The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture

13. The Industrious Exiles: An Analysis of Flaked Glass Tools from the Leprosarium at Kalawao, Moloka‘i

295 13. The Industrious Exiles: An Analysis of Flaked Glass Tools from the Leprosarium at Kalawao, Moloka‘i James L. Flexner and Colleen L. Morgan Abstract: Archaeological investigation of the leprosarium at Kalawao, Moloka‘i, Hawaii, recovered a small assemblage of flaked glass tools, used by people diagnosed with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) and exiled to the remote Kalaupapa peninsula between 1866 and 1969. Flaked glass is commonly documented on postcontact archaeological sites in Oceania and elsewhere and can be considered an expression of indigenous tool technologies in an introduced material. The Kalawao assemblage is remarkable because it contains artifacts that represent innovations over traditional Hawaiian tool forms. This study considers precontact volcanic glass tools in Hawaii and their potential for informing postcontact glass tool technologies.An analytical approach to understanding worked bottleglass artifacts based on context and macroscopic properties is suggested, using the Kalawao assemblage as an example. The bottle-glass tools from Kalawao are not simply adaptations of precontact volcanic glass tool forms to a new material type but innovations involving the institutional context of Kalawao, differential availability of resources among the exiles, and physical disabilities related to the effects of Hansen’s disease on the human body. Introduction Archaeological studies of hybridity, the creation of new cultural forms in situations of contact and colonialism (Bhabha 1993), can benefit from a processoriented approach, where hybridization, that is, the emergence of hybrid forms, is The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, edited by Jeb J. Card. Center for Archaeological Investigations , Occasional Paper No. 39. © 2013 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-0-8093-3314-1. 296 J. L. Flexner and C. L. Morgan an important cultural phenomenon that can inform interpretations of the material culture of past peoples (Van Dommelen 2005). According to such an approach, no piece of material culture in situations of contact belongs purely to one culture or another; rather these objects are entangled in emerging identities and networks of exchange produced in situations of contact (Stein 2005). One aspect of these situations is the reinterpretation of exotic materials in local contexts, a phenomenon that has been observed in many times and places, from the first millennium b.c. Mediterranean (Dietler 1998) to nineteenth-century Australia (Harrison 2006). In this volume, chapters by Cordell, Card, Brezine, Griffitts, Ehrhardt, and Hayes explore various possible indigenous interpretations of foreign material culture in innovative and useful ways. One material that was commonly reinterpreted in colonial contexts from the fifteenth century onward was the bottle glass carried by European traders and explorers, which was utilized by many indigenous groups as a raw material for cutting and scraping tools. During recent archaeological research on the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century leprosarium at Kalawao, an ahupua‘a1 on Kalaupapa peninsula , Moloka‘i Island, Hawaii (Figure 13-1), the Archaeology of the Recent Past at Kalawao (Flexner 2010, 2012), or ARPK, field project recovered a small assemblage of bottle-glass artifacts showing evidence of retouch and use. This assemblage lies at the intersection of multiple processes of hybridization, based on the creation of social differences, both colonial (Torrence and Clarke 2000) and institutional (Hubert 2000). In addition to the colonial context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Hawaii, these artifacts come from an institutional context, a quarantine settlement intended to isolate people with Hansen’s disease (caused by Mycobacterium leprae and commonly known as leprosy). Flaked bottle glass represents a “hybrid material culture,” as an adaptation of indigenous technologies, originally developed for volcanic glass, to a newly introduced material. These artifacts are also interpreted in terms of the debilitating physical effects of Hansen’s disease, as well as the difficulty of acquiring tools in Kalawao, where resources were limited. Innovations in cutting and scraping tools made of bottle glass indicate a unique adaptation to physical disabilities and institutional difficulties by toolmakers and users living in Kalawao. This case study involves an emerging technology that is simultaneously Hawaiian, introduced, and adaptive to disability, adding an additional facet to possible interpretations of hybridized material culture. The historical context of the leprosarium at Kalawao thus provides new understandings of the complexity involved in interpreting material culture in colonial and postcolonial situations. Archaeological Approaches to Flaked Bottle Glass Archaeological and anthropological investigations of colonialism have noted numerous examples of introduced materials being adopted into indigenous contexts based on form, function, or contexts of exchange, among other characteristics (Cusick 1998; Gosden 2004; Kirch 1992; Mills 2002, 2003; Murray 2004; Smith 2007; Thomas...