Talk:Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)

Indentured servants vs hired employees

The article as written so far is the first time in many years of studying BC history that I've ever heard of the Kanakas being "indentured servants" who were stolen away from the Isles. From what I've read in the sources, the Kanakas here were hired on, rather than abducted, and were loyal company (Hudson's Bay Company) employees, some of the most trustworthy, and were always spoken of highly.

Also, they didn't just intermarry with First Nations people; the most recent Kanaka I met was of mostly white descent, from Saltspring Island (inferring he probably also has some African-American in him, too, as old-time families on that island generally have some bloodlines from the freedmen colony started there in 1858.

Didn't want to add this to the article until consulting here.

Skookum1 18:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't speak on the practices used to "recruit" labour for British Columbia, but it is generally acknowledged (there are dissenters) that Pacific Islanders who came to Australia (Queensland) to work in the canefields from the 1840s to early 20thC. did so mostly under duress, or at the very least were misinformed. See for example these retrospective acknowledgements by the Queensland Govt on this blackbirding practice, here] and here. An early 20thC history of Australia describes the practice here. There are however a few revisionists and apologists such as Keith Windschuttle who maintain otherwise, such as here. In general, their experience during these times runs the gamut from outright kidnapping and slavery in all but name, to lowly-paid & not particularly ill-treated labourers, with the worst of the practices occurring in the earlier part of the trade. --cjllw | TALK 00:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Before I edited the article there was no mention of "Kanakas" in BC. I added the information about BC because I felt this was an oversite. The information about "indentured servitude" was already there. I had no intention to imply that Kanakas in BC were indentured servents. I have no evidence of this to reference. If you want to change this line to be clearer that is fine.

Just becuase the current generation is of "of mostly white descent” does not mean that Kanakas did not marry mainly native women. My Kanaka ancester married a native women (and some of his relatives moved to Salt Spring). But I am “mostly white” becase all subsequent generations have married white. Rob_ 03:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Tom Koppel's book Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, "..the 1880's in British Columbia... most of them married to native Indian women..." p.2. I think my original statemnt that "many married First Nations women" is correct.Rob_ 04:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Re both this post and your previous above Aug 15, which slipped my attention back then. It's the "mostly white descent" that I know of in the Kanakas I've met (quite a few, over the years) that muddled the issue for me; the initial generation mostly married native women is, yes, what Koppel says and no doubt it's true; but he provides no data on that, as a proper historiographer making such a statement would do. His book, like Barman's on the Silveys and Mahoys, makes it seem like the Kanaka heritage in BC is to be found in First Nations families only; there are some, no doubt, notably the Nahanees among the North Van Squamish (Harriet was a married-in Nahanee, not Kanaka herself), but the "mostly white" Kanakas I met may also have FN blood, but not status; I don't know about you but most I've met have long been outside the native cultural/social loop, long since the times of the families talked about in Koppel's book. Your own story is of interest, i.e. which family and from where, just curious. Koppel mentions a Carney family but doesn't know where they wound up: I do - Squamish, where Mike Carney is I guess the best-known of the bunch but his Dad Owen put them on the map; I remember they were part-Hawaiian but I'd never heard "Kanaka" before - or rather, I'd heard it as I live "near" Kanaka Creek in Maple Ridge (we were in Ruskin) but didn't know what it meant, or why Kanaka Creek was named what it was. Koppel makes a small error about tamanos - he seems to think these "household deities" were a Hawaiian word; a Hawaiian custom carried on no doubt, but that's a Chinook Jargon word. References abound to a particular variety of Chinook Jargon that was heavily flavoured with Hawaiian, spoken around the forts and you'd think around the families in the years afterwards still a bit, but nobody ever wrote any of it down; I think even back then there was a concept of a "pure" Jargon, despite the abundance of English and French loandwords, and the American editors/sources/scholars at the time never gave any thought to the speech heard in the Forts because it was so idiosyncratic; and would have disappeared entirely after 1846. I'm sorry, I go on by habit; curious about your family story; I hope you agree with my efforts here to make sure the Canadian/Californian perspective is here vs. the Australasian one; if you have Koppel those statements in there about the Hawaiian king contracting out his own men, and how many there were at one time (100,000?) somewhere out beyond the seas, lots of them supposedly in North America but apparently in a very different capacity Down Under than here. If your family was Hudson's Bay Company by the way, a friend has an organization for descendants of old employees...Skookum1 04:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I am certainly long outside the native cultural/social loop (our family only recently learned of the first nations/kanaka connection). I think I am a descendent of Henry Haumea through his daughter Agnes. It is interesting you mention the Nahanees. I met Harriet briefly last summer.Rob_ 05:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Skookum1, I think there is a misunderstanding about terminology at work here. You say: Kanakas "weren't 'indentured servants' who were stolen away from the Isles. From what I've read in the sources, the Kanakas here were hired on". However, indentured labour is not slavery, although both are forms of unfree labour. Indenture means that workers are contracted to work for a set period of time. Indenture does not imply that workers are abducted and forced to work, as there are generally some, minimal benefits for indenturees, unlike slaves. The fact that they were, as you say, "hired on", actually means that they were indentured, as such contracts could be bought and sold.

