Dream islands and island dreams: Hawaiʻi and Berlin
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Fading dreams and new recollections (4)
Dreams and reality are usually seen as opposites. However, a closer look reveals that our own ideas, preconceptions and dreams also influence our perception of reality. The more distant things, processes and people are from us in space or time, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish facts from ideas.
Abbildung 1 Hula noho
When Harry Maitey, as the first Hawaiian, arrived in Prussia, ideas of the Paradise-like South Sea Islands had already been formed by the
descriptions of voyages to previously unknown parts of the world. However, these reports were never able to paint a detailed overall picture
and were also influenced by the views of the people giving them. Now the “Mentor”, returning from her circumnavigation of the globe, not only brought “stuff made from tree bark […], drinking vessels made from gourds” and “helmets made from reeds” from Hawaiʻi to Berlin, but also a “Sandwich Islander” in person, who had “already become completely accustomed to the European way of life”. In the “Voss’s Newspaper” of October 18, 1824, it was also reported what an impression this young man made when he was invited to sing:
“When he sang, he sat on a chair and made lively movements with his hands, and it seemed remarkable to me that he often struck his heart with his right hand, while he never touched his right side with his left. His singing was limited to only four or five notes, and the words seemed to consist mainly of the sounds ae, i and o, his voice has nothing buzzing about it, one could call it a pleasant tenor voice, but the performance of the singing with these strange movements made quite the impression of seeing a madman.”
This description shows that Harry Maitey introduced the Berlin audience to a hula that was danced sitting down (hula noho), because the
described movements of the hands follow the rules for performing the hula that are still applied today.
Abbildung 2 “Acta concerning the Sandwich Islander Harry Maitey brought in by the sea trading vessel Mentor”
What image of the distant islands could interested Berliners draw from all this? Although the report quoted in the “Voss’s Newspaper” of October 18, 1824 and the surviving documents in the files of the “Prussian Shipping Trade Society” and the “ Royal Civil Cabinet” describe some details such as the expenses for shoemakers or a report from the director of the “Boarding School in front of the Halle Gate” that Maitey’s progress in German and religion was “not the most brilliant”, they hardly allow any conclusions to be drawn about the young man’s daily life.
The two drawings made by Johann Gottfried Schadow in October 1824 give us an idea of Maitey’s appearance. But it is not known why he
omitted the tattoo on the young Hawaiian’s face. Was his interest in physiognomy the reason or was there another intention behind it, as
described by the artist Guillaume Bruère?
Abbildung 3 Feather cloak (ʻahu ʻula) of King Kamehameha I.
It is to the great credit of Anneliese W. Moore that she has meticulously analyzed the files on the “Sandwich Islander”. At the same time, these files offer few clues for describing Harry Maitey as a person and his character. Moore’s biographical essay “Harry Maitey: From Polynesia to Prussia” therefore also shows in an impressive way how the intercultural experiences of her life in Hawaiʻi enabled her to get closer to Maitey as a person. One example of this is her interpretation that the young Harry understood the relationship with Christian Rother as a typical adoption (hānai) in Hawaiʻi. However, it remains questionable whether this transfer to other events on record can stand up to closer examination. Moore attributes the incident described in the files, in which Maitey had behaved inappropriately in Rother’s opinion and for which he was to be punished, to an unexpected confrontation between Maitey and the feather cloak (ʻahuʻula) of Kamehameha I on display at the Prussian Shipping Trade Society. It was a gift from King Kamehameha III Kauikeaouli to Frederick
William III and arrived in Hamburg on the Princess Louise in 1829, before traveling on to Berlin. However, there is no mention of the feather cloak in the records at the passage cited by Anneliese W. Moore.
