Kanaka

“ There is nothing the Kanaka can endure less than ridicule. It was not long before much angry talk passed among the sufferers. Manuma was no longer a hero; he had to put up with a good deal of plain speaking, and one day what Walker had suggested came to pass: a heated argument turned into a quarrel and half a dozen of the young men set upon the chief's son and gave him such a beating that for a week he lay bruised and sore on the pandanus mats. He turned from side to side and could find no ease. Every day or two the administrator rode over on his old mare and watched the progress of the road. ”

“ The difficulty that makes his foreign birth a problem is the accepted date of the close of all intercourse with far-away island groups, such as Samoa and Fiji—at least three hundred years earlier than the century assigned to Ke-alii-ai Kanaka.
It would seem best to accept the legend that the degenerate chief was a desperado and an outcast from the high chief family of Waialua, on the northwest coast of Oahu.
Ke-alii-ai Kanaka was a powerful man. He is described as a champion boxer and wrestler. In some way he learned to love the taste of human flesh. ”

“ He was very much surprised to find anyone living in the very depths of the forest, and was going to ask the young girl who she was, when Kadali-Garbha saw her father coming along the path leading to his home. Jumping up, she ran to meet him, glad that he had come; for she had never before seen a young man and was as shy as any of the wild creatures of the woods. Now that Mana Kanaka was with her, she got over her fright, and felt quite safe, clinging to his arm as he and the king talked together. ”

“ Sru nothing—the kanaka girl, she’s a Marayara. Ever heard of them? You get them among the kanakas; every kanaka has a pretty good sense of direction, but a Marayara, take him away from his island and he’ll home back like a pigeon if he has a canoe and can paddle long enough. That island we took the girl from is the pearl island. Born and bred there she was, and it’s her centre of everything. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling, `Banjo Song':
"We've shouted on seven-ounce nuggets,
We've starved on a kanaka's pay."
1893. C. H. Pearson, `National Life and Character,' p.32:
"In Australasia . . . the Maori, the Kanaka, and the Papuan are dying out. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that certain weak races—even when, like the kanaka, they possess some very high qualities—seem to wither away at mere contact with the European. . . . The kanakas (among whom we may include the Maories) ."
Kangaroo, n. (1) an aboriginal word. See Marsupial. ”

“ With a box of tools and a few mighty simple contrivances he had made out to have a devil of a temple. Any poor Kanaka brought up here in the dark, with the harps whining all round him, and shown that smoking face in the bottom of a hole, would make no kind of doubt but he had seen and heard enough devils for a lifetime. It’s easy to find out what Kanakas think. Just go back to yourself any way round from ten to fifteen years old, and there’s an average Kanaka. There are some pious, just as there are pious boys ”

“ A large number of Americans have an entirely wrong interpretation of the word kanaka. In its truest and only sense it means man. It can be interpreted in no other way. In Hawaiian a man is a kanaka, a woman a wahine. The word kane is also often used as man, and coupled with the word keiki—keiki kane—means boy. The Hawaiians have often been referred to as kanakas, which on the mainland has developed into more or less of a slang word to designate the people of the Hawaiian race. ”

“ When there is an easy job in sight, however, Kanakas want to secure it, a majority of territorial positions being filled by natives. There is little initiative in them, and one is safe in asserting that it requires two to do one man's work. Withal, the Kanaka, like other tribes of the Polynesian race, is a very agreeable, peaceable, good-hearted, care-free person.
Panorama of Honolulu, Hawaii. ”

“ That kuki is our own cook, as the Marquesans heard the sailors call him—cooky. Fae is house.
A pipe is paifa (pyfa) , and tobacco paké (pahkay) , rough pronunciations of the English words.
All through Polynesia the generic name among foreigners for a native is Kanaka, which is the Hawaiian word for man, or the human race. The Marquesan man is kenana or enata or enana, and woman vehine. The Tahitians and Hawaiians say taata or tane for man, and vahine or wahine for woman. The French word for Kanaka is canaque. This word is opprobrious or not according to the degree of civilization. ”