For an excellent, interesting and often-cited article on the (paid) indenture of Kanakas, see: Adrian Graves, 1983, "Truck and Gifts: Melanesian Immigrants and the Trade Box System in Colonial Queensland", in: Past & Present (no.101, 1983).

I intend to remove the POV template unless you have some other objection. Grant | Talk 11:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, unless it's replaced with the "globalize" template, then. Because the content overleaf, despite the passing mention to North American conditions made so far, remains focussed and directed at the Australasian context and its negative connotations/history. "Indentured servant" for employees of the HBC could also include the white factors and traders as well as the engagees from the Metis and French-Canadians and eastern aboriginal people; "indentured" because all were on contract, and even sometimes in debt to the company for credit on goods; but "indentured servant" and "indentured servitude", if those conditions applied, were not exclusive to the Kanakas in the employ of the HBC, nor to those Kanakas engaged in California - who were, in fact, contracted out by the Hawaiian King himself from what I read in the Koppel book. Nobody was "blackbirded" into North America, and the Kanakas were highly-valued employees and community members, not second-class to anybody until the colour-conscious showed up from Eastern Canada with the railway (the Kanaka population of Gastown concentrated itself at the Cherry Orchard aka the Kanaka Rancherie, on Lost Lagoon, after the Gastown Winter Riots of 1885, which were directed mostly at Chinese but which made life uncomfortable for non-whites in the settlement, which had been multiracial since its founding; Barbadian bartender extraordinaire Joe Fortes was encouraged to leave his job at the bar in the Sunnyside Hotel - one of Gastown's oldest - because of the tension, and the same was true with the Kanakas, who joined other Kanakas who were already at the Cherry Orchard. Point is that other than the usual racial discrimination stuff that came in the wake of "increasing civilization", the Kanakas in North America apparently have a VERY different history from the plantation coolie experience in Australasia, and in our case they were exclusively Hawaiian (well, one or two Samoans and Tongans, but they were never called Kanakas). I don't have the Koppel book anymore, which is of recent publication; another one by Jean Barman chronicles the life of a Maria Mahoy of Saltspring Island and her clan, and there are Kanaka connections in the family of another Barman subject, Joe Silvey. Nowhere will you find reference to "indentured servitude" or blackbirding.....Skookum1 23:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

