listening to leoiki:

engaging sources in hawaiian history

noelani arista

Leoiki means small voice. Leoiki is also the name of a woman who becomes
a central figure in my retelling of a familiar history, that of an “outrage,” an
armed assault on an American mission station in Lahaina, Maui in October
1825 by a mob of English and American sailors.
Leoiki was one of many Hawaiian women sold or traded to foreign sailors
and ship captains in the Hawaiian Islands since the late eighteenth century
“discovery” of Captain James Cook had sketched Hawai‘i in amidst the Pacif-
ic waste of ocean that had formerly taken up space on Euro-American maps.
Whaling ships began to arrive in Hawai‘i in 1819, their numbers increasing
yearly, part of what would, in a decade or so, become a vast New England
whaling fleet hunting the ocean from Hawai‘i to Aotearoa.
In placing Leoiki at the center of this history, I think about the uncanny
symbolism of her name—small voice—and how the story of her life has been
forgotten to Hawaiian memory and history. Writing Leoiki back into history
is important because it became apparent through my research that hers is the
center of a larger story about the ways in which Hawaiian history has been
written over the last two hundred years. Considering Leoiki’s story will also
suggest to scholars particular ways of approaching and reading sources.
By 1825 Hawai‘i was a favored stopping point for ships of different na-
tions in the North Pacific. New England and English merchant vessels were
already commonplace visitors to the islands, engaging in the mostly triangular
trade between the Northwest coast of North America, Hawai‘i, and China.
Sometime between March and October of 1825, a kapu prohibiting
women from going out to ships for the purpose of prostitution was proclaimed
by the ali‘i (Hawaiian chiefs), altering that familiar traffic of the burgeoning
Pacific seaport towns. Enraged that they could not cajole, coax, or coerce Ha-
waiian women into violating the kapu, the sailors turned their frustrations on
Biography 32.1 (Winter 2009) © Biographical Research Center
 Arista, Listening to Leoiki 67

the American missionaries, whom they blamed for the emergence of this new
unreasonably strict moral law.
Writing on November 30, 1825, to the home office of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Boston, the Rev.
William Richards, the object of the October “outrage,” provided a vivid de-
scription of the attack on his home and family by a mob of sailors made up
mostly of crew members from the Daniel IV, a British whaleship. Richards’s
letter also revealed that the captain of the whaleship, William Buckle, had
purchased a Hawaiian woman on his last visit to the islands in March 1825,
seven months prior to the outrage. Rather than simply hiring the services of a
prostitute while the ship was in port, Buckle had purchased Leoiki from the
Governess of Maui, Wahinepi‘o, after a week of negotiation. The terms of
the verbal agreement were such that Buckle was granted permission to keep
Leoiki on his ship from March to October 1825, but was required to return
her to Lahaina at voyage’s end.
Richards’s letter describing the outrage and the sale of Leoiki was pub-
lished in the Missionary Herald, the monthly magazine of the missionary so-
ciety that kept charitable-minded American Christians abreast of the prog-
ress of the Gospel, and of their financial and spiritual investment in heathen
lands (“Outrage”). In letters and official reports, the story of this “outrage”
against missionaries found its way from the Pacific to New England. The
story was also picked up by several American newspapers—the Hampshire
Gazette, the Farmer’s Cabinet, and the New Hampshire Sentinel, to name just
a few (“Sandwich Islands”).
From direct correspondence between the Sandwich Islands Mission and
the London Missionary Society, Rev. Richards’s story would eventually find
its way to the British secular press, repeating the process of publication that
had just occurred across the Atlantic (Bingham et al., Letter). Members of
Buckle’s family became alarmed by the news, and notified him that his seem-
ingly unseen actions oceans away could be brought to life in the animated and
judgment-laden prose of missionary witnesses whose letters were read, and in
whispered tones repeated, in the streets near home.
A year and a half passed before Captain Buckle got wind of the published
accounts which told of his actions. Instead of describing the woman sold as
simply a “mistress on board,”1 as Richards had, a joint letter composed by the
Honolulu-based missionaries accused Buckle of purchasing a “female slave”
(Bingham et al., “Outrage”). It was this letter, rather than Richards’s ac-
count, that was published and republished in America. Arriving in Honolulu
in October of 1827, after yet another six months of whaling, Captain Buckle
sought the assistance of the English Consul Richard Charlton in bringing a
68 Biography 32.1 (Winter 2009)

