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Talk:Likelike (wife of Kalanimoku)/GA1

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Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 19:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


I'll be starting this review shortly. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns handled
Lead
  • checkY Do we know the pronunciation and/or meaning of her name?
  • checkY Is there a source for the Rikériki thing, it isn't mentioned elsewhere in the article.
Life - paragraph 1
  • checkY "She was considered a kaukau aliʻi, of lower-ranking chiefly descent..." - can the term kaukau aliʻi be unpacked a little more?
  • They were the secondary chiefs of lower ranking descent. It takes a lot to explain the ranking system of the Hawaiian alii system hence the link to the alii article.
  • checkY "A supporter of King Kamehameha I..." - This sentence is a bit lengthy
  • checkY kahu (guardian) - is that an official position, like there's one guy who's the Guardian, or is it like being a bodyguard, one among many? If it's an official title, what does the position entail?
  • It is not an official position. It is a role played by lesser chiefs to the high ranking chiefs. It is essentially a high ranking servant or guardian of a royal charge.KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "father Kaikioʻewa descended" "Her mother descended" - typical usage is "was descended" I think
Life - paragraph 2
  • checkY firstly --> first
  • checkY "Kalanimoku had many other wives including her half-sister Kuwahine" - whose half-sister? Likelike, or Kuini Liliha, who is mentioned in the preceding sentence?
Life - paragraph 3
  • checkY "In 1819, Likelike accompanied Kalanimoku along in his meeting..." should either be "accompanied Kalanimoku to his meeting..." or "went along with Kalanimoku to his meeting"
    Fixed. KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY What's the Uranie? Is it a ship? What kind? What country did it belong to? (Also, there might be an article, can you link it?)
  • checkY "In this encounter" - should be "after this encounter"
Death - paragraph 1
  • checkY The image ought to describe the contents - who is pictured?
  • checkY This whole paragraph doesn't concern her death, it should be moved up to "Life"
  • checkY "...before transitioning to the island of Oahu..." - needs to mention Honolulu, otherwise it comes out of nowhere later in the paragraph
  • checkY "With much fanfare..." - did Likelike and her husband also go in the royal yacht, or did everyone travel separately?
Likelike and Kalanimoku preceded the king because of the pregnancy. Added something to a sentence before this.KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Death - paragraph 2
  • checkY "In celebration of the birth of an heir to Kalanimoku..." - this whole sentence can be simplified to "To celebrate the birth of his heir, Kalanimoku and his brother Boki set off cannons and muskets all over Honolulu."
  • checkY "...a popular custom..." - what exactly was the custom? Firing cannons for birth announcements specifically, or for any kind of celebration?
  • checkY ...much of it was set off within the proximity of the grass hut..." - so were the cannons set off all over Honolulu as noted above, or mostly around the birthing hut?
  • checkY " A reported..." - cite your quote please
  • checkY "...at the Honolulu Fort" - do we know when she got moved to the Fort from the grass birthing hut, or why?
  • checkY "...at the Honolulu Fort" - please link the fort even though it's a redlink
  • checkY "Kalanimoku allowed..." - so he let them give a sermon at the Hawaiian funeral, or did he stop the Hawaiian ceremonies entirely for the Christian one?
  • He let a sermon to be given at his house. The hula did not stop. The missionaries asked both the king and Boki who was governor of Oahu at the time and both refused to stop it. I think Kalanimoku was too grief stricken to do anything.
  • checkY "However, Likelike's burial..." - The "however" here implies that the missionaries tried to have her buried in a Christian fashion, but that isn't specified in the article.
  • checkY Do we know where she was buried, and is there still any marker or site?
  • The sources don’t really mention her burial place and the iwi of chiefs during the pre Christian period were hidden away. Many royal do not have known burial places. Despite the fame of her husband during this early period of the Hawaiian monarchy, even Kalanimoku’s burial place is unknown.KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Other sections
  • checkY Not a big deal, but you can probably use the regular {{Commons category}} template under the Bibliography rather than inlining it in its own section


