Third Text

16 April 2026

Adrian Locke

‘Hawai‘i: a kingdom crossing oceans’, British Museum, London, 15 January – 25 May 2026

‘Hawai‘i: a kingdom crossing oceans’, exhibition view, British Museum, London, 15 January – 25 May 2026, courtesy of the British Museum, photo by MKH

Visting the British Museum’s exhibition ‘Hawai‘i: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans’ emphasises how little one actually knows about the history of this extensive archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. What transpires is a compelling and disturbing history that, like so many others, lies in the destructive wake of European colonisation, the legacy of which remains to this day. Lying approximately 4,000 km west off the coast of California, Hawai‘i comprises 137 islands, atolls, islets and submerged sand banks, spanning some 2,400 km in length, and in 1959 became the fiftieth and most recently created state of the union of the USA. The Island of Hawai‘i, the largest of the eight main islands, of which seven are inhabited, gives its name to the whole archipelago. Of the other islands, Kaho‘olawe, the smallest, is uninhabited as it was used by the American air force and navy for target practice and is slowly being cleared of unexploded ordinances. The most densely populated island is O‘ahu where the capital city Honolulu and Pearl Harbour are located. Lāna‘i, previously a pineapple plantation, was recently bought by the American billionaire Larry Ellison, who owns all but 2 per cent of it. Ni‘ihau, another private island, has, for generations, been preserved for the traditional Hawaiian way of life by the Robinson-Sinclair-Gay family who purchased it in1864.

The islands of Hawai‘i were settled by Polynesians, probably from the Marquesas Islands and Society Islands, around a thousand years ago. Thus, when Captain James Cook landed on O‘ahu on 18 January 1778, he and his fellow crew members aboard HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery were not only the first Europeans to engage with indigenous Hawaiians but they inadvertently interrupted a centuries-old, unchanged way of life. Life on Hawai‘i would never be the same again. For a start, the Europeans brought with them viruses and diseases to which the Hawaiians had no natural immunity, as well as virulent venereal diseases, not to mention new religious faith and other practices of government.

As was the norm at the time, Cook assumed the right to name the islands and claim them in the name of King George III. He called the archipelago the Sandwich Islands after the First Lord of the Admiralty and his principal expedition sponsor, John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. That name would last until around the 1840s, as three satirical prints by Thomas Cruikshank included in the exhibition depict the royal delegation of Hawaiians, here shown as Sandwich Islanders, ridiculing and denigrating them as exotic tourists festooned with tattoos, dressed in feathers and speaking gibberish during their stay in London in 1824. ^[1]  These images stand in stark contrast to contemporary portraits exhibited nearby by John William Gear, which show the elegantly dressed royal delegation seated in a box at the Theatre Royal. It is this royal visit that is the central tenet of the exhibition, the history of which is meticulously pieced together in the catalogue. However, the story as presented in the exhibition is uneven, as the Cruickshank prints reflect, and translates into a noticeable power imbalance between the two nations. As Andrew Stooke previously wrote in these pages: ‘The impression of indigenous cultures and first nation peoples, in the form of contemporary artworks, remains subordinate to the narrative of Western enlightenment in which exhaustively written testimonies, the inventory and the actual relic, are considered pre-eminent guarantors of datum’. ^[2]  The weight of history sides with the dominant power.

Shortly after the arrival of Cook, the first Hawaiian was violently killed by a European, shot by Third Lieutenant John Williamson during an expedition to shore. This act ushered in a period of brutality that coincided with Cook’s interaction with the Hawaiians, with corporeal punishment being a favourite method of punishment for infractions, perceived or otherwise. The balance of power was always one-sided in favour of the British. During that first encounter, Cook took the opportunity to replenish his vessels with food and water, which was willingly gifted by his hosts, and set sail to continue his search for the Northwest Passage, the principal goal of this, his third and final voyage. At this time Hawai‘i boasted plentiful plantations of taro, sugar cane, plantain and sweet potatoes, as well as breadfruit and coconut trees alongside livestock such as pigs and chickens – a consequence of the historic expansion and settlement by neighbouring Pacific islanders. Having failed in his mission, Cook returned on 26 November 1778, landing on Maui, the third largest island.  A few weeks later he was killed at Kealakekua Bay on Hawai‘i on 14 February 1779. ^[3]

This early history of encounter is evident throughout the exhibition through the extraordinary material culture that was collected during Cook’s third voyage, as well as subsequent acquisitions made by, for example, Captain George Vancouver, who from 1791–95 was tasked with mapping the Pacific northwest coasts of what are now the United States of America and Canada. ^[4]  Like many of the Pacific Islands claimed by European heads of state they became important staging posts during expeditions across the region, at the same time as they were steadily colonised and settled.

