Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 6, 1 June 2012 — Hawaiʻiʻs legal history at your fingertips [ARTICLE]

Hawaiʻiʻs legal history at your fingertips

Hawai'i historians and researchers may not need to visit the State Archives for hard-to-find Hawai'i historic government documents. Punawaiola, a digital archive of Ka Huli Ao Centerfor Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, makes some of these legal and historical documents available to the puhlie online. Ka Huli Ao's digital archive allows computer users to find archived documents dating as far back as 1834. Archived documents currently available include: Hawaiian Laws from 1834, Laws of the Sandwich lslands by Kauikeaouli, Statute Laws of 1847 and the Penal Code of 1850, and Journals of the proceedings of the House of Nobles. These untapped legal and historical materials have tremendous potential to impact how we understand Native Hawaiian traditional and customary practices, and beyond. While these documents are maintained at the State Archives, accessing them has now been made easier. The archived documents are word-searchable thanks to the work of Keith Johnston, Ka Huli Ao's digital archives coordinator. This feature allows researchers and scholars to find terms and phrases more easily through a transcribed version of the original document. Users ean also access a photographed copy of the original document and compare the photographed document with its transcribed counterpart. Doreen Hobdy, a Maui resident who researched herfamilygenealogy, said the digital archive is invaluable for Neighbor lslanders. "I was thrilled to find Ka Huli Ao's archives online and looked through with mueh interest," she said. Out-of-state researchers have also benefited. Shirley Buchanan, a recent California State University graduate, said punawaiola.org "provided key information I could find nowhere else." Buchanan tapped the digital archives to complete her master's thesis in American history. She has since been accepted to the doctoral program in history at the Universityof Hawai'i-Mānoa. Punawaiola is available at punawaiola.org. ■