story of human migrations in the Pacific. Through the lens of his excavations at Talepakemalai, Mussau Island, Kirch outlines the development of the Lapita culture and its rapid spread from Near Oceania to its eastern extent in the West Polynesian archipelagos of Tonga and Samoa. Kirch details the development of the ancestral Polynesian culture in Tonga and Samoa and the remarkable diaspora of Polynesians across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, including the return voyages to South America and the movement to the marginal islands of Hawai’i and New Zealand. Toward the end of the section, archaeological data is interspersed with a fictional account of the Marquesan voyagers who, in their canoe, Mahina-i-te-Pue, discovered and settled Hawai’i. While fictional, this story serves to humanise the process of long-distance voyaging, adding weight to the achievement of settling the far-flung islands that comprise Polynesia. Part two, In Pele’s Islands, focuses on the settlement and development of Polynesian society in Hawai’i. Return voyages are discussed as an important part of the settlement process, both to maintain social bonds and to Brown, A A 2015 Review of A Shark Going Inland is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai’i. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, 25(2): 8, pp. 1–2, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ pia.485