Kawaiahaʻo Church Digital Archives
Na Makamae O Kawaiahaʻo / Treasures of Kawaiahaʻo
Welcome to "Na Makamae O Kawaiahaʻo" or "Treasures of Kawaiahaʻo"!
The Treasures of the Church's archival collections document the church's life since its establishment in 1820. Notably, it is a repository of sacramental records, church membership, worship services, correspondence, and meeting minutes. The preponderance of records throughout the 1940s are written in Hawaiian (ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i). The documents range from 1825 to early 2000.
About the Digital Archives
The organization of these digital archives is based on the original finding aid (from 1994), and the series and consequent subseries can be browsed via this link. The archives team is currently working on a re-description of the holdings and assigning the metadata on a folder level; thus most of the digital items you can access here are provided as folder descriptions and accompanying PDFs that are a binding of individual records from that folder.
We are adding new digital objects each week as our work on re-description progresses.
The documents are searchable via full-text index, to a certain extent, so you may get a search query recall to be an Item (where the keyword is in metadata) or File (where the keyword is in the full text of the document).
Not all of the digitized records are available for access online, and you can contact us for further inquiry and with your research questions.
Image of Kawaiahaʻo Church from 1857
From Residence of Twenty-One Years In The Sandwich Islands by Hiram Bingham, published originally in 1847
"The 5th of Dec. was a day of special interest, as the period of one of the most noticeable events in the history of the Hawaiian people. It has already been stated, that early in June, a number of the leading chiefs of the nation were set before the church and the world for further probation as candidates for admission to the church, then consisting of the pioneers of the mission and the first reinforcement from the United States. The noble phalanx thus propounded, having stood their ground well more than six months, all, at length, took on them the vows of God’s everlasting covenant. Kaahumanu, Kalanimoku, Namahana, Lanui, Kapule, Kealiiahonui, and Richard Kalaaiaulu, were received on the first Sabbath of Dec, at Honolulu, Kapiolani a little later, at Kaawaloa, and Kalakua, later, still, at Lahaina, there being, as yet, but one organized church in all the islands. Kalanimoku brought forward his little son in arms, accustomed to other offerings to other deities, and dedicated him in baptism, to the Lord. They were welcomed as fellow-citizens in Zion, and sat down with the missionaries at the Lord’s table."
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IMLS Grant Supported Project