ʻUmeke kiʻi (bowl with figure), courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum; the bowl likely represents a chiefly person in a serving position, their high status indicated by their headdress and loincloth

Dazzling featherwork cloaks, headdresses, dance rattles, drums, jewellery, fish hooks, and wooden sculptures of deities were accumulated in significant numbers, and, over the years, steadily acquired by the British Museum from private collections and museums as well as donations, swelling its rich Hawaiian holdings. Feathers, a material of high value and status, were harvested from living birds by experts, and gifted to the nobility as a form of tribute. The objects made from them reflected the individual authority of chiefs and were worn on ceremonial occasions. Feathers were also integrated into representations of gods. As objects of the highest prestige they were given as gifts of honour. Despite the moral issues raised through the acquisition and continued ‘ownership’, visitors to the exhibition and the Museum can be the beneficiaries of the fact that these extraordinary, fragile objects have survived in such incredible condition in British collections, reflecting the historical importance and value that was attributed to them. A short film in the exhibition highlights how a rare example of a dance rattle, made from a gourd, feathers and bird pelts, continues to inspire the makers of contemporary rattles.

‘Hawai‘i: a kingdom crossing oceans’, exhibition view, British Museum, London, 15 January – 25 May 2026, courtesy of the British Museum, photo by MKH

Thus, we can see how the preservation of these objects continues to influence contemporary practice as well as aid historical study. Many of the birds from which feathers were harvested, for example, are now extinct. Perhaps some of the images by John Webber from Cook’s third voyage of how some of these objects were used and worn by Hawaiians might have helped highlight their function and provided important visual context. The material on display is impressive, and the breadth of the Museum’s holdings is apparent as most of the exhibits are drawn from its own collections, supplemented by a few additional loans from the Royal Collections, the College of Arms and the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu, among others. As stated in the exhibition labels, a number of the objects have no provenance – that is, it is not known exactly where they came from, or how or when they entered into the collection, or, in some cases, exactly what purpose that particular object served, its precise history lost. The British Museum does admit to these gaps of knowledge and failures in its cataloguing system. The decision to include an entire inventory of historic Hawaiian objects held by the British Museum in the accompanying catalogue should be applauded. An opportunity has been identified, and taken, to ensure that information is easily available to anyone who has an interest in pursuing the study of Hawaiian objects, and creating, in the process, a lasting and important legacy of the exhibition.

Perhaps one of the major disappointments of the exhibition, however, is the absence of important comparative historic material from other UK and international museum collections. There is an extraordinary richness of objects spread across Europe. To take featherwork alone, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge have significant and historic holdings; as does the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, the Weltmuseum in Vienna, and the now off-limits Kunstkamera in St Petersburg.

The British Museum has over recent years focused many of its special exhibitions on its own holdings. Evidently, it has the breadth and depth of collections to allow this and it is a legitimate reason to showcase the riches it has at its disposal. In terms of planning exhibitions, it keeps budgets down as the cost of negotiating, conserving, crating, transporting, installing and exhibiting objects from external lenders is kept to a bare minimum. The footprint dedicated to the exhibition (Room 35) is a relatively modest 400m² (downstairs, the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, by way of comparison, is 1,100m²). The reality is that the cost of staging a larger exhibition and the logistical challenges and expense of securing important loans from other institutions was, in all likelihood, prohibitive. Yet, while the treasures housed at the British Museum can be enjoyed and admired, they cannot be seen in the broader context of significant historic objects held elsewhere, or comparisons made with objects that are rarely, if ever, seen together in close proximity. This could be considered a missed opportunity. Instead, exhibition viewers can gaze on this rarely seen collection, given that the British Museum still does not have a permanent gallery dedicated to its diverse Pacific collections, itself a major anomaly. ^[5]

The exhibition commemorates the two-hundredth anniversary of a royal Hawaiian delegation that travelled to Great Britain, arriving in Portsmouth in May 1824. The delegation, led by King Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and his wife Queen Kamāmalu, followed the unification of the Hawaiian islands under a single royal family in 1810. The ambition of the trip, which aimed to cement diplomatic relations between the two nations, ended in tragedy as the royal couple died of measles in a London hotel as they waited for an audience with George IV; Kamāmalu was 22 and Liholiho was 26. Their bodies were repatriated to Hawai‘i.