  • checkY Should probably be a touch longer overall. Doesn't reflect her death, for example, which is about 50% of the article.
  • I think the lead could still be longer. It doesn't mention her interactions with any missionaries or her conversion to religion.
  • She never officially converted though. The source just stated she showed interest in the faith. Protestantism especially Congregationalists were pretty strict on who they considered converts or not. I’m not comfortable with calling her a Christian if it is not stated in the sources. KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:11, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, whoops, that's my bad. I conflated her interest in the mission school to an actual conversion. It's still a little short but it's a good summary, so we can call this one resolved. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "...Boki's brother Kalanimoku took Likelike as his wife..." - this sentence (and actually most of the following paragraph) badly needs clarification/cleanup. Did Kalanimoku literally take her, as in he physically stole her? If it's not clear from the sources, that should be explained in the article. Did Boki do anything about it, or did he just accept the loss?
  • He took her that is what the source says. Boki couldn’t do anything about because Kalanimoku was his older brother and had more political power than he did. Boki response as outlined in the article was that he stole his nephews wife Kuini Liliha. The sources do not explain how chiefs stole each other wives during this period partially because of Victorian sensibility, so take it what history has used to refer to this action. KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:23, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "...she took his place..." - she took his place with de Freycinet, or did the explorer leave the table too?
  • From this version of the same source, it looks like her husband "would not allow her to sit at the table with us" (emphasis mine), and then when he got up, she took his place, presumably with the same "us". So it looks like she drank her brandy with the French. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:54, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here is the full quote: ”He asked permission to bring along his favorite wife, Rikeriki27 (see Fig. 2), to which I agreed, but he would not allow her to sit at the table with us, because, so he maintained, she was tabou. As a consequence, she remained on deck, where I sent to her some delicacies, which she ate with much relish. However, when her husband, following the custom of his compatriots, felt satisfied and left the table, she came to take his place, and made up for the temporary restraint that had been forced upon her by swallowing several glass- fuls of brandy one after the other with remarkable gusto.” It is not directed but one can assume Freycinet was close enough to observe her and that probably the eating kapu did not applied to foreigners. KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:14, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "J. Alphonse Pellion, an artist aboard the Uranie..." - do we know when the engraving was made? While she was on the ship, or after? Could this bit be merged with the following short paragraph to make one paragraph about reactions to her?
  • "...along with two other chiefesses" - what two other chiefesses? Were they with her during the visit?
  • checkY What was the purpose or the result of the meeting? Did anything else happen after she drank the brandy?
  • Nope not that the source states. Just an anecdote about cultural exchange of the time and a commentary on the ai kapu or eating taboo. I mean one can write about implication of alcohol addiction in later Hawaiians or corpulence as a culturally favored trait in Hawaiian women but that would be more appropriate for a book not an Wikipedia article.KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • No problem, I was just curious. Interesting to see that the Hawaiians had a taboo about men eating with women, but the French were fine with her sitting down after and packing away the brandy. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:11, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also in my new edits, I noted this incident was in Maui. But I can’t explain the later movement of the couple to Kawaihae on the island of Hawaii. It just shows the alii were highly mobile during this period. Kamehameha II move his court more than five times during the course of his first year on the throne.KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the dinner happen near Kawaihae. It seems the ship later went to Maui where Kalanimoku was baptized, the following day. This is according to Rose de Freycinet’s journal. KAVEBEAR (talk) 03:49, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "...the American missionaries..." - what American missionaries?
  • This just refers to the group that came from 1820 to the 1850s to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity as a whole. Similar to saying after the arrival of the Pilgrims.KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for linking them in the article. It's one of those things that seems like it should be obvious, but might not be to someone without much knowledge of Hawaii and its history (me for example, lol). ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:11, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY What's a mission school?
  • She never converted though. The source just stated she showed interest in the faith. Protestantism especially Congregationalists were pretty strict on who they considered converts or not. I’m not comfortable with calling her a Christian if it is not stated in the sources. KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


  • checkY "Under the reign of..." needs to be its own paragraph. We need a little bit of explanation about King Kamehameha II (because so far in the article, the King has been King Kamehameha I) before we roll into the movement of his royal court.
  • I don’t think explaining Kamehameha II makes sense. It just need to noted when the first Kamehameha died and the second ascended. The specific circumstance of the accession has no relevance to Likelike’s life except to explain why Likelike was moving around so much.KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sentence you put in was all the explanation needed, sorry, my original comment wasn't super clear and you basically did exactly what I was looking for. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:11, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "The writings of the missionaries..." - what missionaries?
  • The missionaries mentioned in the previous paragraphs. I am baffled at this confusion. It is a character term to refer to the group similar to the Pilgrims or the American settlers.KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "The writings of the missionaries..." - this sentence is unclear when read along with the previous sentence. Kalanimoku and Boki set off cannons all over, but so did the common people? Is it possible that Kalanimoku and Boki ordered the cannons set off, but the common people were the ones who actually fired them?


