How chiefs became kings [electronic resource] : divine kingship and the rise of archaic states in ancient Hawai'i / Patrick Vinton Kirch.

Cover image for How chiefs became kings [electronic resource] : divine kingship and the rise of archaic states in ancient Hawai'i / Patrick Vinton Kirch.

ISBN:

9780520947849

Title:

How chiefs became kings [electronic resource] : divine kingship and the rise of archaic states in ancient Hawai'i / Patrick Vinton Kirch.

Author:

Kirch, Patrick Vinton.

Personal Author:

Kirch, Patrick Vinton.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 273 pages) : illustrations, maps

Contents:

From chiefdom to archaic state : Hawai'i in comparative and historical context -- Hawaiian archaic states on the eve of European contact -- Native Hawaiian political history -- Tracking the transformations : population, intensification, and monumentality -- The challenge of explanation.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Chiefdoms -- Hawaii -- History.

Hawaiians -- Kings and rulers.

First contact of aboriginal peoples with Westerners -- Hawaii.

Hawaiians -- Politics and government.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2010

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
320.4969 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

In How Chiefs Became Kings , Patrick Vinton Kirch addresses a central problem in anthropological archaeology: the emergence of "archaic states" whose distinctive feature was divine kingship. Kirch takes as his focus the Hawaiian archipelago, commonly regarded as the archetype of a complex chiefdom. Integrating anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, traditional history, and theory, and drawing on significant contributions from his own four decades of research, Kirch argues that Hawaiian polities had become states before the time of Captain Cook's voyage (1778-1779). The status of most archaic states is inferred from the archaeological record. But Kirch shows that because Hawai`i's kingdoms were established relatively recently, they could be observed and recorded by Cook and other European voyagers. Substantive and provocative, this book makes a major contribution to the literature of precontact Hawai`i and illuminates Hawai`i's importance in the global theory and literature about divine kingship, archaic states, and sociopolitical evolution.

Author Notes

Kirch Patrick Vinton :

Patrick Vinton Kirch is Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology and Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books, including Feathered Gods and Fishhooks and On the Road of the Winds (UC Press).

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Noted anthropologist Kirch (Berkeley) employs varied archaeological, paleoecological, and historical data to describe the developments that led to the emergence of prehistoric archaic states on the islands of Hawai'i and Maui (and their absence from the other main islands of the Hawaiian archipelago). He sets his narrative within the context of comparative and transformational cultural models of social complexity. Paleoenvironmental reconstruction and modeling, particularly of lands suited for irrigated and dryland agriculture, set the stage for interpretations that largely highlight chiefly agency or strategy in the emergence of first complex chiefdoms and then archaic states (the latter limited to two of the islands). Kirch is an accomplished scholar with extensive experience in Hawai'i and Polynesia. However, aspects of the narrative as well as some of the analyses and conclusions have been told previously by Kirch (and his colleagues) or have been recently published elsewhere, making the book somewhat redundant and curiously out of touch with the very scholarship it hopes to synthesize. Written in a very accessible fashion, the book is as much for the general public as it is for professional researchers. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries. M. W. Graves University of New Mexico