There is plenty of evidence to say that blackbirding, in the sense of abduction, was rare in Queensland as well. As the Adrian Graves article referenced above makes clear, many islanders saw indentured employment in Australia as an excellent way of improving their material circumstances and those of their families. And in the 19th century, most wage earners, in most countries, were formally/legally indentured; whether such contracts could be strictly enforced was another matter. Many Kanakas sought to resist forcible repatriation from Queensland and their descendants (they generally now refer to themselves as "South Sea Islanders") remain in Australia. I think the differences between Canada and Australia could easily be incorporated into the wording. Grant | Talk 06:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

On page 12 of Tom Koppel's 1995 book Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and Pacific Northwest he describes the contract under which the first Kanada were brought to the Pacific Northwest. Although they were not kidnapped the contract which they were under clearly meets the definition of "indentured servant." However, as Skookum1 points out this may have been a common practice amoungst all HBC employees and perhaps the Kanaka should not be singled out.Rob_ 05:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

From my reading on labour history around the world, I believe that in the prior to the 20th century, most employees, even in the most developed countries were employed under "Master and Servant" laws or similar. Such laws imposed contracts on them which were severe by present day standards, including jail terms if they "absconded" and/or did not work. Such laws technically covered workers of all races and national origins. In other words, they were all indentured, accoridng to the letter of the law. However — big however — in circumstances where labour was in short supply (such as relatively new colonies like Queensland and British Columbia) and/or workers were highly mobile, such contracts were difficult, if not impossible to enforce, unless — as was the case with Kanakas — they were isolated/separate/distinct from the mainstream workforce in some material way (i.e. as "guest workers" and members of an ethnic minority). Then they could be quite tightly controlled, through the threat of imprisonment, expulsion, violence and so on.

As Adrian Graves makes clear, although Kanakas were second class citizens in Queensland, many sought employment on the plantations there for the financial benefits it brought to them and their families, and many would have remained in Australia, had they not been expelled under the White Australia Policy. Some managed to evade forcible repatriation. (BTW the policy was not just a matter of simple racism; both blackbirding and the willing recruitment of Asian and Pacific Island labourers were decried by white workers because of the downward pressure that immigrant labour exerted on their own bargaining power in the labour market, and therefore on the wages and conditions of white workers.) Grant | Talk 16:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, OK, clearly the situation in Australasia was very different from North America. Near-invariably the Kanakas esp. pre-California gold rush were employees (engagés) of the Hudson's Bay Company and, although there was a social/colour ladder within your average fort, they were hardly at the bottom of it, and as stated before (and as Rob can pull a passage from Koppel about, I'd expect) they were valued members of HBC life. I don't know the pay scales but all non-managerial staff were paid in the same range (this include Iroquois, Metis and other non-local natives, as well as sometimes local natives) and ALL of them, including the chief trader and clerks, were "indentured" according to the interpretation you've given above - "under contract". There were some who are in records of the area who were ships' crew; some may have jumped ship, particularly in the Fraser Gold Rush (there were enough Hawaiians on one stretch of the Fraser, between Lytton and Boston BAr, that the place is named Kanaka Bar, i.e. goldbearing sandbar, one of hundreds named on that river). To my knowledge, nobody in BC ever bitched about Kanakas undercutting their wages; in our scenario that's the Chinese, and it would have been Kanaka wages/jobs affected by the competitoin, just the same as everyone else; in one area of post-gold rush BC btw natives were often paid more than white men, because they worked harder; the idea is that I can't see Kanakas being shortchanged; reliable, strong labour was needed, and well-rewarded. Unless it bid for lower pay; Kanakas in Canada, after leaving the employ of the fur company, were free agents and free to be part of the regular workforce, and AFAIK were never expected to work for lower wages than others.Skookum1 00:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