“ A ‘Tabooed Kanaka’ is an islander whose person has been made to a certain extent sacred by the operation of a singular custom hereafter to be explained.
The intercourse occurring with Europeans being so restricted, no wonder that the inhabitants of the valley manifested so much curiosity with regard to us, appearing as we did among them under such singular circumstances. I have no doubt that we were the first white men who ever penetrated thus far back into their territories, or at least the first who had ever descended from the head of the vale. ”

“ Every sort of kahuna was at bottom and in some regard a priest, his special department being indicated by a qualifying word, as kahuna anaana, sorcerer, kahuna kalai wa’a, canoe-maker.
Kai (pr. kye) —the ocean; salty. I-kai, to the ocean; ma-kai, at the ocean.
Kakaolelo (ka-ká-o-lé-lo) —one skilled in language; a rhetorician; a councilor (p. 98) .
Kamapua’a (Ká-ma-pu-a’a) —literally the hog-child; the mythological swine-god, whose story is connected with that of Pele (p. 231) .
Kanaka, (ka-ná-ka) —a man; a commoner as opposed to the alii. Kanaka (ká-na-ka) , men in general; the human race. ”

“ The first six months of the Kanaka's exile are peculiarly perilous for him because of the rigors of the new climate. The death-rate among the new men has reached as high as 180 in the 1,000. In the Kanaka's native home his death-rate is 12 in time of peace, and 15 in time of war. Thus exile to Queensland—with the opportunity to acquire civilization, an umbrella, and a pretty poor quality of profanity—is twelve times as deadly for him as war. ”

“ Few Americans go into this work now, although a number did in years past start out as time-keepers and have become managers. The Kanaka does not make a good manager, but if he has some one to direct him he works well, and he can learn almost any trade; of course he is at his best as a sailor, and he is such a wonderful rider that he makes an excellent cowboy.
At Waialua there is a small hospital where the labourers are treated free, and in at least one of the outlying camps there is a small cottage that is used as a dispensary. ”

“ Kanaka.—An exogamous sept of Badagas of the Nīlgiris. [150]
Kanakkan.—Kanakkan is a Tamil accountant caste, corresponding to the Oriya Korono. In an account thereof, in the North Arcot Manual, Mr. H. A. Stuart writes that they are “found chiefly in the districts of North Arcot, South Arcot, and Chingleput. The name is derived from the Tamil word kanakku, which means an account. They were employed as village accountants by the ancient kings. ”

“ All the coloured individuals that I have had to do with have amply repaid any little kindness shown them with fidelity and affection, but especially has this been the case with Kanakas, The soft and melodious language spoken by them is easy to acquire, and is so pleasant to speak that it is well worth learning, to say nothing of the convenience to yourself, although the Kanaka speedily picks up the mutilated jargon which does duty for English on board ship. ”

“ The worshipers of Kane were called “he papa laa” or “he papa Kane.” Those who worshiped images were called “he pae kii,” and those who worshiped nobody were called “he laa-luau.” The “laa-luau” were godless people, and in the time of Wakea and Papa, the first chiefs of the iku-nuu in this country, a number of worthless kapus were introduced to support the wickedness of Wakea.
In very olden times no human sacrifices were offered to Kane. “He kapu ke kanaka na Kane” was the settled law of that time, because the kanaka was considered sacred to Kane and like unto him. ”

“ The foreigner gave them a bottle with a writing in it, bidding them swear that they would put it on his grave or he would haunt them. Then he died, and the Kanakas buried him, and having placed this object on the grave as he had ordered, fled from the island in the ship!'
“The fat man spat. 'Who shall believe a Kanaka?' he said contemptuously.
“'The foreigner was the only white man with these natives,' argued Neque. 'They feared him, and they did as he bade them lest his spirit should torment them. ”

“ In the Hawaiian language, Kanaka means man, and Wahine means woman, but all Hawaiians, both men and women, are called Kanakas by the white people, so the word is generally understood to mean native Hawaiian. ”