charge of libel against Rev. Richards for the almost certain damage the accu-
sation caused to his public reputation, and for the explanations he must of-
fer to his employers, friends, and family back in England. The charge of libel
brought personally against Rev. Richards would be an important line of de-
fense for Captain Buckle against the very serious accusation of slavery that the
joint letter raised. The English Consul informed Richards of the severity of
the charge, since “the purchasing of any person, male or female by any British
subject serving on board of any ship, even for the purpose of liberating them
from slavery is an act of piracy and punishable with death without benefit of
clergy” (Richards, 6 Dec. 1827).
To protect himself against the charge of libel, Rev. Richards collected
official statements—certificates recorded under oath—from Hawaiian and
Tahitian eyewitnesses to the sale of Leoiki by the chiefess Wahinepi‘o. These
certificates are among the first legal documents produced in Hawai‘i, and
were recorded in Hawaiian and English (Certificates).
Still, as important as the depositions were in exonerating Rev. Rich-
ards of libel, they are marked by a profound absence, for Leoiki refused to
give sworn testimony about whether or not she was sold to Captain Buckle
by Wahinepi‘o. If the aim of my historical project was to look for Leoiki’s
“voice,” that voice would not be found in any of the usual archival sources,
and certainly not among these certificates. Fortunately, an archivist friend
of mine, Kanani Reppun, happened to locate by accident Leoiki’s genealogy
while providing assistance and expertise to a colleague at Kawaiaha‘o Church.
I could tell from the testimony of the chief Hoapili that Leoiki had conceived
a child from her five month journey with Captain Buckle. While Hoapili not-
ed that, “the child of the bargain is big,” he provided no information about
that child’s name. The offspring of Leoiki and Captain Buckle was not men-
tioned in any of the conventional sources I had found. Indeed, most of the
missionary correspondence—letters, journals, and reports—was concerned
with the wrong done and the threats made against the lives and property of
American missionaries. The outrages did not concern the “female inmates,”
“the slaves,” nor the “prostitutes” themselves; instead, the outrages were com-
mitted by transient foreigners—American and English sailors—against for-
eign settlers—American missionaries who had taken up residence a scant four
and a half years before the kapu was pronounced.
Even the certificates themselves, while frequently describing the sale of
Leoiki and the conversations that occurred with her and about her, work pur-
posefully toward proving Rev. Richards innocent of the charge of libel. For
the most part, the depositions are unconcerned with bringing Captain Buck-
le to account for his purchase of Leoiki, except to demonstrate that such a
 Arista, Listening to Leoiki 69