So can we use separate sections to discuss the differing situations in North America and Australia, and get rid of the disputed tag? Its been there for a long time and is not doing the article any favours. Grant | Talk 16:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm questioning this statement: "In part, this is because most "Kanakas" in Australia were people from Melanesia, rather than Polynesia, and included few Hawaiians." I think this just needs to be clarified or expanded to make the author's point clear. As it now stands it sounds racist -- applying the term kanaka to Melanesians (people with dark skin) makes the term derogatory? I'm sensitive to this as I've run into this sort of attitude a fair bit in dealing with Polynesian rights activists who VERY ACTIVELY deny any kinship with dark-skinned Pacific Islanders. It's a shame when a minority people buys into the categories of oppression of the dominant group! Kagillogly (talk) 16:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Origin of word Kanaka

This is clearly hawaiian. The Maori version, for instance, would have been Tangata, the Tahitian form Ta'ata, only in Hawaii does this polynesian root assume the form Kanata, and it's highly unlikely that an English mangling of any of the other forms would have resulted in the Hawaiian form by accident. Yet, best I can ascertain, the Kanaka were mostly Tahitian, Samoan, Tuvulan, Tongan - everything but Hawaiian. Yet the word used to refer to them is specifically Hawaiian. Does anyone know how that came to be?

The Tahitian, Samoan, Tuvulan, Tongan bunch may have been "kanakas" in Australia, but in North America they were overwhelmingly Hawaiian; see Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest by Tom Koppel, Whitecap Books (1995) ISBN. This book will also put the lie to the "indentured servants" argument above; this article clearly needs expansion, as you will find once reading Koppel's book (which I sold recently so can't cite some passages).Skookum1 06:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC) One thing I do remember is that as many as 100,000 Hawaiian men were abroad in paid service, commissioned by the king, at one point; and a good number of them were in the Pacific Northwest, where names such as Kanaka and Owyhee (Cook's spelling of Hawaii) are commonplace, as are also families with Hawaiian bloodlines (white, native, oriental and otherwise mixed).Skookum1 06:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC) Also, there is a kanakamaoli-allies listserv, which is a pro-independence/sovereignty forum; when I was looking for the origin of the word in the Hawaiian language, kanaka is short for kanakamaoli - a local dude, basically, "one of the locals".Skookum1 06:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about 'putting the lie to' the indentured servitude part, at least insofar as the experience of the Queensland canefield labourers from New Caledonia and elsewhere are concerned. There's ample documentation of this, some mentions are given above (although again as mentioned there are some dissenting views).

However, the experience of the Hawaiian labourers in Canada may well have been different, and it seems that the author(s) of the text here did not have these Hawaiian 'kanakas' in mind, but rather the blackbirding trade (as the practice was known) in the SW Pacific. If Koppel or other sources demonstrate the experience in Canada was of a different nature, then that could be further expanded upon here, and it made more clear that the term kanaka applied to a number of different groups and experiences.--cjllw | TALK 08:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I sold my copy of Koppel a few months ago or would have added something by now; if I come across anything in my remaning BC history books I'll add it; but Koppel lays out the contractual details, particularly the contracts between the Hawaiian king and the Company, or with various America-bound ships (and here I use "America" in the continental sense, as neither California nor BC were in either the US or Canada until after 1848 and 1871, respectively, and the Kanakas were around before that (from the founding of Ft Vancouver onwards, other than those onboard ships at Nootka Sound etc).Skookum1 00:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Only an anthropologist or a linguist would see the obvious link between "kanata" and "kanaki". They seem to think that two words only need to begin with the same letter to firmly establish a link between the two groups of people. Sheesh. Thank goodness (or better still, sanity) we now have carbon dating and genetic analysis to get at the truth. Sigma-t (talk) 06:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Difference between meaning of Kanaka in Australasia vs Pacific Northwest

