The Exiled: Ostracism and Ideologies During the Leprosy Epidemic in Hawaiʻi As Portrayed in Shark Di

In as early as the 1830s, Hansen’s disease – more commonly known as leprosy – was detected among foreigners and natives residing in Hawaiʻi. The extremely disfiguring and highly contagious illness quickly spread throughout the islands, touching all populations, but predominantly affecting the Hawaiian people due to their lack of immunity. Fearing further spread of the ailment, police and district justices were required to arrest any persons suspected of having leprosy. These individuals were then forced to leave their families and sent to the remote, isolated north shore of Molokaʻi to live out the rest of their lives. Because of the once incurable nature of Hansen’s disease and the belief that its affliction was a punishment from God, victims of the illness were removed from the “civilized” world, and stigmatized for life as is reflected in Kiana Davenport’s narrative, Shark Dialogues. Through the lives of Davenport’s characters, Duke and Pono, we as readers are able to travel back into time and experience the ostracism, self loathing, and loss of identity the innocent victims of this disease had to struggle with.

The first, and perhaps most detrimental act of alienation and segregation during the Hansen’s disease epidemic in Hawaiʻi, was the passing and implementation of the Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy. With the approval of King Kamehameha V, which was largely influenced by foreign elite, the law instructed the president of the Board of Health (BOH) to

reserve and set apart any land or portion of land now owned by the

Government, for a site or sites of an establishment or establishments to

secure the isolation and seclusion of such leprous persons as in the

opinion of the Board of Health or its agents, may, by being at large, cause

the spread of leprosy. (Inglis 23)

Secondly, it required “all criminal enforcement, when requested, to arrest and deliver to the BOH any persons alleged to have leprosy so that he or she could be medically inspected and thereafter removed to a place of treatment or isolation if needed” (Inglis 23). This Act made criminals of people with leprosy, and sentenced them to permanent exile; isolating them from their homes, families, and community.

It is apparent, simply through the use of language, that the contraction and dispersal of Hansen’s disease was considered almost equivalent to committing a crime. Words such as “at large,” “criminal enforcement,” “arrest,” and “alleged” are more commonly employed when discussing convicts and offenders than innocent victims of an illness that they had no control over and knowledge about. When the BOH finally decided on a place to confine and isolate the sick, they chose Kalaupapa, which they described as a “natural prison” because of its surrounding cliffs and treacherous ocean. Davenport portrays the criminalization of the disease and its patients through the way Duke and Pono are forced to run from their home after being sought by bounty hunters when they learn that Duke had contracted Leprosy. The hunters carry guns as if they are chasing some kind of dangerous and threatening felon rather than a scared and sick human being. Once they were finally caught, Duke was immediately handcuffed and gagged, then driven to what Davenport calls the “Place of the Living Dead” (Davenport 111-115).

Due to the separation and isolation of Hansen’s Disease patients imposed by the Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy, both the foreign and native communities of the Hawaiʻi Islands began to further exile the sickly because of the negative connotations that were now associated with the ailment. Fear of contagion, but more importantly the social stigma produced by Western perceptions of the “loathsome” bodily differences of people with leprosy widened the breach between the “clean” and “unclean.” European introduced religion (Judeo-Christianity) deemed “lepers” as not only physically, but morally filthy as well due to their need to be criminalized and removed from society (Moblo 56). Many even referred to the infected as “civilly dead” as if their condition prevented them from being socially acceptable. The victims themselves even began accepting these negative ideologies as truth. Davenport sheds light on this when Duke refuses to allow Pono to tell his daughters and grandchildren about his existence. He says, “All I ever asked of you was dignity. Let me die out of sight of the world, here with the bones of my family” (Davenport 25). Duke thought of himself as a “cursed, filthy mound of broken flesh,” and assumed that his own blood relatives would reject him at first glance (Davenport 25).

The Hawaiian community was left divided, some rejecting their contaminated family members while most embraced them with no regard for their own health. The latter is exactly how Pono reacted when Duke was burdened with Leprosy. In fact she desperately wanted the disease herself so that she would be able to live at Kalaupapa, slowly decaying with her husband forever. She even went so far as to rub herself against his patulous sores, lick the discharge from his eyes, and ingest the saliva from his mouth (Davenport 113). Throughout the book, Pono continuously expresses her desire to be with Duke. Consumed with longing for him, even after his appearance has transformed, she constantly neglects her own daughters.

Removing people from their homes and families was one of the harshest punishments for Hansen’s disease patients. It was especially hard for native Hawaiian leprosy victims because of their deep connection and direct link to their ʻāina (land) and akua (gods) through their kupuna (ancestry). In Maʻi Lepera, Kerri Inglis reveals:

The fundamental unit in the social organization ... was the dispersed

community of ʻohana, or relatives by blood, marriage and adoption ...

tied by ancestry, birth and sentiment to a particular locality which was

termed the ʻaina. (Inglis 57)

Evidently, individuals depended on their family and land for various types of support, whether it be for food, for protection, or care. This is why traditional Hawaiians conceived of their own personal identity as situated within their genealogy (history) and ʻāina hānau (homeland). Without one's ʻohana and ʻāina, one was without one's self, which led to a severe loss of identity and conviction in their beliefs. We see this loss of personal identity after Pono and Duke had been on the run from the bounty hunters for nearly a year. One night Pono had a dream about their coffee orchard left unkempt – the coffee cherries unharvested and scattered on the ground, the fields overgrown, and all the workers gone, abandoning the once beautiful and prosperous land. Hearing this, Duke hung his head and cried. Davenport describes how with the loss of people, Hawaiian pride began to dwindle as well. She writes,

…people began to see how morals were lowered in the fields and coffee

towns of Kona district. Standards of pride disappeared, of hard, honest

labor, gallantry toward the land. Hawaiians remembered their troubles,

felt they were no longer a nation, only a bygone people. (Davenport 115)

In this very heart breaking excerpt, Davenport seems to accurately depict the disconnect Hawaiians experienced when forcefully removed from their land. With their displacement came a change in values that were and still are essential to Hawaiian culture. In Davenport’s portrayal, the fact that the people lost respect for the land makes it easy for readers to imagine how horrible the sentence of exile for the crime of leprosy must have been for Hawaiians.

Works Cited

Davenport, Kiana. Shark Dialogues. New York: Atheneum, 1994. Print.

Inglis, Kerri A. Ma'i Lepera: Disease and Displacement in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2013. Print.

Inglis, Kerri A. "A Land Set Apart: Displacement, & Death at Makanalua, Moloka'i." Diss. University of Hawaii, 2004. Print.

Moblo, Pennie. Defamation by Disease: Leprosy, Myth and Ideology in Nineteenth Century Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1996. Print.