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394 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· FALL 1990

Pacific history. We can be thankful toGreg Dening for publicly sharing hisgift with us.

Before the Horror: The Population ofHawai'i on the Eve of Western Con­tact, by David E. Stannard. Honolulu:Social Science Research Institute, Uni­versity of Hawaii, 1989. ISBN 0-8248­1232-8, xvii + 149 pp, illustrations,notes, index. US$10.95, paper.

In March 1779, Lieutenant King ofHMS Resolution penned a lengthysummary of observations on the newlydiscovered Sandwich Islands, includingsome speculations on the size of thearchipelago's population. His roughtallies for various islands "collect'dtogether give half a Million for thepopulation of these Islands." In a laterpublished account, King attempted amore elaborate calculation-based onthe supposed extent of inhabited coast­line-arriving at a figure of 400,000.Subsequently, virtually every scholarwho has considered the subject ofHawaiian population at the eve ofWestern contact has taken King's esti­mate as a maximum, and most havelowered it by 100,000-200,000. Theeminent modern authority, State ofHawai'i Statistician Robert Schmitt,puts the 1778 population at 300,000 orless.

In a provocative book that deservesto be read by anyone concerned withprecontact (or, as he insists on callingit, "pre-haole") Hawai'i, ProfessorDavid Stannard of the University of

ROBERT BOROFSKY

Hawaii Loa College

Hawaii now challenges this orthodoxscholarly position. The gist of Stan­nard's argument is that King's projec­tion was in fact an underestimate, and"that a population for Hawai'i of about800,000 at the time of Western contactseems a restrained and modest fig-ure" (80).

The book is organized in two parts.In the first, consisting of three chap­ters, Stannard presents his case, com­mencing with a reconsideration of theKing estimate, moving then to demo­graphic models for possible rates ofpopulation growth in Hawaiian prehis­tory, considerations of carrying capac­ity, and the anticipation of "some likelyobjections." Part I is followed by 21pages of detailed notes documentingsources and elaborating certain points.Part 2, titled "Critical Commentaryand Reply," consists of two commentson the preceding section by Eleanor C.Nordyke and Robert C. Schmitt, bothleading authorities on Hawaiiandemography. Their responses to Stan­nard's arguments make it clear that theorthodox position they represent willnot readily accede to this new heresy.The book ends with a reply by Stan­nard, a final section of notes, and anindex.

Stannard makes a conscious effortto break out of the narrow mold ofoften parochial and "arrested" scholar­ship (xvii) that has characterized theliterature on Hawaiian and PacificIslands historical demography. In con­trast to Schmitt, who in his commentaccuses Stannard of "trendiness" andjumping on a "scholarly bandwagon"(119), I found the frequent referencesand comparisons to research on histor­ical demography in the Americas and

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BOOK REVIEWS

Europe refreshing and enlightening.More important, Stannard does notconfine himself to the usual kinds ofevidence, such as estimates by explor­ers and early missionary censuses.Rather, he brings to bear relevant datafrom such fields as archaeology,paleodemography, and geography toconstruct his case. Although his workis confined to Hawai'i, it is pregnantwith implications for other PacificIsland groups.

Chapter I lays out, in considerabledetail, the case against accepting theKing estimate of 1779 as at all credible.Stannard addresses four criticalassumptions underpinning King's cal­culations: (I) an assumed "populationdensity of 800 persons per coastalmile"; (2) the acceptance of the Keala­kekua Bay density as typical; (3) theassumption that "a quarter of all theislands' coastlines were uninhabited";and (4) the belief "that there was noinland population" (14). Each of theseis shown to be unreasonable orunfounded, although Stannard gives usgood reasons why King may havereached his conclusions (such as hislack of close familiarity with the morefertile and densely populatedwindward regions). On the assumedabsence of inland population, forexample, Stannard marshals bothethnohistorical and archaeological evi­dence sufficient to demonstrate thatvast inland areas were in fact well pop­ulated in late prehistory. Some aspectsof Stannard's analysis are, however,questionable. For example, he refers tothe region surrounding KealakekuaBay as a "notoriously dry landscape"(17) when, in fact, the Kona district is ahighly productive agricultural zone

395

noted by archaeologists for its vast for­mal field system. Likewise, his relianceon a not-yet-published estimate byMarion Kelly for a "10 to I or IS to I

ratio of irrigated taro to dry-land taroproduction potential" (30) is uncon­vincing in light of empirical agronomicdata on aroid production in traditionalPacific agricultural systems. These areminor points, however, and do notaffect the overall argument.

