Diredoj''' s Annual Report. 5 



citizen of Houolulu, Charles Reed Bishop, while designed as a 

 memorial of his excellent and accomplished wife, Bernice Pauahi. 



The original building was intended to contain and preserve 

 simpl}' the Hawaiian kahili, feather robes, pictures and various 

 keepsakes belonging to his wife, who was heir to the Kameha- 

 mehas. With the exception of the feather work and kapa the 

 the entire collecftion was contained in the room which now serves 

 as a vestibule to the new Hawaiian Hall this day opened to the 

 public. Scientific arrangement was impossible : scientific study 

 had to be conducted elsewhere than in the small building. But 

 the generosit}' of Mr. Bishop and the wisdom of the Trustees re- 

 moved one by one all obstacles until toda}' we have this grand 

 instrumentality for the study of the ethnology and natural historj-, 

 not only of these Islands but of the whole Pacific. 



This Museum is no longer merely an exhibition to amuse an 

 idle hour, but it is, or should be when perfedled, a means of col- 

 ledling, preserving and studying the history of life in the Pacific, 

 a region where the original native life is fast disappearing as you 

 see it is on this group. In a very fe'w years it will be impossible 

 to gather the necessary material for any such study : indeed, if the 

 portion of this collecftion which was gathered half a century ago 

 had not then been saved we should have little valuable knowledge 

 of the ways and work of the Hawaiian people, and the same is true 

 of every other group in this great ocean. The amusement of the 

 pe6ple, or even their instrucflion, is not the chief object of a museum 

 such as this, but we have carefully coUecfted all these things and 

 clustered about them all the facts we can obtain and then we cor- 

 relate these facts with others colle(5led hy workers in the same field 

 until at last we may wrest from the unknown the secrets which today 

 puzzle the wisest scientists, such as whence and when did the 

 Polynesians come into the waters of the great ocean ? Was the 

 relation of land to water always the same as now ? Were the 

 Hawaiians the first inhabitants of this group ? Who carved the 

 huge images of Easter Island ? And many other problems of no 

 light importance. 



It is waste of time to speculate orumost of these questions until 

 we have colle<5led all the witnesses, both living and dead that may 

 be within our reach. That is why a museum like this is never 

 completed, indeed is never finally arranged. If it ceases to grow 



[145] 



