ENG 362 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Bishop Museum, Kuini Liliha
Document Summary
Ola n iwi is different from all the plays we have read in this class because victoria nalani. Kneubuhl brings light to an important issue happening in hawaii which is the mistreatment of human remains for research purposes or commercial gain. The story follows kawehi, a hawaiian woman returning from germany with stolen remains from a museum. She wants to give the bones a proper burial. Kneubuhl provides an abundance of historical context throughout the play with dialogue from anthropologists, scientists, phrenologists and grave robbers to express all points of view during the 19th century. In my minimalistic research on kneubuhl i learned she was writing this play before the theft of the two ka"ai (woven caskets containing human remains) from bishop museum in 1994. She chose not to get into specifics but to do a more general storyline on 19th century hawaii history, anthropology, and unauthorized bone removal.
