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Audio: Hawaii

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Hawaii, and specifically the Big Island of Hawaii. Which is also called Hawaii.

Hawaii is the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, which make up the US state of Hawaii. The island makes up 63% of the archipelago’s landmass, but only 13% of its total population. The island is the third largest island in Polynesia, behind the two main islands of New Zealand. With a total area of around 10,000 km2 (or 4,000 square miles), Hawaii is similar in size to the islands of Puerto Rico or Cyprus, or our old friend Gambia.

With a rich history and culture, Hawaii and its sister islands flourished as ancient societies, developing unique religions and customs, that is until the arrival of one Captain James Cook. In 1779 the famous explorer made his second and final landing here, and would not make it off the island alive. By the end of the century, the islands came under the protection of the British Crown, and missionaries soon followed, changing island life forever. The 1800s brought modern developments and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hawaii, but ended in the annexation of the territory by the United States, a controversial episode to this day. In 1959, Hawaii becomes the 50th State, now famous for tourism, spam and pineapples. Hawaii Island, also known simply as The Big Island, is today home to around 185,000 people, and due to ongoing volcanic activity, Hawaii is the only US state that is still growing.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. Thanks to Kuʻu Kauanoe one of the hosts of the Offshore Podcast from Honolulu Civil Beat, for speaking to us for this episode – you will hear clips from her interview throughout.

The city of Hilo in 1907

Some further reading material is provided below:

A great website for all things Big Island is Love Big Island, and is particularly useful for tourists wishing to visit, but also helped us with plenty of history.
Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past By Kanalu G. Terry Young is available on Google Books.
For more on the Kapu system, see storymaps.com
Hawaii: The Aloha State By Robin Doak has a lot more on the process of annexation, which you can find on Google Books.
The Eisenhower Library has more on Hawaii’s journey to statehood, which you can find here.
Smithsonian Magazine has an excellent article on Liliʻuokalani, the Last Queen of Hawaiʻi.
The Stuff You Should Know episode on the annexation is available here. Thanks, Josh and Chuck!
Richard B Frank’s article in TIME, headlined How Hawaii’s Japanese Population Was Spared Internment During World War II was a key source for that section of the show.
For more on the totally not supervillian Starfish Prime, you can check out this article in Discover Magazine.
Hawaii Beef also has lots of info on cattle farming on the islands.
Finally, the season of the Offshore Podcast on race relations in Hawaii can be found here. It’s definitely worth a listen.

green-sand-beach-hawaii-pictures — Check out that green sand!

The music used in this episode is as follows:

George Ku Trio – Na Alii
Hawaiian Kahiko Hula: Sonny Ching “O Ke Ahi Lonomakua”
HOLO HOLO KAA Hawaiian Song Music 1949
Hawaiian War Chant – Ames Brothers

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

Audio: Bougainville

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Bougainville, the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. Located 1,000 kilometers east of the mainland national capital of Port Moresby, Bougainville is the most remote of Papua New Guinea’s 19 provinces. Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago, lying around 1500km or 1000 miles off the northeast coast of Australia, in the Solomon Sea. Most of the islands in this archipelago (which are primarily concentrated in the southern and eastern portions of it) are part of the politically independent Solomon Islands. At around 3,500 square miles or just under 9,000 square km, Bougainville is comparable in size to Hawaii’s largest island, Puerto Rico or Cyprus. Residents speak Tok Pisim, a pidgin language spoken widely in this region, in addition to 20 different indigenous languages, depending on where they are from, and the region currently has a population of around 250,000. Inhabited by humans for at least 29,000 years, Bougainville was first discovered by Europeans in 1616, and was named for the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, one of the first people to circumnavigate the globe. The German Empire annexed present-day Bougainville in 1886, before the islands were occupied in 1914 by Australia during World War 1. Taken by Japan in 1942, the islands were fought over by both sides during the latter years of World War 2, and have retained a secessionist streak since the mid 1960s. However, tensions between different factors remain unresolved to this day, and while officially the island is today an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea, many still push for independence, particularly following a bloody 10-year civil war which concluded in 1997. A referendum in 2019 voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, but the exact implementation of that still remains to be seen.

Flag of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, and map of location within Papua New Guinea

We’ve also just launched a merch store in associated with TeePublic. You can find our store by clicking here, with exclusive discounts at the time of publishing.

Further information and some of the sources we consulted can be found below:

Our most valuable single source for this episode was the valuable collection of essays “Bougainville: before the conflict”, which can be found at this link
Profile on Unrepresented Nations and Peoples website: https://unpo.org/article/34, article in Encyclopedia Britannica, profile on Minority Rights Group: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/bougainvilleans/
Some information about “Queen Emma”: Wikipedia, The Post Courier, PNGAA
World War 2: Anzac Portal: “In the Shadows of Bougainville”
1970s promotional film on the Bougainville Copper Mine at Panguna
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia “The Origins of the Bougainville Conflict”: https://dl.nfsa.gov.au/module/357/
“Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing the Peace in Bougainville” (Australian National University) has a lot of detailed information on the peace process and the various hurdles and pitfalls that had to be overcome on the way to peace
ABC News: “Bougainville independence referendum renews interest in Theodore Miriung murder mystery”, “Bougainville Parliament at odds over [Kabui’s] resources deal”
“The man who would be king” – Interview with Francis Ona
The Diplomat: “Bougainville’s ‘Royal’ Pyramid Scheme Problem”
2021 article in The Guardian on environmental impact of Panguna mine, which Luke quoted
A Tok Pisin lesson
Videos about the 2019 referendum: UN Peacekeeping video, Bertie Ahern: “Referendum preparations must begin now“, a 2020 update from Prof Ker-Lindsay,

Some music from Bougainville can be found at the following links, including some excellent examples of ‘bamboo bands’:

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

This episode, we’d particularly like to thank new patrons, Dana Fox, AC C, Daniella Sponsler, Stepehen M, and some long-standing supporters: Emily Cranfill, Collin Macharyas, Simon Greene, Nathan Hixson, Darren Clarke, Erin Barclay and Mark Wood.