Fodor's 1961 Guide: Sexc and Hawaiians
Oct 11th, 2005, 10:48 AM
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Fodor's 1961 Guide: Sexc and Hawaiians
I just snapped up a 1961 Fodor's Hawaii guide on eBay (with an introduction by James Michener!). This passage about sex probably says more about America in 1961 than Hawaii at any time. Thought everyone would enjoy.
FREE, UNINHIBITED, GENEROUS
The missionaries soon had the Hawaiians going to school. They were apt pupils. They learned to read and write and sew a fine seam. All went well until the first ship hove into port at which time the girls’ classrooms were suddenly empty. The teachers were aghast. But pedagogically speaking, the Hawaiian girls were way ahead of their time, preferring “life situations” and field work to useless academic studies.
It was ever thus. A relaxed attitude about sex is traditional in the Hawaiian way of life. Hawaiian women gave themselves freely to men regardless of race, creed, color or status. Haole sailors were astonished at the unreserved aloha of these ardent wahines, and Honolulu became a popular port of call.
“No women I ever met were less reserved,” wrote Captain Cook, adding that they came on board “with no other view than to make a surrender of their persons.”
It was all free, uninhibited, generous, charming, in short good old-fashioned fun, but soon it got corrupted by complications commercial, venereal, ministerial. The girls never thought of anything so sordid as fees, but the sailors, victims of a more mercenary civilization, could not resist giving them little presents as tenders of affection. Before long fornication ceased to be its own reward. The girls were spoiled. They began asking for nails, items of enormous value in a Hawaii just emerging from the stone age. The sailors were only too happy to comply, a nail for a frail, and captains began to eye their ships nervously for fear they might come apart at the seams.
Meanwhile the missionaries did their best to instill a sense of sin in these shameless wahines, and they were aided by the appalling spread of venereal infection which could only too easily be construed as divine reproof of immoral behavior.
An important sociological question may now flash across the tourist’s busy mind: In these wonderful wonder-druggy days is laxity in sexual matters still characteristic of the Hawaiian way of life? Have Hawaiian women reverted to their ancient tradition of generosity or has this been permanently altered by those missionary-instilled inhibitions?
The answer is be careful. For if the severity of Protestant fundamentalism has been tempered, as we have seen, by the warmth and animal joy of Hawaii, Hawaiian morality has also been stiffened by the Christian ethic.
A recent island wedding we attended illustrated this ponderous thesis. The groom was a malihini haole tourist who had quite literally fallen in love with Hawaii in the person of the bride, a handsome Hawaiian-Portuguese girl of ample proportions, even more amplified by six months of pregnancy.
As she stood on the reception line, resplendent in white net and a lei of pure white stephanotis, the bride kept patting her convex stomach and explaining with a radiant smile, “This was an engagement present.”
So much for sex in the Hawaiian way of life. If you want to know more, read H. Allen Smith’s anthropological treatise Waikiki Beachnik in which you will find information on such venerable Hawaiian diversions as Puheoheo (Hawaiian Post-office), Kilu (Spin the Bottle), and Punalua (Triangular Mating). These subjects are not really suitable for a family guide. Just remember, they missionaries have left their mark and you might have to marry the girl.
FREE, UNINHIBITED, GENEROUS
The missionaries soon had the Hawaiians going to school. They were apt pupils. They learned to read and write and sew a fine seam. All went well until the first ship hove into port at which time the girls’ classrooms were suddenly empty. The teachers were aghast. But pedagogically speaking, the Hawaiian girls were way ahead of their time, preferring “life situations” and field work to useless academic studies.
It was ever thus. A relaxed attitude about sex is traditional in the Hawaiian way of life. Hawaiian women gave themselves freely to men regardless of race, creed, color or status. Haole sailors were astonished at the unreserved aloha of these ardent wahines, and Honolulu became a popular port of call.
“No women I ever met were less reserved,” wrote Captain Cook, adding that they came on board “with no other view than to make a surrender of their persons.”
It was all free, uninhibited, generous, charming, in short good old-fashioned fun, but soon it got corrupted by complications commercial, venereal, ministerial. The girls never thought of anything so sordid as fees, but the sailors, victims of a more mercenary civilization, could not resist giving them little presents as tenders of affection. Before long fornication ceased to be its own reward. The girls were spoiled. They began asking for nails, items of enormous value in a Hawaii just emerging from the stone age. The sailors were only too happy to comply, a nail for a frail, and captains began to eye their ships nervously for fear they might come apart at the seams.
