How Does the Kumulipo Mean?
Date
1995-06-01
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5
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1
Starting Page
53
Ending Page
55
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Abstract
When Queen Lili'uokalani's translation of the Kumulipo was published in 1889
it was called a "genealogical prayer chant" that described the creation of the world.
Later, Pokini Robinson read it as "the conception, gestation, nurture, and achievement
of a chief" (Perkins 1991a:14), a view that swayed Martha Beckwith, the
Vassar College folklorist, who was the first to analyze the Kumulipo as a creation
chant. Rubellite Johnson, the University of Hawaii professor, saw in it a Hawaiian
understanding of biological evolution (Johnson 1985). Theodore Kelsey considered
it "an intrinsic work of art among the greatest yet produced" (Perkins
1991a:24), and Leialoha Apo Perkins, editor of the recently established Journal of
Hawaiian and Pacific Folklore and Folklifi Studies, agrees with him that "the
Kumulipo is a world classic" (Perkins 1990: 18). She has dedicated the first three
volumes of the journal to Kelsey and his lifelong investigators into the meaning of
the poem.
Description
Keywords
poem, Prayer, Chant, Kumulipo, Lili'uokalani, Theodore Kelsey, Phonics, hieroglphics, language, Hawaiian language
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3 pages
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