transaction had taken place. The serendipitous discovery of Leoiki’s genealogy

yielded a startling piece of information that I will argue is the closest thing to
Leoiki’s testimony that we are going to get. According to the genealogy, Leoiki
named this child, a boy, William Wahinepi‘o Kahakuha‘akoi Buckle.2
This is where my practice as a historian is informed by culturally literate
ways of reading Hawaiian texts. We are not going to find Leoiki’s little voice
if we look in all the usual places. And yet, though she declined to provide a
sworn statement, Leoiki “recorded” her testimony in the fine Hawaiian tradi-
tion of naming her child. Most people can understand naming a child after
his father, but why does her son carry both of Wahinepi‘o’s names? Leoiki’s
naming of her son both for the chiefess who sold her and the man who bought
her is an act simultaneously respectful and critical. In Hawaiian custom, chil-
dren are named for ancestors, or in this case, for the chief Leoiki served, as a
way to remember those ancestors coupled with the hope that the child will
be imbued with the spiritual strength, grace, and skill—in other words, the
mana—of those who came before. In this way, parents honor their genealogy
and the legacy of their ancestors in the birth of a new child.
Names can also act as mnemonic devices for the remembrance of stories
and particular events. With William Wahinepi‘o Kahakuhaha‘akoi Buckle
we see both of these modes of meaning making in play. The first would cause
people to hear the name and think that she was honoring her chiefess, hop-
ing for the mana of the ali‘i to be connected to her son, and also hoping that
such a connection would benefit her family. But, if we think about the sec-
ond tradition of memorializing events in names, we see the critical function
of Leoiki’s naming her son after the economic intercourse between her chief-
ess and the child’s father that resulted in his conception.
This kind of culturally literate interpretation of the genealogy-as-source
is invisible to historians who lack Hawaiian cultural and linguistic fluency,
because all they may see when looking at a genealogy are names. But this way
of reading is to some extent also rendered invisible to Hawaiian scholars, be-
cause this way of reading may be so obvious that the writer may overlook the
necessity of unpacking the cultural significance of naming children for events,
or bestowing upon a child a name imbued with mana. Such writers may feel
that these things need not be discussed, written about, or held up as the loca-
tion of Leoiki’s “voice,” due to the commonplace or mundane nature of cer-
tain cultural practices in our community.
I cannot overemphasize the scene I envisioned when I saw this name in
the genealogy for the first time. Young William Wahinepi‘o Kahakuha‘akoi
Buckle is walking through town, on his way to church on Sunday. People stop
to say “aloha” in greeting, and when he continues on his way, the kinds of
70 Biography 32.1 (Winter 2009)

shaking of the head, the whispering in the corner, or the incredulous shrug-
ging that took place in his wake, as the people recounted to themselves and
to each other the story of his mother’s sale and his conception. Each time her
son’s name was spoken, each time he was praised, reprimanded, or called to,
the community was reminded of Leoiki’s story.
With this vision I had a new impetus to look for Leoiki’s canny, intelli-
gent negotiation of an impossible situation in the sources I had already ana-
lyzed. Because of the discovery of her genealogy, I felt compelled to go back
to the depositions and consider trying a fresh approach to their reading. A
deposition by a man named Namale seemed available to a different inter-
pretation than the one I previously constructed. Namale described the ex-
change that took place between Leoiki and the chiefess Wahinepi‘o: “When
she [Leoiki]had been on board two days she came on shore with eight dollars
[dubloons] which she handed to Wahine Pio, saying, here is the money of the
foreigner, he wishes you to give me to him for his—the money is yours, but if
you take it, I am to go with him to a foreign country” (Certificates).
Rather than focusing on Leoiki as someone forced to carry the money
that is her own price between buyer and seller, I want to use Namale’s words
to illuminate the complexities of Leoiki’s relationship to her chiefess. By plac-
ing the money in Wahinepi‘o’s hands, Leoiki “tells us” that she has an in-
timate relationship to the chiefess. We might also then speculate that she is
reminding her chiefess at that moment of the intimacy of their ties through
the casual brush of fingertips across Wahinepi‘o’s palm, or perhaps the tone
in her voice, or the way in which she carried her body in a deferential manner.
Like the naming of her son, these gestures—which included the placing of
money directly into the hand of her chiefess—can be construed also in terms
of both honor and critique, for only the most trusted people are allowed to be
so close to those in power. From Leoiki’s physical proximity to Wahinepi‘o
in this moment, we can infer something of Leoiki’s status and social impor-
tance. While in humbled circumstances in relation to the ali’i, Leoiki’s ges-
ture reminds Wahinepi‘o of the power she wields, but also that the seemingly
absolute power of the ali‘i is tempered by the social mores of kuleana. Name-
ly, if the ali‘i wished to maintain their rule, as well as the hierarchies of power
upon which society was shaped and in which civilization functioned, one of
the duties of the ali‘i was to care for the welfare of the people, those who by
genealogy were imbued with less mana. Several depositions emphasized the
binding nature of the chiefess’s decree; if Wahinepi‘o said that Leoiki had to
go with Captain Buckle, Leoiki could not refuse.
“Here is the money of the foreigner, he wishes you to give me to him for his—
the money is yours, but if you take it I am to go with him to a foreign country.”
 Arista, Listening to Leoiki 71

