ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the topic only offered a partial list of Hawaiian-language translations of Marchen, which is unsurprising given the logistical and methodological difficulties of researching them. It examines the politics surrounding the publication and reception of European wonder tales and Hawaiian ka‘ao. The chapter explores the plots and themes of the first three Marchen published in the press between 1861 and 1862 as part of a project to “civilize” Hawaiians. It describes a Marchen published two weeks after the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893. Any systematic investigation of Hawaiian-language newspapers is a time-consuming and painstaking process. Vehement debates over the publication of European fairy tales and Hawaiian ka‘ao in Hawaiian-language newspapers offer examples of colonial rhetoric and its racial undertones. In terms of poetics and politics, the handful of published works on Hawaiian-language translations of Marchen, will undoubtedly interest scholars from fairy-tale studies, translation studies, colonial studies, Indigenous studies, Hawaiian studies, and more.
