The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History

by Noenoe K. Silva

In The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen Noenoe K. Silva reconstructs the indigenous intellectual history of a culture where—using Western standards—none is presumed to exist. Silva examines the work of two lesser-known Hawaiian writers—Joseph Ho‘ona‘auao Kānepu‘u (1824–ca. 1885) and Joseph Moku‘ōhai Poepoe (1852–1913)—to show how the rich intellectual history preserved in Hawaiian-language newspapers is key to understanding Native Hawaiian epistemology and ontology. In their newspaper articles, geographical surveys, biographies, historical narratives, translations, literatures, political and economic analyses, and poetic works, Kānepu‘u and Poepoe created a record of Hawaiian cultural history and thought in order to transmit ancestral knowledge to future generations. Celebrating indigenous intellectual agency in the midst of US imperialism, The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen is a call for the further restoration of native Hawaiian intellectual history to help ground contemporary Hawaiian thought, culture, and governance.

Genres: History, Indigenous, Nonfiction, Theory

288 pages, Hardcover

Published May 12, 2017

Reviews

[Brad Dell · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a journalist and editor, I found this to be a fascinating dive into Hawaiian language print papers’ unique content types, and made me proud to be among those who produce both the “first drafts of history” as well as the means for the recovery of history.

As a Hawaii resident, I found this to be a very necessary and sobering investigation into the fading records of, and hopeful recovery of, Hawaiian intellectual history.

The voices of Kanepu‘u and Poepoe, though very different in background, intertwine to form a strong vision of what flavored the Hawaiian kūpunas’ (elders) knowledge and perspectives on the nature of reality.

This is a solid, careful work that furthers the much-as-ever need to decolonize our lenses and realize the beauty and power of ancestral, indigenous knowledge — I wish I read it sooner.

[*•Ava•* 🇵🇭 hapa haole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Silva what an icon
Read intro, chapter 3, chapter 11 for thesis in anthropology

[Mills College Library]

996.9027 S5867 2017