Hawaiian traditions in David Malo’s Hawaiian Antiquities

Record summary

David Malo’s Hawaiian Antiquities, based on nineteenth-century Hawaiian knowledge and published in English after his death, discusses gods, spirits, ritual practice, sacred places and traditional histories. It is a valuable Pacific lead because it provides an Indigenous-authored or Indigenous-attributed framework for interpreting places later described through Western paranormal language. The text is not a modern haunting report, and its manuscript, translation and editorial history matter greatly. Researchers should distinguish Malo’s own composition from later editing and avoid assuming that every moʻolelo has the same genre or evidentiary status.