ABSTRACT
According to David Russell, researchers traditionally agree that folklore comprises "all those stories handed down from generation to generation, from old to young, by word of mouth". Since the early Polynesians did not write their stories until Western missionaries introduced print, the early Hawaiians communicated, narrated, and retold culture orally. Many of these oral stories were lost when the last of the kahuna died. According to Takaki, even as modern urban development erases Hawai'i's historic plantation era, that era's timeless character continues to shape Hawai'i's consciousness. Authors creating and working within the tradition of local folk literature predominantly appropriate Western fairytales or fairytale elements and design, and populate them with local characters, places, pastimes, and experiences. As legends are re-told among generations, stories inevitably must change. Indeed, this is the nature of folklore. In contrast to inauthentic appropriations and exploitations, native Hawaiian scholars continue to evoke mythology.