Having established that King's400,000 estimate-and scholarly re­estimates that derive from it-rest onunwarranted assumptions, Stannardproceeds in chapter 2 to address threecritical demographic questions: (I) is ittheoretically feasible for the Hawaiianpopulation to have increased fromabout 100 at first settlement to800,000 or more in the time allotted?(2) were their resources sufficient tosupport such a large population? and(3) what happened to the people?While one may again quibble withsome points (for example, Stannardmakes no effort to adjust his popula­tion density figures for habitable orarable land, a point raised later by Sch­mitt [38, II6-II7]), his arguments arereasonable and well documented.

In chapter 3, Stannard attempts tohead off "some likely objections" to histhesis, including some old argumentson the possible impact of infanticide,and the problem of whether the pre­contact Hawaiians were beset withsuch debilitating diseases as tuberculo­sis or yaws. In his zeal Stannard attimes runs roughshod over those whosework he obviously feels may threatenhis conclusions. For example, heaccuses me of "quite blithely" claimingthat precontact Hawaiians commonly

THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· FALL 1990

Deep Water: Development and Changein Pacific Village Fisheries, byMargaret Critchlow Rodman. Devel­opment, Conflict, and Social ChangeSeries. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.ISBN 0-8133-7540-1, xii + 173 pp,illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliog­raphy, index. US$I8.95, softcover.

Fisheries-their utilization, politicaleconomy, and geopolitics-are a sub­ject of considerable importance andinterest throughout the island states ofthe Pacific. At the center of the topic liesuch policy issues as the nature ofdevelopment, the exploitation ofresources of often unknown stocks,international relations with aid donorsand hegemonic metropolitan powers,state-village relations, rural-urban rela­tions, and the commodification of tra­ditional (noncapitalist) economic andsocial practices. In a low-key way,

voke substantial controversy. One canonly hope that those with new data andinsights will be stimulated to attack theproblem. This is particularly so forHawaiian archaeologists, who, asStannard's book frequently points out,control some of the most importantnew evidence on precontact Hawaiianpopulation density, levels of subsis­tence production, and even-throughthe direct study of skeletal remains­paleodemography. If the archaeologistsput their heads to it, they may yet dis­prove Schmitt's prophecy that "the truenumber is ultimately unknow-able" (120).

PATRICK V. KIRCH

University ofCalifornia at Berkeley

suffered from tuberculosis (78), quot­ing phrases out of context from my1985 book on Hawaiian archaeology.My actual statement, in a paragraphthat began "in general, the earlyHawaiians enjoyed good health"(Kirch 1985, 243) was merely thattuberculosis was among several "otherpathologies that have been noted"based on examination of skeletalremains. These and other unnecessarydigs give chapter 3 an agressively hos­tile tone.

The comment by Eleanor C. Nor­dyke in part 2 barely deserves mention,and certainly is not even close to thestandard of scholarship exhibited byStannard. Nordyke's claim that"archaeologists do not believe that thenatives lived inland in large numbers"(109) simply displays her ignorance ofthe past two decades' work in Hawai­ian archaeology. Her invocation of his­torically fabricated and quite unbeliev­able tales of invasions by thousands of"tall fierce" Tahitian warriors (III) iswholly out of place in a work of schol­arship. Schmitt's comment is reason­able, and raises some important issues.All of these, however, are effectivelyaddressed by Stannard in his reply.

Stannard concludes with the asser­tion that "for those who bring on a hol­ocaust, willfully or not, nothing ismore desirable or sought after than his­torical amnesia. Thus, the politics ofthis subject. And thus, the assurancethat debate has just begun" (143).Indeed, given the importance of thismatter-not only for scholars con­cerned with all aspects of early Hawai­ian culture and society, but for contem­porary Hawaiian politics-we canexpect that Stannard's book will pro-

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