Left: Portrait of Kamehameha II, 1824; right: Portrait of Kamāmalu, 1824, hand-coloured lithographs by John Hayter, courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum

Herein lies the glaring problem of the exhibition, as most of the exhibited objects predate the events around this royal visit. Yet the history behind the objects on show, the encounters with Cook, Vancouver and Webber, among others, and the individual stories of how they were collected (whether gifted, exchanged, purchased, appropriated or stolen) remains largely uncommented upon. As Jonathan Jones, art critic for The Guardian, noted, ‘Cook isn’t mentioned in the wall texts or portrayed in the show, but his ghost is everywhere in the objects he and his men brought back to Britain’. ^[6]  The elephant in the room is the absence of the context of the near fifty-year colonial history that predates the royal visit and which is largely illustrated by objects from that earlier period.

In 1978, Stuart Levine criticised a touring exhibition in London and Kansas for inadvertently reinforcing the misconception that North American Native American culture was extinct, despite the curator wanting to emphasise the very opposite. ^[7]  Such a mistake would be unthinkable today. Indeed, recent exhibitions in the UK drawn from the diverse cultures of the Pacific have, over the last few years, emphasised not just the continuity of traditional culture(s) but also demonstrated the vibrancy with which Native artists have embraced new technologies and ways of representation. Museum curators in Great Britain have developed and nurtured relationships with their counterparts across the region. The incorporation of contemporary indigenous voices through labels and short films are central features alongside the objects on display. ^[8]  Indigenous peoples are finally being given the opportunity to be seen and heard making important contributions in exhibitions about their own culture. No exhibition could be conceived of without their participation; there can be no argument about that.

Connected to indigenous participation is the need to seek permission to show objects – particularly those of great sacred importance – in exhibitions. No longer can curators and institutions simply choose objects and exhibit them. Protocols have to be adhered to and proper respect given to both the communities and the objects that were taken from them and which are now housed in European museums and stores. Take, for example, and in simplified terms, the imposing representation of Kū, which stands outside the entrance to the British Museum exhibition. One of only three surviving such monumental representations, he is ceremonially dressed in a tapa loincloth. ^[9]  This embodiment of Kū is replete with divine and ancestral power. To Hawaiians, he remains very much alive and despite being in the collection of the British Museum, thousands of miles from his place of origin, has lost none of his immense power. During the course of the exhibition, ceremonial offerings laid at the feet of Kū, including leaves and salt, underline his importance as a living, divine being. As Susan Tallman succinctly states in reference to the sculpture of a woman acquired by the German adventurer, Gustav Conrau, from the Bangwa region of the Cameroon in 1899 and now in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac: ‘…in Paris she’s just art. In Cameroon she’s a person’. ^[10]  

Kiʻi (image) of the god Kū outside the entrance to ‘Hawai‘i: a kingdom crossing oceans’ at the British Museum, London, courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum; Kū wears a loincloth made for him and fitted by Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners

The history of the colonial acquisition of Hawaiian objects is made apparent in the British Museum with the display of three wooden sculptures that were stolen from a sacred enclosure by crew members of HMS Blonde in 1825. The irony is that it was the HMS Blonde that took the remaining members of the royal delegation and the bodies of the deceased king and queen back to Hawai‘i following the tragic events in London. Despite being shown to a sacred burial site, the crew members desecrated it by stealing numerous objects. So much for the equality between both nations. In the past Hawaiians were flogged by Cook for stealing, but here we can see British crew members rewarded by profiting from selling their stolen loot. Three of these sculptures eventually made their way into the collections of the British Museum. An accompanying text panel in the exhibition explains that ‘this behaviour contrasted with the renewed commitments of British support to the Hawaiian Kingdom’, but it is perhaps more representative of what was, and continued to be, a one-sided relationship in which the European power assumed a dominant role. In the exhibition they are shown behind a black gauze, like a mourning cloth, accompanied with offerings of lava and coral to reconnect them with Hawai‘i. It is a potent reminder of the power imbalance: despite being knowingly looted, they remain in the collection of the British Museum. 

What followed the royal visit to London is a sorry tale of promises made and cries for help unanswered. A group of thirteen American and European businessmen overthrew the Hawaiian royal family’s government in 1893, confiscating much land in the process. When help was requested from Queen Victoria, she declined to intervene despite an earlier oral promise made by King George IV in 1824 to come to their assistance in the event of external threats to their sovereignty. Instead, and somewhat predictably, the Hawaiians were left to their fate – or as Queen Victoria said, to that of the ‘Almighty’.