Back to the same issue above, as I see my edits explaining that the negative connotations in Australasia are not held in BC/Western US, where Kanaka is anything a mark of honour, as someone who's Kanaka in the sense of the historical community has family lines here going back sometimes before the founding of either the colonies or of the US territories; there is no shame here, and they were not indentured labour, although they were certainly contracted like other fur company hirelings; their descendants do not have any of the negative experiences described above, and the Hawaiian connection (and ALWAYS Hawaiian in the Pacific Northwest sense of Kanaka) is pointed to proudly; proof of "being from here in a special way". I don't own the Koppel book any more but I'll put it bluntly that the Australasian version/account which remaindered my previous edits out of existence was unsubstantiated; the word means something different on one side of the Pacific vs the other, and the social/economic situation was very different; it's not me that needs provide a cite on this being the case, but rather the other way around; Kanakas in the fur-trade Pacific Northwest and since are noted in all the history for their strength, valour, loyalty and more, and I personally know families and individuals with proud Kanaka background, although like all other British Columbians/PacNWers of that vintage they're completely assimilated like everybody else (and may not even have tannable skin...).Skookum1 06:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Skookum1, sorry to say but I think BOTH parties need to provide a source here... underneath the edit box click on the word verifiable and you will see what I mean.

Clearly the word was borrowed from Canada and used in Australia. That Australia was declared terra nullus and Canada, USA, Hawaii were not, lead to differing standards of treatment of aboriginal peoples of those regions. There are plenty of Deadmans Creek, Turn Back Jimmy Creek, Poison Waterholes Creek place / waterway names throughout Australia as modern testament to how the pre-european population was treated (basically, like ferral animals).

I think the article would benefit from two seperate section, /*Canadian experience*/ and /*Australian experience*/ or similar, contrasting the conditions and history of Kanakas in each place.

I agree though - just as much as the Canadian experince needs citations to reliable sources so does the Australian experience.Garrie 04:16, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The word kanaka has (AFAIK) never been applied to Australian Aborigines. Use of the word kanaka in Australia, which has always been minimal, I thought would have come from the word kanaki (or kanaky) from New Caledonian melanesian languages. It simply means "people"; no doubt often asked by blackbirders who visited these areas. Melanesia had a long history of slavery, cannibalism, and human farming, which the blackbirders made full use of. (The American sea trader, and probable pirate, "Bully" Hayes was a notorious blackbirder of the late 1800s around Australasian waters. He may well be a link between such activities in this area and the north-west pacific.) The word was most most heavily used by expatriates during the Papua New Guinea colonial days, as a condescending term for natives, usually "bush kanaka". Jack Murray (PNG Administrator after WW2) was dubbed "Kanaka Jack" by expatriates who were irritated by his revoking of many regulations created by Hubert Murray. The word kanaka, AFAIK, has never been applied to Australian Aborigines, just the opposite; northern farmers were always driving off aborigines who were attacking their farms and kanakas.Sigma-t (talk) 06:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The Japanese were involved in the trafficking of indentured labor from the South Pacific, many of the laborers were Kanakas or what came to be called Kanakas. After their arrival in the Japanese home islands, not many Kanaka farm workers and railway workers lived through their captivity in Japan. They were soon replaced by Koreans and native Taiwanese, as well of indigenous Siberians. The Japanese as well the British in Malaya and Dutch in Indonesia were involved in the capture and containment of Borneoan or Malagasy slaves when they crossed the Indian ocean. + 71.102.11.193 (talk) 08:45, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The term 'kanaka' in the South-west Pacific is from a Melanesian word meaning 'man/person' or 'people'. It is cognate with south-east Pacific Polynesian languages 'tangata' (Maori - 'people') and 'ta'ata' (Tahiti) and probably also with Tagalog 'tag' (people belonging to a place - as in 'tag banua' (the people of a place) compare with Maori 'tangata whenua.' The Hawaiian tern kanaka'o'iwi means a 'man of the nation/tribe', whereas kanaka'maoli means 'ordinary or usual type of man.' (in Maori the word Maori means 'normal' or 'usual.')

