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Exalted Sits the Chief: The Ancient History of Hawai'i Island. Ross Cordy. Honolulu: Mutual Publishing, 2000.
In Exalted Sits the Chief, Cordy strives "to form an overview of the history of Hawaii Island prior to its unification by Kamehameha in 1792" by "blending archaeology, oral history, and history" (pp. vii, 2). Cordy uses these domains in an additive, descriptive fashion but does not analyze them cohesively to produce new landmark interpretations.
Cordy's opening chapter on c. 1795 Hawai'i Island geography is a useful reference including particulars expected in more specific regional studies. Excellent maps play strong supporting roles here and throughout the book.
Chapter 2, which describes Hawaiian society during Kamehameha's rule, balances generalizations of the society with the diversity of Hawaii Island's geopolitical regions. Cordy skillfully employs historical and archaeological records to substantiate many of his depictions. However, missing among the representations are insights revealing the core traits underlying Hawaiian society, exemplified by Cordy's cursory discussion of the relationship between Hawaiians and their deities-a crucial topic for understanding Hawaiian chiefly life. Also begging greater consideration are debatable stances Cordy adopts. He skirts Stannard's (1989) 800,000-1,000,000 1778 archipelago population estimate and, without explanation, uses 300,000 (p. 49). Cordy also casts doubt on whether labor specialization generally occurred outside "a high chief's or the ruler's court" (p. 54), in opposition to authoritative sources (e.g., Goldman 1970:494; Kamakau 1992:19; Malo 1996:172, 179) and absent justification. He further contends that the extended family or `ohana, as described by Handy and Puku'i (1972), existed nowhere in Hawaii in the late 1700s (p. 53), again without adequate rationale. Such incomplete scholarship is also apparent in this chapter and elsewhere in the form of numerous editorial oversights.
Closing the background section, Cordy evaluates in Chapter 3 the strengths and weaknesses of his sources. Although he offers appropriate cautions about firsthand accounts and oral traditions, his assessment of Hawai'i Island archaeology is insufficient. He ignores the incomplete...