Manuscripts
Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula
- Description
- The collection contains a wide range of material including research material for his major publications (Hawaiian Antiquities, Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth from Hawaii, and Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula), correspondence, short stories, essays, poetry, Hawaiian mele, notebooks, biographical sketches, diaries, book reviews, land deeds, wills, affidavits, ephemera, photographs and early drafts of Emerson's published work. The majority of the collection was written, collected or translated by Emerson; however, the collection does contain material by other Emerson family members and notable historical figures of Hawaiian history, such as W. D. Alexander, William R. Castle, Abraham Fornander, Davida Malo, Robert W. Wilcox, and several others. The subjects covered in this collection are: Emerson family history; the American Civil War and army hospitals; Hawaiian ethnology and culture; the Hawaiian revolutions of 1893 and 1895; Hawaiian politics; Hawaiian history; Polynesian history; Hawaiian mele; the Hawaiian hula; leprosy and the leper colony on Molokai; and Hawaiian mythology and folklore.
- Production date
- 1766-1944.
