This month, Hawaii celebrates the 65th anniversary of its statehood. In honor of that occasion, we’re sharing an original copy of the first translation of the Bible in the Hawaiian language in our Collection Spotlight case. Titled “
Ka palapala hemolele a Iehova ko kakou akua,” which translates from Hawaiian to English as “
The scriptures of Jehovah our God,” this translation was published by the Mission Press in Oahu in 1838-39, and has been part of our collection since 1841. It will be on display in our reading room through August 30.
Affixed to the inside cover of the Bible is a copy of 1841 Senate Bill No. 47, “Communication And Report Regarding A Bible In The Language Of The Sandwich Islands.” This bill explains that in 1812, the legislature incorporated the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which was initially created in 1810 by a group of recent graduates from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. With a goal of spreading Christianity, missionaries decamped to locations around the globe, including the Hawaiian islands (then referred to as the Sandwich Islands). The first missionaries to arrive in Hawaii were all from Massachusetts, and they departed Boston Harbor in October 1819 and landed on the Hawaiian Island of Kaua‘I in April 1820. You can read more about the fourteen individuals in this group, known as the Pioneer Company, in an
article by the Punahou School.
Missionaries believed that an integral aspect of their work spreading Christianity was to have a translation of the Bible completed in the language of the individuals they were converting. Prior to the arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiian was a spoken language, but the missionaries worked to devise a written alphabet. Over the course of a few years, missionaries worked with Hawaiian scholars to development a standardized written language. The culmination of that work was the Hawaiian language Bible displayed here. When Senate Bill No. 47 was issued on March 4, 1841, it was done on the occasion of the recent receipt of the Hawaiian language Bible from Oahu. The next day, March 5, the Joint Committee on the Library received the Bible into the collection, where it has remained ever since. You can read the bill in its entirety in our
digital repository. You can also read more about the development of the written Hawaiian language and early printing in
an article on the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation's website, and check out a
few previous blog posts where we’ve written more about Hawaii’s history and resources found in the library’s collection.
Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian
