12 Facts About Kenneth Emory

Kenneth Pike Emory was an American anthropologist who played a key role in shaping modern anthropology in Oceania.

Kenneth Pike Emory was born November 23,1897, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Kenneth Emory moved to Hawaii when he was two and grew up there, traveling first to Dartmouth and then continued his education afterward at Harvard then received his PhD from Yale.

When Kenneth Emory realized this, he dedicated his life to finding and documenting as much pre-Christian Polynesian culture as he could.

Kenneth Emory then spent the next 60 years roaming the Pacific, seeking out Polynesian settlement sites, excavating relics, and photographing petroglyphs.

Kenneth Emory sought out Polynesians who remembered the pre-Christian chants and rituals, and recorded them on film.

Kenneth Emory theorized that Polynesians were descended from the Maori of New Zealand, and that Polynesian culture originated in Tonga and Samoa and migrated eastward through the Pacific to Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Hawaii.

Kenneth Emory believed, but did not attempt to prove, that Polynesians were capable of sailing great distances to all points of the compass.

Kenneth Emory argued that when the population of an island exceeded its capacity, a king or noble would outfit a large oceangoing vessel and set off to verify rumors of other habitable islands, sending back word of his discovery.

Kenneth Emory believed the Hawaiian Islands had been colonized by Society Islanders in this way.

Kenneth Emory disagreed, pointing out that contemporary copra schooners relied on wave direction, ocean currents, and seabirds to guide them to land, and Polynesian legends made frequent reference to celestial navigation.

Kenneth Emory married a woman whose mother's family was Tahitian and whose father's was French; she considered Paris her second home.