From the Foreword ""Crucially, past, present, and future are tightly woven in 'Oiwi (Native Hawaiian) theory and practice. We adapt to whatever historical challenges we face so that we can continue to survive and thrive. As we look to the past for knowledge and inspiration on how to face the future, we are aware that we are tomorrow's ancestors and that future generations will look to us for guidance."" - Marie Alohalani Brown, author of Facing the Spears of Change: The Life and Legacy of John Papa The title of the book, The Past before Us, refers to the importance of ka wa mamua or "the time in front" in Hawaiian thinking. In this collection of essays, eleven Kanaka 'Oiwi (Native Hawaiian) scholars honor their mo'oku'auhau (geneaological lineage) by using genealogical knowledge drawn from the past to shape their research methodologies. These contributors, Kanaka writing from Hawai'i as well as from the diaspora throughout the Pacific and North America, come from a wide range of backgrounds including activism, grassroots movements, and place-based cultural practice, in addition to academia. Their work offers broadly applicable yet deeply personal perspectives on complex Hawaiian issues and demonstrates that enduring ancestral ties and relationships to the past are not only relevant, but integral, to contemporary Indigenous scholarship. Chapters on language, literature, cosmology, spirituality, diaspora, identity, relationships, activism, colonialism, and cultural practices unite around methodologies based on mo'oku'auhau. This cultural concept acknowledges the times, people, places, and events that came before; it is a fundamental worldview that guides our understanding of the present and our navigation into the future. This book is a welcome addition to the growing fields of Indigenous, Pacific Islands, and Hawaiian studies. Contributors: Hokulani K. Aikau, Marie Alohalani Brown, David A. Chang, Lisa Kahaleole Hall, ku'ualoha ho'omanawanui, Ku Kahakalau, Manulani Aluli Meyer, Kalei Nu'uhiwa, 'Umi Perkins, Mehana Blaich Vaughan, Nalani Wilson-Hokowhitu.

A unique anthology of mermaid tales from around the world, many of which have never appeared in English before Among the oldest and most popular mythical beings, mermaids and other merfolk have captured the imagination since long before Ariel sold her voice to a sea witch in the beloved Disney film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid'. As far back as the eighth century B.C., sailors in Homer's Odyssey stuffed wax in their ears to resist the Sirens, who lured men to their watery deaths with song. More than two thousand years later, the gullible New York public lined up to witness a mummified 'mermaid' specimen that the enterprising showman P. T. Barnum swore was real. The Penguin Book of Mermaids is a treasury of such tales about merfolk and water spirits from different cultures, ranging from Scottish selkies to Hindu water-serpents to Chilean sea fairies. A third of the selections are published here in English for the first time, and all are accompanied by commentary that explores their undercurrents, showing us how public perceptions of this popular mythical hybrid - at once a human and a fish - illuminate issues of gender, spirituality, ecology and sexuality.

Tradition holds that when you come across a body of freshwater in a secluded area and everything is eerily still, the plants are yellowed, and the water covered with a greenish-yellow froth you have stumbled across the home of a mo‘o. Leave quickly lest the mo‘o make itself known to you! It might eat (‘ai) you or take you as a lover (ai); either way, you will be consumed completely. Revered and reviled, reptiles have slithered, glided, crawled, and climbed their way through the human imagination and into prominent places in many cultures and belief systems around the world. Ka Po‘e Mo‘o Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water Deities explores the fearsome and fascinating creatures known as mo‘o that embody the life-giving and death-dealing properties of water. Mo‘o are not ocean-dwellers; instead, they live primarily in or near bodies of freshwater. They vary greatly in size, appearing as tall as a mountain or as tiny as a house gecko, and many possess alternate forms. Moʻo are predominantly female, and the female moʻo that masquerade as humans are often described as stunningly beautiful. During an earlier period in Hawaiian history, mo‘o akua held distinctive roles and filled a variety of functions in overlapping familial, societal, economic, political sectors. Religion, people’s belief in mo‘o akua, was the foundation upon which these roles and functions were established. Marie Alohalani Brown’s extensive research in Hawaiian-language archives has recovered knowledge about more than three hundred moʻo. In addition to being a comprehensive treatise on moʻo akua, this work includes a detailed catalog of 288 individual mo‘o with source citations. It makes major contributions to the politics and poetics of reconstructing ʻike kupuna (ancestral knowledge), Hawaiian aesthetics, the nature of tradition, the study and appreciation of moʻolelo and kaʻao (hi/stories), genre analysis and metadiscursive practices, and methodologies for conducting research in Hawaiian-language newspapers. An extensive introduction also offers readers context for understanding how these uniquely Hawaiian deities relate to other reptilian entities in Polynesia and around the world. Accessibly written about a captivating subject, this extraordinary monograph is the result of over two decades of dedicated study.

