Smithsonian streaming Aletha Kaohi film

edwindwight News

The National Museum of the American Indian is streaming a short film featuring Aletha Kaohi of Waimea, Kaua‘i. Aletha passed in April 2024, but her wonderful native Hawaiian spirit lives on in this high-quality profile filmed in and around Waimea, Kaua‘i.

Aletha invited me to attend the unveiling of the bronze Kaumuali‘i statue at Pā‘ula‘ula (formerly Russian Fort) on the east bank of the Waimea River. I described the opening ceremony in a newsletter post sent to Honolulu and attached a photo of myself with Aletha taken that day.

I attended the unveiling and dedication of Ho‘ola‘a O King Kaumuali‘i, a life-size bronze statue of the last ruler of Kaua‘i.

The event took place at Paula‘ula, the traditional homesite of Kaumuali‘i on the grounds of the Russian Fort Elizabeth State Park in Waimea Kauai on Saturday, March 20, 2021.

Kaumuali‘i rejoiced at the return of his long-lost son Humehume (George Kaumuali‘i) who was returned to Kaua‘i from New England accompanying the Pioneer Company, in spring 1820. The Kaua‘i king provided land and support for a missionary station at Waimea. He enjoyed reading a Bible with his name inscribed on its cover brought to him by the “Samuels,“ pioneer company missionaries Samuel Whitney and Samuel Ruggles.

Chris joined Aletha Kawelukawahinehololio‘olimaloa Goodwin Kaohi, a lifetime resident of Waimea and a direct descendant of Kaumuali‘i. Aletha worked with the Friends of King Kaumuali‘i organization for years to complete the project. The Legislature provided over $200,000 in funding to allow completion of the statue created by Kauai-based sculptor Siam Caglayan. 

Chris has assisted Aletha with writing and photographs for Kaua‘i history and Kalewina (the Native Hawaiian Congregational churches of Hawai‘i) projects over the years.

Professor Peter Mills, head of the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, flew in for the event. Peter is the author of Hawaii’s Russian Adventure: A New Look at Old History from the UH Press, a book that provides a definitive account of how Kaumuali‘i and the people of Kaua‘i actually built the fort at Waimea, not a party from the Russian-American Company.

Peter told Chris that accessing the digitized archives of the Hawaiian Mission Houses greatly helped him during the Covid-19 lock down in continuing research and writing of a new Hawai‘i maritime history-focused book.

Source of “Life of the Land” Expression

edwindwight Christian History of Hawai‘i, Kawaiaha‘o Church

A number of claims have been made for the source of the Hawai‘i State Motto expression “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono” / “The Life of the Land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

A source for the expression closely tied in time to Kamehameha III declaring the words which became the state motto appears in a four-page “EXTRA” issue of The Friend, of Temperance and Seamen. This montly newsprint publication, a monthly Christian newspaper, was edited and published by the Rev. Samuel Damon, chaplain of the Seaman’s Bethel Chapel in Honolulu.

The EXTRA edition, one outside the montly run, was distributed on July 31, 1843, the day the rule of Hawai‘i was returned to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi by the British Admiral Thomas.

Rev. Damon, who was there at the scene of what has become known as Restoration Day, in his EXTRA edition published a press release distributed by Dr. Gerrit Judd, the chief aide to Kamehameha III. This press release twice features the expression “life of the land” and is dated Feb. 25, 1843. On this date Kamehameha III suffered having his Kingdom taken over by British naval officer Paulet, with the Hawaiian flag being lowered and the British raised. These reports are primary sources. 

Screenshot

Nupepa – Кamehameha III, Kekauluahi press release

Friend July 31, 1843 Life of LandDownload

The Kamehameha III February 25th “life of the land” press release appears on page 4 of the above digital issue of The Friend.

Concert of Prayer network Changed Hawaiʻi and the World for Christ

edwindwight 200th anniversary of Sandwich Islands Mission, Christian History of Hawai‘i, Hawaiʻi Island

Download a Free 32-page Copy of The Concert of Prayer

The missions-focused Concert of Prayer served as the prayer covering for the evangelical mission begun in Hawaii in 1820, as well as for the evangelical foreign missions sent from America and Great Britain that spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the globe to unreached nations in the nineteenth-century. The Concert of Prayer service was simple, yet proved to be world-changing. Its two-part goal was to synchronize consistent prayer for the conversion of the world through reviving the Christian church, and through that revival to effectively and consistently advance the Kingdom of Christ throughout the world.

Usually held on the first Monday evening of the month the Concert of Prayer meeting brought missions to the forefront in local churches throughout the young United States and across Great Britain. The Concert of Prayer lay behind the 1806 American foreign missions-seeding Haystack Prayer Meeting at Williams College in Massachusetts. In 1809 Haystack Prayer leader Samuel J. Mills Jr. met ‘Opükaha’ia-Henry Obookiah in a dorm room at Yale College. Mills instantly envisioned an American mission to Hawaii to reach the Hawaiian people.

In October 1819 the pioneer mission to Hawaiinamed the Sandwich Islands Mission – departed from Boston Harbor. The mission company held a monthly Concert of Pray aboard the brig Thaddeus. Three native Hawaiian students from the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut joined them and were full members of their missionary church.