“ All things were so strange, so delightful, especially the lovable, lazy, fascinating Kanakas, who could be so limply happy over a dish of poi, or a green cocoa-nut, or even a lounge in the sun, that it seemed an outrage to expect them to work. In their sports they could be energetic enough. ”

“ KANAKA, a Polynesian word meaning “man,” used by Polynesians to describe themselves. Its ethnical value, never great, has been entirely destroyed by its indiscriminate use by the French to describe all South Sea islanders, whether black or brown. ”

“ He feels no shame at his nakedness and want of adornment. When he returns home he does so well dressed, sporting a Waterbury watch, collars, cuffs, boots, and jewelry. He takes with him one or more boxes— ["Box" is English for trunk.] —well filled with clothing, a musical instrument or two, and perfumery and other articles of luxury he has learned to appreciate."
For just one moment we have a seeming flash of comprehension of, the Kanaka's reason for exiling himself: he goes away to acquire civilization. ”

“ A name for Canarese.
Kanaka.
Native name for “man” in New Zealand, and applied to natives of the Sandwich Is.; but Tangata is the word more general in all other islands. Compare the African word “Kanyika,” and the American “Kenneka.” The language of the Sandwich Is. is closely allied to the Maori. See Hawaian.
Kanam, Kanem.
African: a district of Bornui, having the Kanuri and Tibbu in its area.
Kanawari, see Kunawari.
Kanchi, Kasnas.
American: sub-dialects of the Aymara.
Kandokov, Kondakov.
Turkish, classed as a sub-dialect of Koibal. ”

“ The natives had a romantic fashion of burying some of their children alive when the family became larger than necessary. The missionaries interfered in this matter too, and stopped it.
To this day the natives are able to lie down and die whenever they want to, whether there is anything the matter with them or not. If a Kanaka takes a notion to die, that is the end of him; nobody can persuade him to hold on; all the doctors in the world could not save him. ”

“ Neither of them could get near a whale again, and as for the third mate, nobody seemed to know what had happened to him, except that he did not appear to have even located a whale, but ambled about like a man in a dream. Take it all round, the morning’s work, as far as the old hands were concerned, was a matter to be forgotten as soon as [Pg 109] possible. But that the despised Kanaka, as those fancy-coloured Portuguese called him, the soft greenie, the everything of contumely their narrow coarse minds could suggest, should succeed where they had failed was enough to goad them to madness. ”

“ So well did they succeed in this, and also in civilizing the kanaka, that by the second or third generation he was practically extinct. This being the fruit of the seed of the Gospel, the fruit of the seed of the missionaries (the sons and the grandsons) was the possession of the islands themselves,—of the land, the ports, the town sites, and the sugar plantations: The missionary who came to give the bread of life remained to gobble up the whole heathen feast. ”

“ I don't say the Kanakas do anything they shouldn't, except get drunk, and joy-ride down waterfalls, and keep up an infernal tom-toming. But it sort of gets on your nerves. And I wouldn't call Naapu straitlaced, either. Everybody seems to feel called on to liquor up, this time o' year. If it isn't one pretext it's another. Things folks have been kind of hesitating over, in the name of morals, they start out and perform, regardless. The authorities, they get worried because a Kanaka's spree lands him, like as not, in a blackbirder. Mighty queer craft hang round at this season. ”

“ I was told during a motor tour of the Island by what is called "road," though it more closely resembles a coral switchback—"as queer as its people until you come to know them. But try and remember yourself at the age of thirteen, and you have the average adult Kanaka. Several of them joined up voluntarily with the Maori contingent during the war, and wear service ribbons in their hair if they can find no other place for them.
"Disease is our great trouble. The Niuéan has always been a born wanderer, and he brings things back with him ”

“ One fact in itself speaks volumes. Two-thirds of the Kanakas now in Queensland are time-expired. Most of them have been home and have re-engaged for a second term of service. Some have preferred never to leave the colony.
It has been said that the system is liable to abuse, that as a matter of fact Kanakas do not know where they are coming nor what they are coming for, and that they are not returned to their own island, but to any island which happens to be most convenient. ”