THE HISTORY OF CENSUS IN HAWAI`I

THE HISTORY OF CENSUS IN HAWAI`I
By Momi Imaikalani Fernandez; Edited by Shannon K. K. Lincoln

The counting of people or taking a census has been part of this `āina from the earliest of historical accounts. Our ancestors planned survival by way of food provision in canoes and food production on land and pond which made it necessary to count the people and plan the use of resources. For the next several months, we’ll be looking at census in Hawai`i in preparation for Census 2010. Our ancestors demonstrated a variety of ways to conduct census for various reasons. Census or to take a census, according to Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary, is helu, helu kanaka or census taker, luna helu. The act of census is the definition.