Abbildung 4 King David Kalākaua, painting in the Blue Salon of the ʻIolani Palace (William F. Cogswell)
Also, the question as to why Harry Maitey did not take advantage of the opportunities to return to his homeland with the “Princess Louise” in 1825 and 1830, but remained in Prussia and finally started a family with Dorothea Charlotte Becker, cannot be answered on the basis of the files. His life on the Pfaueninsel and later in Klein-Glienicke probably went unnoticed in Berlin outside the court bureaucracy. He is not mentioned in the newspapers on the occasion of King Kalākaua’s visit in 1881 and it is also not known whether his widow and his son Heinrich Wilhelm Eduard met the Hawaiian king.
However, the “Sandwich Islander” had not only disappeared from public memory by the end of the 19th century. Even Johann Friedrich Meuß, who consulted the archives for his article in the “Hohenzollern Yearbook” 1912 on the “Relations of King Frederick William III and King Frederick William IV with Kamehameha III of Hawaii” , was mistaken in his assumption:
“Since the records do not contain any royal provisions about theHawaiian, it can be assumed that he returned to his homeland on the sea
trading ship “Princess Louise”, which was sent on the same voyage in 1825.”
Oral traditions about Maitey’s origins or his original name “Kaparena” appeared in magazine articles written by Caesar von der Ahé in the early 1930s. Some of these go back to Eduard Maitey, who died in 1906, and cannot be confirmed by other sources.
Half a century later, Niklaus R. Schweizer not only made Anneliese W. Moore’s study known in the German-speaking world, but also placed the story of the first Hawaiian in a larger cultural-historical framework in his publication “Hawaiʻi and the German speaking peoples”.
Like Anneliese W. Moore, he not only taught for many years at the University of Hawaiʻi in Mānoa, but also studied the Hawaiian language and culture.
In Berlin and Brandenburg, Michael Seiler, Director of Horticulture at the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, ensured that Harry Maitey was not forgotten. When he gave a lecture on the first Hawaiian in Prussia in the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation’s series “Transatlantic Travelers – Extraordinary Transatlantic Lives from the 18th to 21st Centuries” at the “European Academy Berlin” on June 10, 2008, the program also included a performance of Hawaiian hula by the group “No Ka Hoʻomanaʻo Ana Ia Berlin” (In Memory of Berlin). Michael Seiler remarked afterwards: “Now I understand this description in the ‘Voss’s Newspaper’”. He thus encouraged some members of the group to take acloser look at this extraordinary life story that spanned Hawaiʻi and Berlin.
Abbildung 5 Hula kahiko, Hālau o Kekuhi at the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo, Hawaiʻi
Hawaiian hula uses chants, hand gestures and body movements to tell stories that have been passed down over many generations. It is therefore Hawaiʻi’s most important cultural heritage and, together with the Hawaiian language, has been revitalized since the 1970s in the
Abbildung 6 Honolulu harbor around 1827
“Hawaiian Renaissance”, not only in today’s US state. With the support of Hawaiian teachers (kumu hula), hula schools (hālau hula) have also been established in Californian cities, Japan and Europe. In spring 2012, Kumu Frank Kaʻananā Akima visited “No Ka Hoʻomanaʻo Ana Ia Berlin” for the first time and was guided by members of the group to Harry Maitey’s grave at Nikolskoe Cemetery.
Since in Hawaiʻi new hula are emerging alongside the preservation of the traditional repertoire of ancient dances, the group already had the idea of honoring Harry Maitey with a so-called name song (mele inoa). After the visit at the grave Frank Kaʻananā Akima was deeply moved and requested to describe Maitey as a person and the outstanding events of his life. Aki Dinda and Hapi Hermann took this description with them when they visited Honolulu in the spring of 2013 and, together with Kumu Ka‘ananā, first wrote the English lyrics of a song in honor of the first Hawaiian who came to Berlin on April 15, 2013. Leimomi Akana and Kiele Gonzalez then translated the text into Hawaiian. The composition of the chant in traditional style (kahiko) and the choreography were provided by Kumu Ka‘ananā.
