Arts and Crafts of Hawaii
Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1957.
First printing. 606 pp., 7.25 x 10.5 inches. Cloth over boards in pictorial printed dust-jacket. With 350 illustrations in black and white. Scattered foxing to edges and first and last pages, and light wear to extremities of cloth, otherwise very good in a very good jacket with minor chipping and wear to edges, and minuscule losses to corners. Item #4617
The uncommon original publication of this exhaustive study, much of which was later issued in numerous separate pamphlets. The author, born in New Zealand of Irish and Maori parents, after a distinguished career as physician, statesman, soldier, and anthropologist, joined the Bishop Museum as an ethnologist in 1927, becoming director in 1936, a position that he held until his death in 1951.
Among the author’s many publications were monographs on the cultures of the Maoris, Samoans, Mangarevans, Cook Islanders, and the people of Kapingamarangi; this book, in the words of the publisher, “stands alone as the definitive work on Hawaiian material culture . . . Buck guides the reader through every major element of Hawaiian life, providing descriptions of traditional objects, methods of construction, and traditional use. As a testimony of Buck’s scholarship and attention to detail, many descriptions are specific enough to allow modern artisans to recreate these works.”.
Price: $250.00