Summary Of Waimea Summer

Throughout the novel Waimea Summer, we see the how the protagonist Mark Hull struggles with experiencing “Native” Hawaiian culture as opposed to his half - haole Hawaiian culture. Throughout this paper, the term “Native” Hawaiian culture will refer to the social construct caused by Hawaiian history from 300 – 800 BCE right up to the annexation of Hawaii in 1898. The haole Hawaiian culture refers to the social construct as caused by colonizers, which started in 1778 and continues to this present day. By experiencing Native Hawaiian culture, Mark changes his perception of Old Hawaii as being a pristine, comfortable, and safe place, into one that views Old Hawaii as harsh, un-sanitized, and bloody. His struggle to cope with such a culture shock

He describes the scenario as something that, “flabbergasted (his) eyes… (he) watched the performance in a state combining fascination and nausea.” When asked by Julian if, “Dis da firs’ time you see one goat killed,” he responds, “Killed like this…” explaining how he usually, “seem them shot at home” (15). He then proceeds to vomit behind the trees, and calls them a “dirty bunch of “kua aina kanakas” (16). We see in this passage the conflict between two Hawaiian cultures, mainly one that is more primitive and rural, and one that is more ‘civil’ as a result of colonization. As a matter of fact we see Julian tell Fred that, “He felt (Mark) was a creature of the city, a foreigner to these hard, exotic, far-flung rituals…” This further supports the fact that Hawaiian culture is divided among two different histories. Mark represents the haole culture and history, while Julian and Fred represent the more Native culture. This passage also depicts Mark vomiting at the sight of Old Hawaiian practices, an action which I believe is an important motif in the novel. Whenever we see Mark feeling sick, like he is about to throw up, it symbolizes a conflict he has with himself, mainly trying to conform and come to terms with his Old Hawaiian genealogy (Mark insists he comes from Hawaiian

It is because of people like Captain James Cook, and western colonizers, that Mark has a predetermined sense of Hawaiian culture which is extremely different than the Native Hawaiian culture he explores. There is an important passage in the text that examines this idea, and it starts with Mark having a dream. While sleeping at his cousin’s house, he, “slept fitfully… dreaming of strange woodlands and stone platform. In one dream (he) was a midshipman with Captain Cook. (He) came face to face with young Kamehameha who was studying one of the ship’s cannons…” (47). This aspect of his dream has direct correlation with the Hawaiian history that we learned in class. When Captain James Cook returned to Hawaii in 1779, Kamehameha showed great interest in westernized technology, particularly in the metal weapons such as muskets and swords. This interest in metal war technologies is symbolized in Marks dream by Kamehameha’s study of the ship’s cannon. Marks dream then goes on to depict, “(Kamehameha making) a lunge for (his) throat…” This aspect of his dream also directly corresponds to particular event we talked about in class. We learned of an event in 1778 where a Hawaiian stole from Captain James Cook’s ship, and was eventually chased by some of Cook’s men back to shore. These men were then beaten by the Native Hawaiians, and it was this event that help contribute to Captain Cooks death. The