Abbildung 6 Honolulu harbor around 1827“He mele no Harry Maitey” (A song in honor of Harry Maitey) was first publicly performed in 2015 by “No Ka Hoʻomanaʻo Ana Ia Berlin”
Abbildung 7 Nēnē
Abbildung 8 Harry Maitey’s grave: Inscription for himself and his wife
in the presence of Kumu Frank Kaʻananā Akima at the Tempelhof Field. The first verse describes the journey from Honolulu to Prussia and is repeated after the fourth verse:
Eʻe i ka moku eʻike i ke ao …
Board this ship to see the world …
Liholiho and Kamāmalu have already started the journey before …
What will his eyes see?
In the second verse, Harry Maitey is described as a young man presenting songs from his homeland:
He keiki ʻoluʻolu…
A gentle child from the Sandwich Islands, an inquisitive child,
he tells the knowledge of his country in song,
his heart trembles and is filled with love.
Abbildung 7 NēnēMaitey not only spent many years on Peacock Island, but was also reminded of his homeland in the summer of 1834 when the “Princess
Louise” brought back Hawaiian geese from her third circumnavigation of the world:
ʻO Peacock Island …
The Peacock Island is a pearl among the summer residences of the
Prussian nobility,
a home surrounded by fragrant flowers and plants from foreign lands,
the trees shade proud peacocks and rare Nēnē geese,
a gift from the homeland of the man from the Sandwich Islands.
Abbildung 8 Harry Maitey’s grave: Inscription for himself and his wifeIn the fourth verse, the inscription on the grave is quoted and thememories of him are described:
Paʻa ʻia ma ka pōhaku ilina…
The gravestone bears the inscription:
“Here rests under the protection of God the man from the Sandwich
Islands, Maitey”,
a gentle man from the islands he sang about.
His path was followed in Prussia and his experiences were understood.
The last sentence is a reference to the Hawaiian Jony Kahopimeai, who was also accommodated for a few months in the “Boarding School in front of the Halle Gate”, and also honors him as an important conversation partner of Wilhelm von Humboldt. With “He mele no Harry Maitey”, in addition to the various traces that the life of this Hawaiian left behind in documents and other written records, there is a tribute to him with the poetic means of Hawaiian and through the expression of the traditional language of hula. The process of cultural appropriation of his history with the help of linguistic exchange between people in Hawaiʻi and Germany is complemented by a shared
understanding in which new trans-cultural forms emerge from cultural experiences and different methods of dealing with cultural heritage. For the performance of “He mele no Harry Maitey”, for example, a song and a chant were selected to complement the hula, referring to the cultural exchange with Hawai’i and the “Hawaiian Renaissance”.
The hymn “Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau” is sung to a melody that goes back to the 16th century Genevan Psalter and is known in the English-speaking world as “Old Hundreth”. In Berlin, it has been recorded in hymnals since the 16th century. The text is a translation of a verse of the hymn “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” and was written by the missionary Hiram Bingham. After the traditional kapu system and religion were largely abolished in 1819 under the young King Liholiho initiated by his mother Keōpūolani and the regent Kaʻahumanu, the spread and mostly voluntary adoption of Christianity among the Hawaiians began with the arrival of missionaries in 1820. With the Hawaiian written language for the propagation of the Bible and Hawaiian hymns, the missionaries simultaneously established a foundation for the preservation of the language alongside the oral tradition. With the beginning of the “Hawaiian Renaissance”, these written resources could also be used for the revival of the Hawaiian language and culture. In the process, new chants were created, such as the song “E hō mai”, written by Edith Kanakaʻole, which is used to ask for insight and knowledge at the start of an activity. In the performance of “He mele no Harry Maitey”, it serves as a song that is not danced to (oli).
Just as dreams and imaginations form entire stories from individual details of memory and incomplete information, “He mele no Harry
Maitey” offers a poetic image of the man from Hawaiʻi–“ke kanaka Sandwich Islands”, as the song says. His life in Berlin, on Peacock Island
and in Klein-Glienicke has left traces that for some are associated with dream islands and island dreams … for others they provide understanding (ʻike) for this life of the first Hawaiian in Prussia.
