maurissa brady blog (the center of the pacific)

Monday January 5th, 2009 was the first day that the students of Hillyer College visited the University of Hawaii. Our first lecture was given by Dr. Jonathan Osorio, the director of the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii. The topic of the lecture was about The Center of the Pacific. Dr. Osorio discusses many topics and themes which were raised by the students for discussion. The class came up with a lot of interesting questions about Hawaii and Dr. Osorio answered them in his lecture. In his lecture he covered the Hawaiian language, identity, ethnicity, the native attitudes, demographics, and voyaging of the Pacific.
The history of Hawaii survived because of the ancestors who dominated the land and passed on their information and knowledge from generation to generation. Hawaiian language also preserved the history because of the vowels a, e, i, o, u. Dr. Osorio stated that the Hawaiian language is vowel driven and every word ends with a vowel, for example “wai” which means water in the Hawaiian language.
I was really interested in the theory of voyaging that Dr. Osorio talked about. He explained the system the European’s use as a guide to sail to different islands. The theory was to observe the rising and setting points of the stars. This theory of voyaging was done by all Europeans who sailed to find new island and returned back home. However, Dr. Osorio pointed out that the Polynesians attempted the longest voyage using the currency and waves as a way to guide them through the islands.
Also, I was surprised by the population of Hawaii. The demographic of Hawaii is outnumbered by Japanese and Chinese people. The Native Hawaiians only make up 20% of the population in Hawaii. This was due to chronic diseases during the 19 century when a lot of Hawaiians were dying because their body was not immune to the diseases. Dr. Osorio also stated during the course of generation to generation the knowledge of Hawaiian culture was changed. Osorio stated that if it was not for the vowels in the Hawaiian alphabet then the native Hawaiian history would have been completely lost.