Meanwhile the missionaries did their best to instill a sense of sin in these shameless wahines, and they were aided by the appalling spread of venereal infection which could only too easily be construed as divine reproof of immoral behavior.
An important sociological question may now flash across the tourist’s busy mind: In these wonderful wonder-druggy days is laxity in sexual matters still characteristic of the Hawaiian way of life? Have Hawaiian women reverted to their ancient tradition of generosity or has this been permanently altered by those missionary-instilled inhibitions?
The answer is be careful. For if the severity of Protestant fundamentalism has been tempered, as we have seen, by the warmth and animal joy of Hawaii, Hawaiian morality has also been stiffened by the Christian ethic.
A recent island wedding we attended illustrated this ponderous thesis. The groom was a malihini haole tourist who had quite literally fallen in love with Hawaii in the person of the bride, a handsome Hawaiian-Portuguese girl of ample proportions, even more amplified by six months of pregnancy.
As she stood on the reception line, resplendent in white net and a lei of pure white stephanotis, the bride kept patting her convex stomach and explaining with a radiant smile, “This was an engagement present.”
So much for sex in the Hawaiian way of life. If you want to know more, read H. Allen Smith’s anthropological treatise Waikiki Beachnik in which you will find information on such venerable Hawaiian diversions as Puheoheo (Hawaiian Post-office), Kilu (Spin the Bottle), and Punalua (Triangular Mating). These subjects are not really suitable for a family guide. Just remember, they missionaries have left their mark and you might have to marry the girl.
Oct 11th, 2005, 11:07 AM
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Since you're from Fodor's I guess you don't have to worry about copyright issues.
SEW A FINE SEAM?!? Was that really important in 1961.
I think the advice of 'never have your back to the ocean' would have been better. But, then again, maybe the locals wanted to kill off the missionaries. Trying to instill their views of religion and values. Just because the Hawaiins did things differently, doesn't mean it was wrong.
Look at the natives, now make them change until they are like us.
Though, in a way, I see this as how some view the USA south.
SEW A FINE SEAM?!? Was that really important in 1961.
I think the advice of 'never have your back to the ocean' would have been better. But, then again, maybe the locals wanted to kill off the missionaries. Trying to instill their views of religion and values. Just because the Hawaiins did things differently, doesn't mean it was wrong.
Look at the natives, now make them change until they are like us.
Though, in a way, I see this as how some view the USA south.
Oct 11th, 2005, 11:18 AM
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There's a big change everywhere as far as morality. I grew up in a generation of good girls and bad girls-no inbetween.
And boys all kissed and told.
Interracial relationships frowned on.
Peter why do you not post on the Europe board? Does someone else cover it, and whoever it is, cuts out posts that should never have bbeen touched.
"Youth wants to know. "
And boys all kissed and told.
Interracial relationships frowned on.
Peter why do you not post on the Europe board? Does someone else cover it, and whoever it is, cuts out posts that should never have bbeen touched.
"Youth wants to know. "
Oct 11th, 2005, 01:44 PM
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There is also an essay that celebrates the racial intermixing and general cultural diversity of Hawaii thatwas probably pretty ahead of its time. If my typing fingers recover from the above one I'll share some more.
Oct 11th, 2005, 06:53 PM
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Hi Bronzilla,
Could have done without the modern day comparison but we won't go there. Too tired, too late.
Might want to be careful about identifying the social/sexual history of one group and then attaching humor. …and "animal Hawaii" deserves a re-think.
This view of sexuality that you are talking about was prevalent throughout Polynesia before western contact,not just Hawaii. There are far better sources than James Michner for Hawaiian and Polynesian History.
Here is a good place to begin your search.
http://www.nativebookshawaii.com/shop/default.php
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horowitz. A light entertaining read about what cook found on his travels. New York Times Bestseller but again there are better sources.
More relaxed attitudes towards sexuality also existed in the Arab world before Islam,"Beyond the Veil" by Fatima Mernisi. You are not going to find the detail or evidence the way you would in Polynesia now because its been so long.
I also seem to recall a more relaxed attitude towards sexuality also documented in Ireland before Catholicism. The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion, and Power in Celtic Ireland (Mary Condren). Again its been a while, Christianity coming into Ireland in the 4th century? I forget.
Seems to me that frequently when religion is taken out of the equation we all seem to become human again not animal.
