When we think of Hawaii, our minds often drift to the idyllic vacation resorts, the wondrous beaches, and the tropical splendor.   It is not often that we relate the island paradise to a cultural convergence of authorship.  In taking a look at some of the more uncommon titles in Northwestern Library’s new Humanities Database, I came across yOiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal (if you can pronounce that first word, kudos!).  One of the articles of interest in a 2003 volume of this short running publication involved the meaning of authorship in Native Hawaiian Design. 

For Native Hawaiaans, authorship is typically more complex than a singular notion of individual genius. In Hawaiian, the author is traditionally the mea haku, the one who composes, invents, puts in order, arranges or braids. Hawaiian concepts of authorship greatly differ from western ones. This is true even with the advent of printing, when the mea haku became alternately known as the mea kakau. Currently, the meaning of authorship in the field of graphic design has expanded to include more than the western notion of a single source. Designers can now contemplate authorship as being the product of any number of author functions.

Read some other articles of interest in yOiwi, or search for topics in several areas of the Humanities by accessing this new database through NWOSU’s EBSCOhost portal today!