The term 'kanaka' in North America and the North Pacific may come from a different origin - eg, from Kanuck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:3597:3400:980B:8820:4D75:D58 (talk) 02:04, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Kanakas in Australia

The new Governor General,Lord Hopetoun, summarised the scale of costs to employers in a letter to the Prime Minister, Edmund Barton:

A Kanaka [a person from the Pacific Islands] costs ½ crown [2 shillings 6 pence] a day including wages, food, clothing, cost of introduction from the islands and return journey thither. A Jap costs about 3s[shillings] a day on the same basis. A Chinaman about 4s 4d[pence]. An Indian about 5s. While I sympathise with the sentiment of the people which is, rightly I think, in favour of a White Australia, I don't want to see a great industry brought to a standstill and I know your feelings are the same as mine. The average white male wage was 7 shillings per day.

.<ref name="Griffiths">{{ cite web |url=http://members.optusnet.com.au/~griff52/Shadow%20of%20mill.rtf | last =Griffiths | first =Phil | date = | title = Towards White Australia: The shadow of Mill and the spectre of slavery in the 1880s debates on Chinese immigration | format =RTF | publisher = 11th Biennial National Conference of the Australian Historical Association | accessdate =2006-06-14 }}</ref>

The above is currently in use at blackbirding. Not sure how best to incorporate this into the article?Garrie 05:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The photograph

Could somone please move the photograph to commons? Aaker 21:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge

The words "kanak" or "Kanaka" when used in relation to Melanesians is the same as the word NIGGER. It is offensive to the ancestors and also to all Melanesian people. The word kanaka is only properly applied in the Hawaiian language, it means "person, or man". The correct term for these people is Melanesian, or more generally, Pacific Islander. It is only Australian Historians who deny that "blackbirding" was anything other than forced labour and a convenient term to cover slavery (which had been outlawed by Britain). The key point there, is "non free labour". NZ Historians and others, acknowledge Blackbirding for what it was. The great Aussie denial of it's treatment of indigenous people in Australia and the Pacific is still strong but not acceptable in Wikipedia. I suggest that this page be merged with Blackbirding202.70.51.189 (talk) 19:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Should this article be merged with Kanak. Apollon 19:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No. Kanaks are Melanesians, Kanakas are Polynesians. I'm not familiar with the etymology, but I'm pretty sure the terms are from two entirely different language groups, too.Skookum1 20:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Most "Kanakas" in Queensland were Melanesians, but often erroneously referred to as "Polynesians"; it was more out of ignorance than anything. "Kanaka" as a term of reference is often defined in contemporary documents as the Hawaiian word for "man". It was probably used by ships' captains who had, until the 1860s more contact with Polynesians than Melanesians, and simply adapted to the Island labourers who were brought to Queensland. Some present-day descendants in Australia detest the term; they regard it as equivalent of the "N" word for African Americans, while others happily own it as a badge of identity. The word "Kanak" refers to the Melanesian inhabitants of the French colony of New Caledonia - it has specific political connotations there. - signed by an anon IP

The term "Kanaka" is less applied in the U.S. than in Australia or Canada, and I included the entry on the article about "Kanakas" in the U.S. Many Polynesians (the majority being Hawaiian) came to pick crops in agriculture, but are also hired in ranching across the Western U.S. The story of Native Hawaiian vaqueros or the cowboys of Hawaii is an interesting tale of crosscultural contact between Pacific Islander, Latin American and Anglo American cowboy culture in the 19th century. I believe this is worth mentioning in the article, but hardly any American historian uses the term "Kanaka" to describe an imported Hawaiian contract worker. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 02:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth the term Kanaka in the Pacific Northwest (US and Canada) is fairly common and always refers to Natives Hawaiian laborers. It isn't an offensive word, but perhaps a bit archaic. It is probably more common in British Columbia than in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska--but not common at all in most of the rest of the US and Canada. Historically the term seems, from my reading, rather common among historians focusing on the early Pacific Northwest. A relatively well-known example is the Kanaka Village near old Fort Vancouver (see NPS pages on it and Kanakanation's pages). Many history books I have use the term as historically appropriate, with no suggestion that it might be offensive. The USGS GNIS databases lists about 50 US Kanaka placenames, mostly in California, the PNW, and Hawaii. Unlike placenames with the word nigger or squaw in them, I know of no effort to change these kanaka names. In fact, the use of kanaka in Pacific Northwest history is so normal I failed to realized the term was also used in Australia in a different way, until it came up on this page a while back. Am I correct in understanding that kanaka is still used in Australia today, offensively? Over here it is not, but is common in historical contexts, without being offensive. A similar, less common historical word for Native Hawaiians, and Hawaii itself, in America is Owyhee--still common in many placenames. In any case, one never hears the term "Kanak" here in the Pacific Northwest. I hadn't until just now. Pfly (talk) 09:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Canuck/Kanaka

