Adrienne Kaeppler (1935 – 2022)

Adrienne L. Kaeppler – an inspiring journey of discovery into Tongan culture, art, society

By Mary Lyn Fonau

Eminent scholar and great friend of Tonga, Adrienne L. Kaeppler died in Washington D.C. on 5th March 2022.

At the time of her death, Dr Kaeppler was Curator Emeritus for the Pacific Islands in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and up until recently she was continuing to make contributions to scholarship in many fields. During her distinguished academic career, Adrienne was recognised as a pioneer who paved the way for female scientists.

An American research anthropologist and writer, known for her books devoted to the culture of Tonga and Hawaii, Adrienne brought to the English-speaking world important insights into Polynesian cultures, especially Tonga, Hawaii and Rapa Nui, and also Asian dance, in a body of scientific work written over five decades. Her work helped to promote understanding of the Tonga\’s rich heritage and the importance of its sung poetry and dance in its cultural identity.

Her insights were also greatly appreciated by the people and cultures she worked with.

In 2021, HM Queen Nanasipau\’u, who has worked closely with Adrienne over many years, wrote the foreword for a Festschrift \”Perspectives in Motion: Engaging the Visual in Dance and Music\” with contributions from 13 of Adrienne\’s colleagues from the International Council for Traditional Music, of which Adrienne was a respected Past President.

The Queen noted in a video message that Adrienne\’s life had been full of passion and love for both the visual arts and dance of Tonga and the Pacific. “It has been amazing for me to have accompanied you on some of your journeys of discovery. Your excitement about the history, culture and arts was captivating and inspiring. …You dedicated your life to your scholarship and the sharing of the wonders you had so carefully and masterfully unveiled,” the Queen said.

As a young scholar in 1964, Adrienne considered herself to be fortunate to begin her studies in Tongan dance, with the support and direction of the late Queen Sālote Tupou III, who had spotted her performing Hawaiian dances with a delegation attending a conference in Tonga.

“Queen Sālote put me in contact with a number of important Tongan dance people,” Adrienne later wrote in 1993.

At the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Adrienne\’s dissertation for her doctoral degree in Anthropology in 1967 was on “The Structure of Tongan Dance”. She established a method for analysing dance structure cross-culturally, which pioneered a scientific technique for inclusion of the meaningful ‘ethnology’ part of dance, rather than just a description of the movements.

She had hoped to do a broader study of the \’arts’ of Tonga and their interrelationship with social structure. She found the most flourishing Tongan arts were the making of ngatu and dancing and learned as much as she could about both as well as beginning to learn the Tongan language. She returned to Tonga for a year in 1965-66 in what was to become a transitional time for the kingdom.

Adrienne did research on Tongan funerals and social structure and continued to talk to Tongans about dance during her doctoral research. She found many of the compositions were based on very old formulas.

Adrienne returned to Tonga nearly every year to continue her research and learn dance.

She wrote many essays and articles about Tongan dance, art and society at a time when there were few published works that treated dance in any depth, but felt that her work was only a beginning in the documentation and analysis of the art form.

“As an outsider I have really only scratched the surface. Tongans have a more thorough and detailed understanding of dance and its place in their lives,” wrote Adrienne, who hoped her work would stimulate more Tongans to write down their knowledge in order to ensure that dance will continue to enrich the lives of future generations of Tongans.

One of Adrienne\’s early trailblazing contributions to the understanding of Pacific art was the publication of Artificial Curiosities, a world catalogue of the objects collected on the 18th century voyages of Captain James Cook in the Pacific.

Mary Lyn Fonua is managing editor of Tonga\’s online news website Matangi Tonga.

The Elephant in the Room: My 30 years with Adrienne Kaeppler

Personal Reflections by Mark Blackburn

Our friendship all started with the elephant in the room at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, after I called Dr. Kaeppler explaining I had just purchased a Hawaiian Godstick from a descendant of the Sanford Dole family and I would like her to look at it. She said “Sure”, and hence began a thirty year journey of discovery and friendship throughout the world. It was at this first meeting that I invited her to my home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to look at the collection in its entirety. She was amazed at the depth of the material and quite honestly my quest for all things Polynesian. We immediately hit it off and that visit started a decade or more of train trips down to Lancaster studying the collection and doing a deep dive in my photography holdings. Each day she would deliver some exciting news about a discovery she had made about a photograph, painting or object.

Some highlights of the thirty years we spent together include:

1998 – Founding of the Tonga National Museum and groundbreaking exhibition From the Stone Age to the Space Age in 200 Years: Tongan Art and Society on the Eve of the Millennium. This amazing project happened after Adrienne asked me if I would loan the Tongan part of our collection in honour of His Majesty King Taufa\’ahau Tupou IV for his 80th Birthday, which resulted in an accompanying catalogue. This was an adventure of adventures and could be a book in itself but resulted in forging a long friendship with the Royal Family. This also resulted in the summiting of the active volcanic island of Tofua. I subsequently took a multitude of trips to Tonga, chartering a float plane to remote islands where I observed truly 18th century Polynesian life.

2008 – A trip to Tahiti, where I rented a beachfront home for two weeks. A delightful time with the obligatory martinis at sunset and where I finally learned to pronounce the word penu.

2009 – A trip to Marrakech, for a couple weeks with Adrienne and a few friends. I remember fondly her love and interest of the local cuisine as we were involved in cooking classes, and putting her on a donkey in the Atlas Mountains as we visited the stunning Toubkal Kasbah.

2009 – James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific exhibition in Bonn, Germany, where I worked closely with her on planning and exhibiting items from our collection. It was very moving to see my son Kuhane at the age of 16 interact with objects, caught up in wonderment and emotions, especially with an important, large, Tahitian painting by Hodges, which had never been publicly exhibited before.

2010 – Publishing of the book Polynesia – The Mark and Carolyn Blackburn Collection of Polynesian Art with Adrienne as author. This was a decade or more in the making. This resulted in extended stays and travels around the world and was launched at the Pacific Arts Association Conference that same year. At that conference I chartered a plane for the day and took Adrienne and a group of friends around the small islands and to the actual landing sites for Cook’s voyages. A truly memorable time. She would never allow me to add another item after 2007 as she said the project would never get done.

2013 – Made in Oceania barkcloth exhibition in Cologne, Germany. A real highlight was a personal invitation from David Walsh\’s MONA curator to his exhibition in Paris, which was closing in two days. Of course, I asked Adrienne if she would accompany me to Paris for the day, which she did. It was so interesting to see her engaged in this truly groundbreaking exhibition, where she was quite perplexed at David\’s theme \”Theatre of the World.\”

2016 – The marvellous Fiji: Art and Life in the Pacific, a simply incredible time at the opening of this landmark exhibition by Steven Hooper. Just great camaraderie and passion at this event.

In the last few years of her life I was in constant contact, joining her on many trips with special conversations. In her final weeks I was in constant contact with caregivers and friends and said my final goodbyes two days before she quietly passed in her sleep. She will be sorely missed as in a way she was my Hanai mother. The best thing to collect is memories and with that said I have memories for multiple lifetimes.