Emory’s

Books

Emory’s memories

Keneti, South Seas Adventures

OF KENNETH EMORY, by Bob Krauss, University of Hawaii Press, 1988, end paper maps, index, 419 pps.

Reviewed by Beatrice Levin FOR South Seas pioneer anthropo logist, Kenneth Emory, his work was his life, his romance and his obsession. No one who has ever been magnetised by the beauty and culture of Pacific Islands could fail to appreciate this book.

Biographies of such dedicated people inspire us and may challenge us to devo tion to a single ideal. In his old age, Emory may have realised he would nev er write his own autobiography. Turn ing to Bob Krauss, a popular journalist in Hawaii and a close friend, Emory said: “I want you to write my

biography.”

Krauss had written a number of books

and was actually seeking another subject.

Having sailed in voyaging canoes to re

trace ancient Polynesian migration

routes, Krauss is familiar with Pacific atolls and islands. The paths of the jour nalist and the anthropologist had crossed earlier, but it was not until Krauss was reporting on Emory at the Kuliouou Shelter Cave in 1956 that they became friends. Krauss responded eagerly to Emory’s request, and the result is a read able, enthusiastic book, full of admira tion of Emory on every page.

Where did the name Keneti come from? Natives who could not pronounce Kenneth, called Emory “Keneti”. Born in New England in 1898, Kenneth Emory moved with his family to Honolulu two years later, and early on became adept with a camera. He attended Punahou and then Dartmouth, graduating in 1920. Hired to be an errand boy for visiting scientists at Bishop Museum, he was soon making maps. Reports of man made ruins on Maui launched an ex pedition to the inhospitable Haleakala volcano, and Kenneth went along to take

photographs.

What was remarkable about Kenneth Emory’s approach to his first scientific expedition was his self-confidence. He had been in the crater as a boy of 15. As Bob Krauss puts it, Kenneth “limbered up an old five-by-seven view camera, smaller than a bread box, but not much . . Emory had an old friend on Maui who proved valuable to the expedition

by providing shelter, horses, pack mules

and cowboys. At the rim of the crater, an enormous pit fifteen square miles with a fiery orange ball over the opposite

rim, the vast field of cinder cones, Em ory was reminded of a herd of red and grey elephants.

Emory seemed born to anthropology and already knew how to measure, de scribe, survey and photograph, but his first field trip made an archaeologist out of him. By the time Kenneth returned to Honolulu, his team had revealed the ex istence of forty-eight stone terraces and platforms, previously unknown, and he had opened a “window to old Polynesia”.

Later he did an archaeological survey of Lanai. He learned to make records when the state-of-the-art was clumsy and inefficient. He assisted Helen Roberts as she gathered data for the classical work, Ancient Hawaiian Music.

Intimate moments in the relationship between Emory and his Tahitian wife are revealed. Until Emory began

teaching, he always had unpaid bills.

Even in March, 1948, when he was in vited to receive an honorary Doctorate of Science at Dartmouth, he could not afford to go.

Emory, meticulous about not leading an informant, knew that islanders were eager to please. If a native got vibes that an anthropologist had a certain opinion,

an islander would be too polite to con tradict him, especially if native were being paid. Emory’s integrity led to some unhappy times with a less honest anthro pologist.

When announcements of a new techni que called carbon dating reached him, he realised that it would be possible to fix an historical date on the artifacts his university students had uncovered in Kuliouou Valley on Oahu. Up to 1950, dirt archaeology on Pacific Islands and atolls was considered wasted effort. Em ory was to disprove this theory with a charcoal sample from the Kuliouou Shel ter Cave which provided the first radio carbon date A.D. 1400 for Polynesia. At last, accurately dating the occupation of the Hawaiian Islands was feasible.

How Emory loved his work is evident in a report: “Each day is so full of in terest and rendered so agreeable by the readiness of everyone to help us that it is too short . , Eventually, Emory, to protect sites in Hawaiian history, battled developers on Hawaii. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the anthropology of the Pacific Islands. □