By introducing another anxiety independent of sex, morality, or the corrosive

influence of money upon Hawaiian society, for the first time a source reveals
Leoiki not as a mistress, or slave, or a thing that is bought or sold. According to
Namale, Wahinepi‘o answered Leoiki by saying, “I shall not give you up, for I
love you. Return the money to the foreigner, for it is money to take you away
forever to a foreign country.” The anxiety that is revealed in Leoiki’s speech
and Wahinepi‘o’s reply is one of alienation from homeland and from her place
in relation to the chiefess. While the specter of being taken away from home
to a foreign place forever may seem like something that doesn’t need interpre-
tation, as a historian I had to think about what tropes or similar events were
narrated in Hawaiian history3 or experience that resonated with her words, to
assist me in understanding what was at the heart of this anxiety, and more im-
portantly, to help me adequately interpret the gravity of this kind of expression.
The technique I have been employing may be counterintuitive to American
historians, but sources in a Hawaiian oral historical context do not function
according to the rules of the contemporary historical profession. Nor can our
methods be employed without attention to the way in which words and speech
were understood and functioned in a Hawaiian context. Words in Hawaiian
oral traditions are imbued with power, or so the ‘ölelo no‘eau (proverb), “I
ka ‘ölelo nö ke ola, i ka ‘ölelo nö ka make” (In speech there is life, in speech
there is death) suggests. Words, proverbs, and idiomatic phrases are freighted
with their past performances, past echoes, and past resonances, and in this way
bear knowledge of past experience that constitutes a collective knowledge, or
knowing. Bundles of meaning, emotions, intelligence, and mana may be ref-
erenced by speakers and writers who choose particular words or phrases, and
by so doing evoke the strength of passed expression, past history. By evoking
or repeating these words or phrases, speakers intentionally connect their expe-
riential moment with that of chiefly or priestly predecessors, with ancestors or
wise individuals, thereby moving forward guided by and drawing upon exam-
ple.4 In this way the trajectory of present action is shaped by past experience,
through the invocation of the spoken word.5
Hawaiians who were trained to have retentive and relational memories
were entrusted with portions of a vast oral tradition. These intellectuals, some
of whom were living before the arrival of Captain Cook and the transforma-
tion of kapu, became recorders and writers when they reproduced in writ-
ten form the mo‘olelo—histories and stories—and all manner of genealogies,
chants, and songs with which they were entrusted. These traditions, pub-
lished or not, were circulated within a vibrant, written nineteenth century
public sphere. In newspapers, manuscripts, letters, and by word of mouth,
these traditions were reproduced, revised, at times synthesized, ma ka ‘ölelo
72 Biography 32.1 (Winter 2009)

Hawai‘i, in Hawaiian language. I read forward chronologically in these sources

to train myself to interpret sources such as the certificates of witnesses to Leo­
iki’s, even though the sources I use to understand this document composed in
1827 may have been written or recorded much later in the century.6
Almost twenty years after Leoiki’s negotiation with Wahinepi‘o, the Rev.
William Richards was dispatched by Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) to Brit-
ain, the United States, France, and Belgium to secure these countries’ rec-
ognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Accompanying him on this journey
in 1842 was Timoteo Ha‘alilio, the Hawaiian chiefly envoy. Experiencing
homesickness and illness abroad, Ha‘alilio wrote to the King expressing his
desire to come home. The King replied that it was better for Ha‘alilio to leave
his bones in a foreign country than to fail in his mission. The idea of dying
abroad, away from friends and family, of leaving one’s bones in foreign soil
with no one to care for them, was a deep-seated anxiety for Hawaiians. Con-
sidering Ha‘alilio and Leoiki’s situations in parallel, although their stories oc-
cur twenty years apart, uncovers a common anxiety about being lost far from
home, forever, and not having anyone to care for your iwi (bones).7 Creative
juxtapositions such as these assist me in understanding what is at stake for
the actors involved, both as individuals and more generally as Hawaiians who
have particular beliefs, behaviors, and cultural knowledge that was passed
down experientially and through oral historical traditions.8
This research on Leoiki as well as my work on other projects have assisted
me in crafting a particular argument or intervention into ways of reading and
writing history that involves a serious consideration of how Hawaiians made
sense of experience, how they made history, and the ways in which we need to
construct historical approaches that account for something more substantial
than the recovery of “native voice.” In order to write Leoiki’s history, I real-
ized the need to learn how to read, interpret, and engage the sources I found.
When we want to frame our historical projects in terms of seeking “native
voice,” Leoiki’s situation within the history of “the outrages” cautions us
about simplistic assumptions about what counts as “voice” in sources, what
counts as “source,” and whether or not we have the cultural and historical
competence to hear and interpret that voice.
notes