This claim seems very specious to me and "some linguists" might be an overblown description if only one author makes the claim. I've certainly never seen/heard this attribution before....the first known instance of Canuck is in 1835, though, well within the window in which Kanakas might have travelled to Estern Canada via the brigade/express routes in the employ of the fur companies; it seems a real stretch to transplant the hononym from Pacific Islanders to French-Canadians though (the original meaning of Canuck was a French-Canadian, not any Canadian). In any case I've added your input to teh Canuck article, since it's cited....is so-and-so a linguist, by the way, i.e. formally accredited? And is this publication peer-reviewed or is it "popular literature"?Skookum1 (talk) 15:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Should page be named singluar, Kanaka?

It seems odd that this page is named in the plural. Wouldn't it be more sensible to be single: Kanaka? Pfly (talk) 09:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it needs changing; it should only be in the singular per wiki standard.....needs a page-move request/admin intervention because of redirect in the way of a normal page-move.Skookum1 (talk) 15:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Mamaka Kaïo

On 12 March 2010, an anonymous user added to the sentence "The word kanaka originally referred only to Native Hawaiians, called kānaka ʻōiwi or kānaka maoli in the Hawaiian". They appended the phrase "Mamaka Kaïo which means "man" and " Free man" since 2009**". The double asterisks apparently were an effort to refer to a new citation which was added at the end of the article, "**Wladimir Di Giorgio,rés. n°5195 "Francs et Kanaks".A.P.E /Ctésia -2009.". This citation is now gone from the article, but the addition to the main text remains. As a reader, this addition ("Mamaka Kaïo which means "man" and " Free man" since 2009**") makes no sense to me. A little googling suggests that Mamaka Kaïo is the title of a Hawaiian vocabulary list, but I can't find enough information to cite it properly. As it stands, this sentence seems like gibberish, since "Mamaka Kaïo" has nothing to do with the Hawaiian for "man" or "free man", and the date is irrelevant. I've removed it - but maybe someone can fix it? Country Wife (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Owyhee County, Idaho

According to the list of U.S. counties that share names with U.S. states (footnote 1), Owyhee County, Idaho was named for Hawaiian fur trappers who explored the area in 1819 and 1820. Seems like there might be some relevant information that could be included in this article, or perhaps a mention in the "See also" section. YBG (talk) 07:32, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

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Inconsistency with photograph

The photograph in the “Australia” section is captioned as being of a group in front of a sugarcane plantation. The same photograph is used in the entry for “South Sea Islanders”, but the caption says it is a pineapple plantation. Recommend either it be settled which it is, or remove the type of produce from the descriptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:CD01:6AC0:ACBB:3114:5E5B:3A57 (talk) 10:37, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Do we really need a racist and outdated term in Wikipedia?

This is not WIktionary, we don't really need such an offensive article here. There are many offensive loan words in English that have lost their context and have no general meaning in modern English such as Welsh even... But there isn't a specific article for what Welsh means offensively in the UK for example, so why is this here? 27.96.194.4 (talk) 11:15, 18 January 2024 (UTC)