sandwich-islanders

Updated: May 15, 2025

The long name of Sandwich-Islanders is dropped, and they are called by the whites, all over the Pacific Ocean, ``Kanakas, from a word in their own language, signifying, I believe, man, human being, which they apply to themselves, and to all South-Sea-Islanders, in distinction from whites, whom they call ``Haole. This name, ``Kanaka, they answer to, both collectively and individually.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

Sam, Nicholas, and I lived together in the room, and the four Sandwich-Islanders worked and ate with us, but generally slept at the oven. My new messmate, Nicholas, was the most immense man that I had ever seen. He came on the coast in a vessel which was afterwards wrecked, and now let himself out to the different houses to cure hides.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

She was a fast sailer, as we frequently afterwards saw, and had a crew of Sandwich-Islanders on board. Beside this vessel, there was no object to break the surface of the bay.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

We lay on our oars in the swell, just outside of the surf, waiting for a good chance to run in, when a boat, which had put off from the Ayacucho, came alongside of us, with a crew of dusky Sandwich-Islanders, talking and hallooing in their outlandish tongue. They knew that we were novices in this kind of boating, and waited to see us go in.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

The Sandwich-Islanders rode down, and were in ``high snuff. We inquired for our shipmates, and were told that two of them had started on horseback, and been thrown, or had fallen off, and were seen heading for the beach, but steering pretty wild, and, by the looks of things, would not be down much before midnight.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

She filled away again, and stood out, being bound up the coast to San Francisco. The crew of the brig's boat were Sandwich-Islanders, but one of them, who spoke a little English, told us that she was the Loriotte, Captain Nye, from Oahu, and was engaged in the hide and tallow trade. She was a lump of a thing, what the sailors call a butter-box.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

The Sandwich-Islanders, in the mean time, had turned their boat round, and ran her down into the water, and were loading her with hides and tallow. As this was the work in which we were soon to be engaged, we looked on with some curiosity.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

On one of these expeditions, we saw a battle between two Sandwich-Islanders and a shark. ``Johnny'' had been playing about our boat for some time, driving away the fish, and showing his teeth at our bait, when we missed him, and in a few minutes heard a great shouting between two Kanakas who were fishing on the rock opposite to us: ``E hana hana make i ka ia nui! ``E pii mai Aikane! &c., &c.; and saw them pulling away on a stout line, and ``Johnny Shark'' floundering at the other end.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

I spent one evening, as had been my custom, at the oven with the Sandwich-Islanders; but it was far from being the usual noisy, laughing time.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast

We drifted fairly into the Loriotte, her larboard bow into our starboard quarter, carrying away a part of our starboard quarter railing, and breaking off her larboard bumpkin, and one or two stanchions above the deck. We saw our handsome sailor, Jackson, on the forecastle, with the Sandwich-Islanders, working away to get us clear.

Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast