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neadodsI'm out of debt. The house is... reasonably... close to being finished. Close enough that it can, barring disaster, be cleared and decluttered to my satisfaction by December if not my earlier self-imposed deadlines.
Time for something new to obsess about that's more cheerful than my weight. And so: the Hawaiian Missionary project is once again a go!
For those who joined since I last talked about this (many, many moons ago), this is not an actual religious mission to Hawaii. It's writing a book tentatively titled "Walking Disorderly" about the complete train wreck that was the first Christian mission to Hawaii. No really, really juicy stuff:
- Baptists were taking over as the hot new religion, while the Congregationalists had egg all over their face because their missionary had converted to a different sect during the last mission they funded. So they decided to do the first Congregational-only mission off-mainland as a PR stunt as much as religious fervor.
- Half the couples who were being sent to show off the virtues of white, Christian marriage had met and married within a few weeks specifically so they'd be allowed to go on the mission.
- On the other hand, the mission doctor decided he wanted to go on the mission to fund his wedding; he had a fiancee but no $$.
- They traveled to Hawaii in fear of the native priests only to find that the dead king's Favorite Wife had teamed up with the dead king's Royal wife and the two of them, via force of personality, had gotten the new young king to already break the old tribal religions. The three of them,Washington, Franklin, and the horse, were not necessarily ready or thrilled to take on anyone ELSE's tribal religions.
- The new king likes the doctor. The doctor likes the king. The mission leaders loathe the doctor, especially when he starts talking directly to the king and not to the mission leaders.
- The mission leaders excommunicate the doctor and censure his pregnant wife for "Walking Disorderly."
- Doctor goes on to have a perfectly good career in Hawaii while the whaling ship captains petition the king to kick the mouthier of the two missionary leaders off the Islands. In the meantime, doctor's brother in law, also a missionary, caught between his censured sister and the rest of the mission deliberately shunning her.
- People funding the mission want to know WTF, and also demand that doctor pay back the price of his passage AND come home. Doctor heads home... via China, making his seasick wife the unwilling recipient of First Woman To Circumnavigate the Globe award.
- Doctor enters into long legal battle, while back on the Islands, the whalers are still trying to kick the missionaries off the Island.
This is seriously juicy shit, y'all, and Dr. Holman's story has never been told; only the official party line from the mission. Everybody's diary and letters are still extant, including the 154 handwritten pages shipped from Honolulu to Boston listing in minute detail why the Holmans needed to be kicked out.
I'm now in a place where I can seriously, legitimately have the time and $$ to go to Harvard and Oahu to read them.
The Creature of Mad Enthusiasms has picked a new enthusiasm to enthuse over.
ETA: Ye gods and green fish, I started this project in 2004 and abandoned it in '05. I don't even have the timeline I so carefully built and will have to recapture it from scratch.
Time for something new to obsess about that's more cheerful than my weight. And so: the Hawaiian Missionary project is once again a go!
For those who joined since I last talked about this (many, many moons ago), this is not an actual religious mission to Hawaii. It's writing a book tentatively titled "Walking Disorderly" about the complete train wreck that was the first Christian mission to Hawaii. No really, really juicy stuff:
- Baptists were taking over as the hot new religion, while the Congregationalists had egg all over their face because their missionary had converted to a different sect during the last mission they funded. So they decided to do the first Congregational-only mission off-mainland as a PR stunt as much as religious fervor.
- Half the couples who were being sent to show off the virtues of white, Christian marriage had met and married within a few weeks specifically so they'd be allowed to go on the mission.
- On the other hand, the mission doctor decided he wanted to go on the mission to fund his wedding; he had a fiancee but no $$.
- They traveled to Hawaii in fear of the native priests only to find that the dead king's Favorite Wife had teamed up with the dead king's Royal wife and the two of them, via force of personality, had gotten the new young king to already break the old tribal religions. The three of them,
- The new king likes the doctor. The doctor likes the king. The mission leaders loathe the doctor, especially when he starts talking directly to the king and not to the mission leaders.
- The mission leaders excommunicate the doctor and censure his pregnant wife for "Walking Disorderly."
- Doctor goes on to have a perfectly good career in Hawaii while the whaling ship captains petition the king to kick the mouthier of the two missionary leaders off the Islands. In the meantime, doctor's brother in law, also a missionary, caught between his censured sister and the rest of the mission deliberately shunning her.
- People funding the mission want to know WTF, and also demand that doctor pay back the price of his passage AND come home. Doctor heads home... via China, making his seasick wife the unwilling recipient of First Woman To Circumnavigate the Globe award.
- Doctor enters into long legal battle, while back on the Islands, the whalers are still trying to kick the missionaries off the Island.
This is seriously juicy shit, y'all, and Dr. Holman's story has never been told; only the official party line from the mission. Everybody's diary and letters are still extant, including the 154 handwritten pages shipped from Honolulu to Boston listing in minute detail why the Holmans needed to be kicked out.
I'm now in a place where I can seriously, legitimately have the time and $$ to go to Harvard and Oahu to read them.
The Creature of Mad Enthusiasms has picked a new enthusiasm to enthuse over.
ETA: Ye gods and green fish, I started this project in 2004 and abandoned it in '05. I don't even have the timeline I so carefully built and will have to recapture it from scratch.
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Date: 2015-04-09 02:14 am (UTC)I'm psyched that you're looking at picking it back up!