  • checkY "...Lanihau died within twenty-four hours from the shock and Likelike died soon afterward..." - they literally died from the sound of cannon fire? Is that physically possible? Are there any modern discussions of this claim?
  • Hmmm, interesting. I did some googling out of curiosity about whether death from loud noise is possible, and it seems like it is possible. I wish there was modern commentary on it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:50, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


  • checkY "Her funeral..." - I tweaked this sentence
  • checkY "The missionaries..." - are Hawaiian funerals multi-day affairs, or was the Hawaiian funeral scheduled for a Sunday and these missionaries were trying to stop it altogether? (Also, please clarify the significance of the Sabbath for non-Christians)


Remaining comments


  • "Prior to the promulgation..." unless Likelike abandoned or divorced Boki or Kalanimoku (which isn't clear from the text), this is irrelevant
  • I think it highlights the importance of the role of chiefess in their marriage and incident involves her half sister Kuwahine and her spouse showing what kind of relationship to Kalanimoku was like.KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Frankly the rest of the paragraph starting at "Historian Samuel Kamakau and American missionary..." all the way to the end has little to do with Likelike as a person and should be included in the Kalanimoku article rather than this one
I'm still of the opinion that this large chunk of text is not relevant and takes away from the focus of the article (literally it's about 10% of the article's word count). Likelike didn't divorce or abandon her first husband, she was "taken", so there's no reason to discuss a law that would allow her to choose to get a divorce. The bit about Kuwahine abandoning Kalanimoku and Kalanimoku's subsequent temper tantrum has nothing to do with Likelike. The article doesn't even discuss her reaction to it. Kalanimoku's credentials are a little more relevant, but there's still a bit too much detail for an article about Likelike. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I made a few tweaks to this - mostly integrating Kalanimoku's info earlier into the paragraph so it explains why Boki couldn't retaliate. As long as you're cool with that, I'm satisfied with the level it's at. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:31, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


  • "...passed by Lahaina, Maui..." probably can be removed unless it's important for Likelike's story that the court stopped here
I think it is important to know the general mobility of the court. It certainly doesn’t hurt. KAVEBEAR (talk) 07:41, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY "overzealous" - This seems to imply that the common people went overboard from what Kalanimoku and Boki wanted, is that the case?
Death - paragraph 3 Sabbath
  • checkY "The missionaries..." - what missionaries? Loomis and Bingham were back on the island of Hawaii, no?
  • checkY Speaking of categories, are there any more this could go in? Two seems sparse compared to her husband, who has quite a few. Again not a huge deal but it's nice.
  • Any of the ones on his page might be good, depending on how she qualifies - House of Kekaulike, Converts to Roman Catholicism, Converts to Roman Catholicism from pagan religions, Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu? Also maybe her cause of death - Firearm accident victims? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:50, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • She never officially converted though to either faith. The source just stated she showed interest in Protestantism. I’m not comfortable with calling her a Christian if it is not stated in the sources. KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the whole, I think the article has a strong basis but needs some work before it can pass as a Good Article. Parts of it feel unfocused, and the text is often written with the assumption that the reader knows what it's talking about when that might not be the case.

I understand that some of the questions I'm asking above may be unanswerable based on the available reliable sources, and I won't hold that against the article - there's only so much information available, after all. But it would be remiss of me as a reviewer not to at least ask. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:47, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]


@Premeditated Chaos: Can you look over and strike any concerns I have already addressed? And then I can work go over the remaining ones I missed or still haven’t quite gotten. It will make the rest of the stuff easier to look over since the suggestions are overwhelming me at this point. Thank you so much. I reorganized the sections a bit too. I’m not fond of the title of the second section see if it is okay with you.KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Moved all the ticks over. There are some that you may have missed that seems resolved. And I address the remaining two. KAVEBEAR (talk) 07:42, 14 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, basically just need you to look at what I did to the wife-taking paragraph, and the bit about Lāhainā as capital, and then I think we're good to pass. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:31, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Everything looks good by me.KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:18, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've passed the article :) Thanks for your patience, I know I was a fairly tough reviewer. It's good work on your part! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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