Literature collection of Hawaiian antiquities, legends, traditions, mele, and genealogies that were gathered by Abraham Fornander, S. M. Kamakau, J. Kepelino, S. N. Haleole and others. The original collection of manuscripts was purchased from the Fornander estate following his death in 1887 by Charles R. Bishop for preservation, and became part of the Bishop Musem collection. The papers were published from 1916-1919 as volume IV, V, and VI of the series Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. The manuscripts were translated, revised and edited by Dr. W. D. Alexander and Thomas G. Thrum.

Anatomia is the only medical textbook written in the Hawaiian language. Gerrit P. Judd, for a time the only medical missionary in the Islands, wrote the text in 1838 to teach basic anatomy to Hawaiians enrolled at the Mission Seminary (Lahainaluna School). Working from a standard elementary textbook of the time, Judd provided his students with more than a simple, straight translation. Rather than "Hawaiianize" Latin or English names and terms, he devised new vocabulary and explained medical functions and practices in words that would be readily understood by a Hawaiian. Judd's use of Hawaiian terms and descriptions gives us insights into native cultural and healing practices in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Anatomia is a valuable addition to the growing collection of translations on native health and will be greatly appreciated by linguists, historians, and students of Hawaiian language and culture.

Scholars and researchers have long believed that the ability to irrigate is crucial to the development of civilizations. In this book, archaeologist Patrick Kirch challenges this "hydraulic hypothesis" and provides a more accurate and detailed account of the role of "wet" and "dry" cultivation systems in the development of complex sociopolitical structures. Examining research on cultural adaptation and ecology in Western Polynesia and utilizing extensive data from a variety of important South Pacific sites, Kirch not only reveals how particular systems of production developed within the constraints imposed by environmental conditions, but also explores the tension that arises between contrasting productive systems with differential abilities to produce surplus. He shows that the near total neglect of short-fallow dryland cultivation, as well as arboriculture, or tree-cropping, has seriously distorted the picture that archaeologists and anthropologists have of agricultural intensification and its relation to complex social structure. This work, likely to become a classic, will be central to all future discussions of the ecology and politics of agricultural intensification.

The term Polynesia refers to a cultural and geographical area in the Pacific Ocean, bound by what is commonly referred to as the Polynesian Triangle, which consists of Hawai'i in the north, New Zealand in the southwest, and Easter Island in the southeast. Thousands of islands are scattered throughout this area, most of which are currently included in one of the modern island states of American Samoa, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Hawai'i, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and Wallis and Futuna. The third edition of the Historical Dictionary of Polynesia greatly expands on the previous editions through a chronology, an introductory essay, an expansive bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations, and other aspects of Polynesian history from the earliest times to the present. Appendixes of the major islands and atolls within Polynesia, the rulers and administrators of the 13 major island states, and basic demographic information of those states are also included.