References are made in the exhibition to the loss of habitat and wildlife, the introduction of monoculture and the destruction of the indigenous systems of irrigation, but they only touch on a depressingly familiar narrative. Under President Bill Clinton, the US Congress’s Apology Resolution in 1993 conceded that ‘the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii occurred with the active participation of agents and citizens of the United States and... the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands, either through the Hawaiian Kingdom or through a plebiscite or referendum.’ Despite that apology, inequality prevails. Local people are priced out of land and property ownership. Bernice Pauahi Bishop (a descendant of the royal family and after whom the national museum in Honolulu is named) left money in trust to fund Kamehameha schools that focus on a Hawaiian culture-based education. ^[11]  But these schools are now being challenged with discriminatory practices. Alongside Ellison, vast estates have been purchased by billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case and Oprah Winfrey, making Hawai‘i a playground for America’s rich and famous. ^[12]  Yet, this exhibition does give cause for hope, as native voices and traditional practices survive and continue to fight to not only preserve a threatened culture and way of life but to dignify and legitimise it. A powerful and uplifting film at the end of the exhibition, shown on a large screen, shows young Hawaiians reciting poetry in front of a dramatic landscape. Their voices demonstrate an optimism and go some way to address the power imbalance that Hawaiians face in today’s society, which, despite adversity, they continue to fight to preserve as well as to advocate for their way of life, maintaining their distinct identity in the process. Like many marginalised peoples across the world, Hawaiians have much to teach others about living in balance with the environment in which they live. Their story is told here, and like many it is a tale of tragedy, loss, inequality and repression – but it is a necessary one, that once again forces Great Britain to look back on another chapter of its colonial past and wonder what it could or should have done differently. The restitution of historic material could be just a start.  

^[1]    See Russell Clement, ‘From Cook to the 1840 Constitution: The Name Change from Sandwich to Hawaiian Islands’, Hawaiian Journal of History, vol 14, 1980, pp 50–57 (downloadable PDF)

^[2]    Andrew Stooke, ‘Captain Cook Reimagined from the British Museum’s Point of View’, Third Text Online, 5 June 2019, http://www.thirdtext.org/stooke-cook-britishmuseum

^[3]    See Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas, Allen Lane, London, 2003, for a fulsome account of Cook’s time (and death) on the islands of Hawai‘i

^[4]    Vancouver, the west coast seaport and city in British Columbia, Canada was named after him.

^[5]    These include, for instance, two basalt moai from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) (Oc1869,1006.1 and Oc1869,1005.1), and a large ceremonial feast bowl (Oc1903,1007.1) seized during a punitive raid on the Solomon Islands in 1891, and which despite entering the collection of the British Museum in 1903 has never been on display in Bloomsbury, although it was shown at the former Museum of Mankind from 1974–1985.

^[6]    Jonathan Jones, ‘Hawaii: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans review – a feather-filled thriller full of gods, gourds and ghosts’, The Guardian, 12 January 2026

^[7]    See Stuart Levine, ‘Sacred Circles: Native American Art and American Culture’, American Quarterly, vol 30, no 1, Spring 1978, pp 108–123, pp 114–115

^[8]    Examples of such exhibitions are: ‘Tapa: Barkcloth paintings from the Pacific’ at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, 2013; ‘Reimagining Captain Cook: Pacific perspectives’ at the British Museum, 2016; ‘Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific’ at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 2016; and ‘Oceania’ at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2018.

^[9]    In 2010, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the unification of the islands by Kamehameha I, ‘E Kū Ana Ka Paia: Unification, Responsibility, and the Kū Images’ at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu reunited for the first time the three surviving representations of Kū – from the Bishop Museum, the British Museum and the Essex Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

^[10]    Susan Tallman, ‘The Empire Gives Back’, The New York Review of Books, vol LXXIII, no 1, 15 January 2026, pp 6–10, p 8

^[11]   See Nick Visser, ‘A Hawaiian princess bequeathed her inheritance to her people. The schools they set up are being sued’, The Guardian, 26 October 2025

^[12]   See Phoebe Liu and Monica Hunter-Hart, ‘Meet the Billionaires Buying Up Hawaii’, Forbes, 18 February 2024

Dr Adrian Locke is Curator Emeritus, Royal Academy of Arts, London and a Fellow of the Association for Art History. He worked closely with Nicholas Thomas and Peter Brunt in the preparation and delivery of the 2018 exhibition ‘Oceania’ at the Royal Academy.