The Dread Taboo, Human Sacrifice, and Pearl Harbor

Abstract

Three events literally put the Hawaiian Islands on the map: the death of Captain Cook, the overthrow of the kapu system, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. These events are also signposts in a circular movement of power out of the hands of Hawaiians and into the hands of Euro-Americans. Starting with the bombing of Kealakekua Bay by Cook's ships and culminating in US martial law over the islands after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the power to proclaim kapu shifted from the Hawaiian ali'i to a new "ali'i" composed of the US government and its military. The use of symbolic landscapes to reify power similarly moved from Hawaiian heiau to American war memorials. Using the word and concept of kapu (taboo) as a trail marker, this change in politic is re-read to reveal the western appropriation of an "oppressive" power once allegedly held, in western discourse, by the Hawaiian ali'i. This very allegation at once justifies and mystifies the shift of power into western hands.