The Geographic Imaginary in Hawaiian Music Culture

Abstract

In this thesis I examined a select and limited corpus of place-specific music, mele pana, composed for Hilo, Hawaiʻi. After a brief history of Hilo and Hawaiian Music Culture, the corpus is introduced with information about the lyricists, musicians, and circumstances surrounding each composition. In a comparison of traditional themes with themes from the small Hilo corpus I have specified tropes that provide a broad characterization of the place, that Native Hawaiians identify with as present and past culture. I addressed concepts of place-making and identity, symbolic resistance, and celebrating survival as they concern issues of the Native Hawaiian's loss of land, culture, and identity brought about by Western hegemony, colonization and imperialism. Mele pana is perhaps the most significant feature of the Native Hawaiian's culture, one that addresses directly their cultural and physical geography. The geographic imaginary provides continuity in which Native Hawaiians, through their lyrics and music, may conceptually view their landscape and place as their ancestors did in ancient times.