"Outer islands?" ... really?
My friend Richie from up the street insists on referring to the Hawaiian islands other than Oahu as the "outer islands." I used to tell him that the correct phrase is "neighbor islands," but lately I've given up the battle.
Richie argues that Oahu is the undisputed population and commercial center of the islands, and therefore anything outside of the center is "outer." I once asked Richie if the sun revolves around the earth, just because the earth is the population and commercial center of our solar system. Richie's answer was "that's different, we're talking about islands here."
When I moved to the islands from Seattle thirty years ago, I settled on the island of Maui, which my friend would list as one of the outer islands. For the five years I lived on Maui, however, I saw a lot of tee shirts and bumper stickers that said "Maui no ka oi."
When you live on Maui, you're at the center of the islands. Don't even argue the point. Folks there often told me they were going "downtown" to shop, by which they meant Honolulu. Oahu appeared to exist only as a shopping mall for the other islands. If you're standing on a beach in California, of course, all of the Hawaiian islands become outer islands.
What's the one Hawaiian word that everyone knows? That's easy. Aloha. Aloha means many things and implies others. One of the implications near the top of my list is neighbor, as in "good neighbor."
My house in Kapahulu is the center of my personal universe, but I don't think of the surrounding houses as "outer." They are neighbor houses, and I try to be a good neighbor, which in the city sometimes just means live and let live and say "howzit" from time to time.
Early in the summer I had the opportunity, in the span of a few weeks, to revisit the neighbor islands of Hawaii, Kauai, and Maui. Each one is unique. The Big Island is greener, even in the midst of a drought. Kauai has more free-range chickens. Maui was beautiful but dry, and greeted me with a brush fire near the airport. Each has much to recommend it. On each of these islands I didn't feel like outer anything. I was visiting neighbors. With the folks I met we had many common reference points, and it didn't take long to discover that we knew some of the same people.
Maybe you're like me, and you cringe when you hear someone say "outer islands." I confess that I cringe often, including when people say they're "in Maui" when I know for a fact that they are "on Maui."
On the other hand, it gives me a warm feeling when I hear someone say "neighbor island." "Yes," I say to myself, "well done there, you got it right." Perhaps one of these days even Richie will stop saying "outer island." Stranger things have happened.
Tags: Hawaii, Kauai chickens, neighbor islands, outer islands
October 11th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I, too, naturally cringe whenever I hear "outer islands." This was especially ingrained into my conscience when I worked for the Office of Elections. It was one of those rules the big boss made sure we complied with.
There was another fun "rule" I learned during my time under the big boss, but it involves a certain successful local business, so I'd rather not get into it here.
October 12th, 2010 at 5:33 am
Yes, prepositions are important (although I seem to have moved up to adjectives this time). Don't get me started about "in Maui" and "on Maui." There's probably some name for my affliction, but I'm not a psychologist. Here's the link to my short story on this subject, "Obsession": http://www.hawaiireaders.com/blog/2009/12/09/obsession/
October 12th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Agree about neighbor islands! I always thought the in/on Maui was a construct of the Hawaiian language - just as we say, "Nice, your car" instead of "Nice car." I just looked it up and the Hawaiian word for in and on are the same...not sure where that leaves it.
Another way to look at it is when we are on Maui we are IN her embrace.
October 12th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Makana, I love your thought about being in Maui's embrace. I must confess that when I lived on Maui, and when I returned on visits, I often felt myself "in" Maui, for Maui was a powerful sweet spirit, and a place of magic, especially when the trades blew strong across the valley or when I stood looking out at the bay in Maalaea under a full moon.
October 12th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Will the sequel to this piece be about our relationship to the Mainland? I still smile when people talk about "back in the states" as though #49 and #50 never happened.
October 13th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Sally, let's face it. Hawaii, for many people on the Mainland, is a kind of remote Disneyland somewhere "out there" in the middle of a great ocean, a mirage that never seems attached to the Mainland in any way, not just geographically. It can be experienced for a few vacation days, or glimpsed on Hawaii Five-0 or the Hula Bowl, but even if you were told in school that Hawaii is a state, all the evidence is against it.
Some of the mapmakers don't even know where it is. I saw one map that tried to convince me that the Hawaiian islands were in the Gulf of Mexico (and Alaska was somewhere below Arizona). And some of these confused Mainland folks, who have been told that the President was born on these unreal islands, have more faith in the existence of Kenya!
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:58 am
Maybe the problem is with both phrases.
What is the meaning of "neighbor islands?" Do they have anything in common that would justify our use of one concept to refer to all of them?
It has always reminded me of referring to "Asia." In most contexts, "Asia" and "Asian" mean nothing. We should probably just say what we mean - "In Japan, x"..."In India, y."
All of the Hawaiian Islands neighbor one another. Maui is Maui, and Kaua‘i is most definitely Kaua‘i. The most accurate thing we can do is probably to refer to the island we mean.
October 26th, 2010 at 5:52 am
Thanks, Ragnar. Well put! (Of course you're asking us to be logical, and most of us are more like Kirk than Spock when it comes to being logical.)
October 27th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Dunno, nevah really hea anybody say "outer" islands...sure dey not ackually saying, "other" islands?