1. Richards’s letter was republished in the February 1827 issue of the Missionary Herald
(“Outrage”).
2. In a meeting, descendants of Leoiki and Captain Buckle expressed their doubts about
the validity of the extended genealogy, noting its recent creation by a relative who had
deposited the genealogy at the church archives. However, they agree that the name of the
boy is correct, but should include his middle name, “Kahakuha‘akoi,” to be complete.
 Arista, Listening to Leoiki 73

3. When I say history, I mean the orally and aurally remembered words and experiences
that Hawaiians of the nineteenth century wrote down in processes that have scarcely
been discussed by historians dealing with what they consider non-literate societies.
4. This is another way in which words participate in a religious context in Hawai‘i; the
connectivity of words with the past is one way in which mana is created, increased, and
moved forward.
5. For the purposes of this essay I am not addressing the ways in which this practice also
ensures movement forward and transformation, which it obviously does.
6. It is because of the attention Hawaiians of this time placed upon the spoken word that
I give veracity and equal weight to ear witnessed testimony, as opposed to the emphasis
usually placed in English upon words based on “eye-witnessed” testimony.
7. For Hawaiians and many other Pacific Island peoples, the iwi is the repository of the
mana of an individual. Bones were considered sacred, and the bones of the ali‘i in partic-
ular were ritually prepared after the chief’s death, and hidden to keep them protected.
8. Scholars need to investigate and have more conversations about how orally and aurally
disciplined intellectuals made connections over time, and how they sifted through orally
preserved “sources.” The method I describe attempts to approach the sources in this
same fashion. What may seem like random juxtaposition to scholars unfamiliar with
Hawaiian oral traditions labors under logics that still need to be uncovered, discussed,
and given our serious consideration.

works cited

Bingham, Hiram, Dr. Abraham Blatchely, Levi Chamberlain, Samuel Ruggles, and Elisha
Loomis. Letter to the London Missionary Society. 15 Oct. 1825. Commonwealth Mis-
sionary Society/London Missionary Society South Seas Incoming Correspondence.
School of Oriental and African Studies, U of London.
———. “Outrage of a Whale-ship’s Crewe.” Missionary Herald 22.7 (July 1826): 26–27.
Certificates of several persons respecting Captain Buckle’s purchasing a mistress to accompany
him on a sea voyage. 9 Nov. 1827. ABCFM-HI Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard U.
“From a Correspondent of the New-York Observer (Boston 4 September 1826).” Farmer’s
Cabinet 23 Sept. 1826.
“Missionary Intelligence: Sandwich Islands.” New Hampshire Sentinel 8 June 1827.
Richards, William. Letter to ABCFM. 6 Dec. 1827. ABCFM-HI Papers. Houghton Library,
Harvard U.
———. Letter to Jeremiah Evarts. 30 Nov. 1825. ABCFM-HI Papers. Houghton Library,
Harvard U.
———. “Outrage of the Master and Crew of the English Whaleship Daniel.” Missionary
Herald 23.2 (Feb. 1827): 39–43.
“Sandwich Islands: Extract of a joint letter from Missionaries, dated Oct. 15, 1825.” Hamp-
shire Gazette 12 July 1826.