7 - Hawaii: The Road to Nowhere, 1800–1821

Summary

The case of Hawaii is unusual insofar as the collapse of the state religion in 1819 may be distinguished from the conversion of ruling figures in 1825. It therefore offers a striking illumination of certain vulnerabilities of immanentism. Chapter 7 shows how contact with the wider world following the arrival of Captain Cook had generated various internal tensions that were finally expressed in Liholiho’s order to sweep away the old cult. His father Kamehameha had brought the Hawaiian archipelago under central authority for the first time but also promoted the rise of a group of ali‘i (nobles) around his wife Ka‘ahumanu. Female chiefs in Hawaii could acquire great status and power but were denied participation in the rites of sacrifice that preserved male paramountcy This system was destroyed when Liholiho ate with Ka‘ahumanu in 1819, thereby breaking the eating tabu. This was enabled by the way in which contact with outsiders had eroded the credibility of the tabu (kapu) system and the deities who enforced it. In particular, they seemed powerless against the new diseases. The role of local priests in facilitating rather than obstructing the conversion of chiefs and problems afflicting the manipulation of heroic and cosmic forms of divinised kingship, especially as a warrior society found peace, are also analysed.