But hey imho MEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN RELAXED ABOUT SEX. YOU DON'T NEED TO OPEN A BOOK FOR THAT FACT. WHAT PLANET DO YOU LIVE ON ??? LOL
K breaking my first piece of advice to you!!
Could have done without the modern day comparison but we won't go there. Too tired, too late.
Might want to be careful about identifying the social/sexual history of one group and then attaching humor. …and "animal Hawaii" deserves a re-think.
This view of sexuality that you are talking about was prevalent throughout Polynesia before western contact,not just Hawaii. There are far better sources than James Michner for Hawaiian and Polynesian History.
Here is a good place to begin your search.
http://www.nativebookshawaii.com/shop/default.php
Blue Latitudes by Tony Horowitz. A light entertaining read about what cook found on his travels. New York Times Bestseller but again there are better sources.
More relaxed attitudes towards sexuality also existed in the Arab world before Islam,"Beyond the Veil" by Fatima Mernisi. You are not going to find the detail or evidence the way you would in Polynesia now because its been so long.
I also seem to recall a more relaxed attitude towards sexuality also documented in Ireland before Catholicism. The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion, and Power in Celtic Ireland (Mary Condren). Again its been a while, Christianity coming into Ireland in the 4th century? I forget.
Seems to me that frequently when religion is taken out of the equation we all seem to become human again not animal.
But hey imho MEN HAVE ALWAYS BEEN RELAXED ABOUT SEX. YOU DON'T NEED TO OPEN A BOOK FOR THAT FACT. WHAT PLANET DO YOU LIVE ON ??? LOL
K breaking my first piece of advice to you!!
Oct 11th, 2005, 07:02 PM
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PS Congrats on your ebay find!
Just wondering, last week I found a 1982 Kauai coffee table photo book. Not sure how else to describe. Is that clear? It was so depressing how much the island has changed in just 20 years, I had to put it back on the shelf. ...soo much development. Its just not the same island at all.
Wondering if you are seeing the same and do you know Hawaii? ..or is this book largely text?
Just wondering, last week I found a 1982 Kauai coffee table photo book. Not sure how else to describe. Is that clear? It was so depressing how much the island has changed in just 20 years, I had to put it back on the shelf. ...soo much development. Its just not the same island at all.
Wondering if you are seeing the same and do you know Hawaii? ..or is this book largely text?
Oct 11th, 2005, 08:13 PM
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Hello Sarah, even in the 1960's people that knew Hawaii from earlier times complained about the changes. Hawaii is not, IMO, the paradise that it once was although it is still beautiful. But the cost to go to Hawaii is dreadful IMO. Same thing happened to Mexico in most cases. Same could be said for Italy and most other countries. BTW, by the end of the 1980's my husband did not want to go to Hawaii anymore, he felt it was "ruined". If he saw it now wouldn't that be something? Best regards.
Oct 12th, 2005, 03:49 AM
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Sarah: I posted this excerpt to show what Fodor's was like in its early days, not to make a definitive anthropological statement about Hawaii.
The early books are filled with fairly broad stereotypes about the natives, with a special focus on the mores of the local women. It's definitely a peek into the mind of Eugene Fodor.
The early books are filled with fairly broad stereotypes about the natives, with a special focus on the mores of the local women. It's definitely a peek into the mind of Eugene Fodor.
Oct 12th, 2005, 03:59 AM
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I found it a bit disturbing that Mr. Fodor didn't write for women. He assumed all travelers were men. But then women were in general more invisible then than now. What about Mrs. Fodor, didn't she mind? Or was Eugene gay? Or can we talk about that here? Why not? Bronxzilla has already broached sexuality on the post. And it is travel related.
Oct 12th, 2005, 05:17 AM
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Peter,
Was this the first Fodor's guide to Hawaii? I'd hope somewhere at Random House/Fodor's you've kept a copy of every edition. It'd be fun to see the changes from the very first edition to the 1961.
TandoriGirl, I guess I wasn't clear: It wasn't about the sex, it was about people looking down at southerners. You still see that today, and with some of the posters here.
Was this the first Fodor's guide to Hawaii? I'd hope somewhere at Random House/Fodor's you've kept a copy of every edition. It'd be fun to see the changes from the very first edition to the 1961.
TandoriGirl, I guess I wasn't clear: It wasn't about the sex, it was about people looking down at southerners. You still see that today, and with some of the posters here.
