Kanaka (Pacific Island Worker)
Kanaka was the term for a worker from various Pacific Islands employed in British colonies, such as British Columbia (Canada), Fiji and Queensland (Australia) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They also worked in California and Chile (see Easter Island and Rapanui people as related subjects).
The word "kanaka" originally referred only to native Hawaiians, called kānaka ʻōiwi or kānaka maoli in the Hawaiʻian language. Until 2009, several rough translations of the word "Kanak" were admitted : "man", " animal man ", " wild man " were the most used. In its resolution n°5195, the Academy of the Polynesian languages Pa ' umotu specified a definition more faithful to the primal Polynesian language Mamaka Kaïo of origin, that of " free man ".
Read more about Kanaka (Pacific Island Worker): Australia, Canada, United States
Famous quotes containing the words kanaka and/or island:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)