Tradition holds that when you come across a body of freshwater in a secluded area and everything is eerily still, the plants are yellowed, and the water covered with a greenish-yellow froth you have stumbled across the home of a mo‘o. Leave quickly lest the mo‘o make itself known to you! It might eat (‘ai) you or take you as a lover (ai); either way, you will be consumed completely. Revered and reviled, reptiles have slithered, glided, crawled, and climbed their way through the human imagination and into prominent places in many cultures and belief systems around the world. Ka Po‘e Mo‘o Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water Deities explores the fearsome and fascinating creatures known as mo‘o that embody the life-giving and death-dealing properties of water. Mo‘o are not ocean-dwellers; instead, they live primarily in or near bodies of freshwater. They vary greatly in size, appearing as tall as a mountain or as tiny as a house gecko, and many possess alternate forms. Moʻo are predominantly female, and the female moʻo that masquerade as humans are often described as stunningly beautiful. During an earlier period in Hawaiian history, mo‘o akua held distinctive roles and filled a variety of functions in overlapping familial, societal, economic, political sectors. Religion, people’s belief in mo‘o akua, was the foundation upon which these roles and functions were established. Marie Alohalani Brown’s extensive research in Hawaiian-language archives has recovered knowledge about more than three hundred moʻo. In addition to being a comprehensive treatise on moʻo akua, this work includes a detailed catalog of 288 individual mo‘o with source citations. It makes major contributions to the politics and poetics of reconstructing ʻike kupuna (ancestral knowledge), Hawaiian aesthetics, the nature of tradition, the study and appreciation of moʻolelo and kaʻao (hi/stories), genre analysis and metadiscursive practices, and methodologies for conducting research in Hawaiian-language newspapers. An extensive introduction also offers readers context for understanding how these uniquely Hawaiian deities relate to other reptilian entities in Polynesia and around the world. Accessibly written about a captivating subject, this extraordinary monograph is the result of over two decades of dedicated study.

From the Foreword ""Crucially, past, present, and future are tightly woven in ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) theory and practice. We adapt to whatever historical challenges we face so that we can continue to survive and thrive. As we look to the past for knowledge and inspiration on how to face the future, we are aware that we are tomorrow’s ancestors and that future generations will look to us for guidance."" - Marie Alohalani Brown, author of Facing the Spears of Change: The Life and Legacy of John Papa The title of the book, The Past before Us, refers to the importance of ka w� mamua or “the time in front� in Hawaiian thinking. In this collection of essays, eleven Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) scholars honor their moʻokūʻauhau (geneaological lineage) by using genealogical knowledge drawn from the past to shape their research methodologies. These contributors, K�naka writing from Hawai‘i as well as from the diaspora throughout the Pacific and North America, come from a wide range of backgrounds including activism, grassroots movements, and place-based cultural practice, in addition to academia. Their work offers broadly applicable yet deeply personal perspectives on complex Hawaiian issues and demonstrates that enduring ancestral ties and relationships to the past are not only relevant, but integral, to contemporary Indigenous scholarship. Chapters on language, literature, cosmology, spirituality, diaspora, identity, relationships, activism, colonialism, and cultural practices unite around methodologies based on moʻokūʻauhau. This cultural concept acknowledges the times, people, places, and events that came before; it is a fundamental worldview that guides our understanding of the present and our navigation into the future. This book is a welcome addition to the growing fields of Indigenous, Pacific Islands, and Hawaiian studies. Contributors: H�kūlani K. Aikau, Marie Alohalani Brown, David A. Chang, Lisa Kahaleole Hall, kuʻualoha hoʻomanawanui, Kū Kahakalau, Manulani Aluli Meyer, Kalei Nuʻuhiwa, ‘Umi Perkins, Mehana Blaich Vaughan, N�lani Wilson-Hokowhitu.

Facing the Spears of Change takes a close look at the extraordinary life of John Papa ??. Over the years, ?? faced many personal and political changes and challenges in rapid succession, which he skillfully parried or grasped firmly and then used to fend off other attacks. He began serving in the household of Kamehameha I as an attendant in 1810, when he was ten. His early service took place in a time when alii nui (the highest-ranking Hawaiians) were considered divine and surrounded with strict kapu (sacred prohibitions); breaking a kapu pertaining to an alii meant death for the transgressor. As an attendant, ?? was highly familiar with the inner workings of the royal household. He went on to become an influential statesman, privy to the shifting modes of governance adopted by the Hawaiian kingdom. ??'s intelligence and his good standing with those he served resulted in a great degree of influence within the Hawaiian government, with his fellow Hawaiians, and with the missionaries residing in the Hawaiian Islands. At the end of his life, he also became a memoirist and biographer, who published accounts of key events in his own life and in the lives of others during the sixty years that he served his kings, his nation, and his people. As a privileged spectator and key participant, his accounts of alii and his insights into early nineteenth-century Hawaiian cultural-religious practices are unsurpassed. In this groundbreaking work, Marie Alohalani Brown offers a meticulously researched, elegantly written, and compelling portrait of an important historical figure in nineteenth-century Hawaii. Brown's extensive archival research and use of Hawaiian and English language primary sources from the 1800s allows readers to access information that would be otherwise unknown but to a very small circle of researchers. While recent scholars have to varying degrees noted ??'s importance in Hawaiian history, his life has been largely neglected as a topic of study. The few scattered lines devoted to him have been merely tombstone epitaphs in relation to the vast archive available about his life, his political achievements, and his cultural contributions as a writer.