Ancestry of Experience : A Journey Into Hawaiian Ways of Knowing

As Hawaiians continue to recover their language and culture, the voices of __kupuna__ (elders) are heard once again in urban and rural settings, both in Hawai‘i and elsewhere. How do __kupuna__ create knowledge and “tell” history? What do they tell us about being Hawaiian? Adopted by a Midwestern couple in the 1950s as an infant, Leilani Holmes spent much of her early life in settings that offered no clues about her Hawaiian past—images of which continued to haunt her even as she completed a master’s thesis on Hawaiian music and identity in southern California. __Ancestry of Experience__ documents Holmes’ quest to reclaim and understand her own origin story. Holmes writes in two different and at times incongruent voices—one describing the search for her genealogy, the other critiquing Western epistemologies she encounters along the way. In the course of her journey, she finds that Hawaiian oral tradition links identity to the land __(‘aina)__ through ancestry, while traditional, scholarly theories of knowing (particularly political economy and the discourse of the invention of tradition) textually obliterate land and ancestry. In interviews with __kupuna,__ Holmes learns of the connectedness of spirituality and __‘aina;__ through her study and practice of __hula kahiko__ comes an understanding of ancient hula as a conversation between __‘aina__ and the dancer’s body that has the power to activate historical memory. Holmes’ experience has special relevance for indigenous adoptees and indigenous scholars: Both are distanced from the knowledge agendas and strategies of their communities and are tasked to speak in languages ill-suited to the telling of their own stories and those of their ancestors. In addition to those with an interest in Hawaiian knowledge and culture, __Ancestry of Experience__ will appeal to readers of memoirs of identity, academic and personal accounts of racial identity formation, and works of indigenous epistemologies. A website (www.ancestryofexperience.com) will include supplementary material. As Hawaiians continue to recover their language and culture, the voices ofkupuna(elders) are heard once again in urban and rural settings, both in Hawai'i and elsewhere. How dokupunacreate knowledge and "tell" history? What do they tell us about being Hawaiian? Adopted by a Midwestern couple in the 1950s as an infant, Leilani Holmes spent much of her early life in settings that offered no clues about her Hawaiian past-images of which continued to haunt her even as she completed a master's thesis on Hawaiian music and identity in southern California. Ancestry of Experience documents Holmes' quest to reclaim and understand her own origin story.Holmes writes in two different and at times incongruent voices-one describing the search for her genealogy, the other critiquing Western epistemologies she encounters along the way. In the course of her journey, she finds that Hawaiian oral tradition links identity to the land('aina)through ancestry, while traditional, scholarly theories of knowing (particularly political economy and the discourse of the invention of tradition) textually obliterate land and ancestry. In interviews withkupuna,Holmes learns of the connectedness of spirituality and'aina;through her study and practice ofhula kahikocomes an understanding of ancient hula as a conversation between'ainaand the dancer's body that has the power to activate historical memory.Holmes' experience has special relevance for indigenous adoptees and indigenous scholars: Both are distanced from the knowledge agendas and strategies of their communities and are tasked to speak in languages ill-suited to the telling of their own stories and those of their ancestors. In addition to those with an interest in Hawaiian knowledge and culture,Ancestry of Experiencewill appeal to readers of memoirs of identity, academic and personal accounts of racial identity formation, and works of indigenous epistemologies. A website (www.ancestryofexperience.com) will include supplementary material.33 illus

Rewriting Medieval Japanese Women explores the world of thirteenth-century Japan through the life of a prolific noblewoman known as Nun Abutsu (1225-1283). Abutsu crossed gender and genre barriers by writing the first career guide for Japanese noblewomen, the first female-authored poetry treatise, and the first poetic travelogue by a woman - all despite the increasingly limited social mobility for women during the Kamakura era (1185-1336). Capitalizing on her literary talent and political prowess, Abutsu rose from middling origins and single-motherhood to a prestigious marriage and membership in an esteemed literary lineage.

Abutsu's life is well documented in her own letters, diaries, and commentaries, as well as in critiques written by rivals, records of poetry events, and legal documents. Drawing on these and other literary and historiographical sources, including The Tale of Genji, author Christina Laffin demonstrates how medieval women responded to institutional changes that transformed their lives as court attendants, wives, and nuns. Despite increased professionalization of the arts, competition over sources of patronage, and rivaling claims to literary expertise, Abutsu proved her poetic capabilities through her work and often used patriarchal ideals of femininity to lay claim to political and literary authority.

This book effectively challenges notions that literary salons in Japan were a phenomenon limited to the Heian period (794-1185) and that literary writing and scholarship were the domain of men during the Kamakura era. Its analysis of literary works within the context of women's history makes clear the important role that medieval women and their cultural contributions continued to play in Japanese history.

Acknowledgments Contents Photos Preface Introduction 1. Searching Through Texts Texting Memory 2. Viewfinders View from Outside 3. Dig Up Our Voices Kalo and Her 'Ohana 4. We Will Manifest Aunty Limu and Aunty Lau 5. Place of Confluence Tūtū 'Ōhi'a and the Kā'ai 6. The Ancestry of Experience: Ha'ina the Experience of Ancestry: Kaona Conclusion Bones and Voices Appendix A Cast of Characters Appendix B A Hula for Aunty Mena Notes Glossary References Index