Genealogizing Colonial and Indigenous Translations and Publications of the Kumulipo

Abstract

This essay investigates the English translations of the Kumulipo by Queen Lili‘uokalani, Martha Beckwith, and Rubellite Kawena Johnston, as well as the historical contexts of their publication. She questions the continuing distortion of the indigenous claims to sovereignty in the neocolonial production and dissemination of knowledge and highlights the enduring power of the Kumulipo figures in the consciousness of contemporary Kanaka Maoli writers and performers from a US-occupied Hawai‘i.