Curating Ali`i Collections: Responsibility, Sensibility, and Contextualization in Hawai'i-Based Museums

Abstract

This thesis explores the curation of aliʻi collections in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and the Lyman House Memorial Museum. The aliʻi were once the ruling class of Hawai'i, whose chiefly ranks and statuses reflected their prestigious and complicated moʻokūʻauhau (genealogies). Although the aliʻi are no longer a visible social class in Hawai'i, their moʻokūʻauhau (genealogies) and moʻolelo (stories) are continually honored and preserved within the walls of museums. Through the use of a research design that draws from multiple museologies, indigenous epistemologies, and anthropological theories and methods, I examine the physical care, storage, exhibition, and interpretation of aliʻi collections, and explicate on the array of obsolete and innovative museum practices that are utilized in the curation of aliʻi collections. In the chapters to follow, I describe these practices and suggest some of the theoretical contributions that can be made through the study of aliʻi objects.

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