Illustration credits
Dancer, Sandwich Islands, Nicolas Eustache Maurin after Jacques Arago, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https:/ commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: %27Femme_dansant,_Iles_Sandwich %27_by_Jacques_Arago,_published_1840.jpg
“Acta concerning the Sandwich Islander Harry Maitey brought back by the sea trading vessel Mentor”, I. HA Rep. 109 B, Tit. 4, Nr. 11, Public Domain Mark 1.0 (PDM) cf. https://gsta.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/nutzung/digitalisatbestellung/bildrechte.html
ʻahuʻulaof Kamehameha I, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Sammlungen Online, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum / Claudia Obrocki CC BY- SA 4.0, https://id.smb.museum/object/736660.
Official painting of King David Kalākaua by William Cogswell, currently displayed in the Blue Room of ʻIolaniPalace, William F. Cogswell / Public domain; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kalakaua,_painting_by_William_Cogswell,_Iolani_Palace.jpg
“Hula kahiko, Hālau o Kekuhi at the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo, Hawaiʻi”, © CC BY-SA Thomas Tunsch / Hula dancers (DSC9108).jpg (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hula_dancers_(DSC9108).jpg
“Entrance to the Port of Honolooloo in the Island of Wahoo, One of the Sandwich Islands“, ca. 1827, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki File:Entrance_to_the_Port_of_Honolooloo_in_the_Island_of_Wahoo,_One_of_the_Sandwich_Islands.jpg
Nēnē (Branta sandvicensis), DickDaniels (http://carolinabirds.org/) / CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>;
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nene_kauai_RWD.jpg
“Harry Maitey’s grave: Inscription for himself and his wife”, © CC BY-SA Thomas Tunsch / Harry Maitey Grave a0008621.jpg (Wikimedia
Commons) / CC BY-SA 4.0<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki File:Harry_Maitey_Grave_a0008621.jpg
References
Historical sources
Acta betreffend den durch das Seehandlungsschiff Mentor mitgebrachtenSandwich-Insulaner Harry Maitey /: am 23ten April 1830 getauft und die Namen erhalten Heinrich Wilhelm Maitey, 1824-1833. I. HA Rep. 109 B, Tit. 4, Nr. 11. Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Acta betr. den Sandwich-Insulaner Harry Maitay /: 1824-1827 /: GeheimeCabinets-Registratur, 1824-1833, 1872. I. HA Rep. 89, Nr. 3332.
Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Langbecker, Emanuel Christian Gottlob. Gesang-Blätter aus dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert: mit einer kurzen Nachricht vom ersten Anfang
des evangelischen Kirchenliedes und dem Entstehen der Gesang-Blätter nebst einer Literatur derselben aus dieser Zeit. Berlin: Sander, 1838.
“Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau”. Text: Hiram Bingham, Tune: “Old Hundreth” by Louis Bourgeois. https://www.huapala.org/ChristReligious/Hoonani_Ka_Makua.html, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genfer_Melodie_zum_134._Psalm
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Moore, Anneliese W. “Harry Maitey: From Polynesia to Prussia”. In: Hawaiian Journal of History 11 (1977): 125–161.
Nevermann, Hans W. „Zur Geschichte des hawaiischen Federmantels“. Baessler-Archiv 1=26.1952 (1952): 83–85.
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Schweizer, Niklaus R. „Hawaiʻi und die deutschsprachigen Völker“. Bern; Las Vegas: Lang, 1982; also: “Hawaiʻi and the German speaking peoples, Hawaiʻi a me ka poʻe o nāʻāina Kelemānia”. Honolulu, Hawaii: TopgallantPub. Co, 1982.
„Über den Unterschied der Gesichtszüge im Menschen“, Ausstellung (Guillaume Bruère – GIOM), 19. Oktober 2016 bis 23. April 2017.
https://www.bundestag.de/besuche/ausstellungen/kunst_ausst/bruere- schadow-inhalt-461998.
