Information on the manufacture of such items as feather garments, cordage, and canoes shows that the commonly made distinction between independent and attached specialists was not clear cut among Hawaiian craftspersons. How and to what extent craft specialization was controlled varied according to the nature of the good being produced and its importance to the chiefly elite. However, all Hawaiian craftspersons were motivated to be craft specialists by the belief that their occupations were divinely ascribed. Hawaiian chiefs were considered semi-divine and played a major role in the practice and sponsorship of Hawaiian religion, and they used the goods produced for elite use to further consolidate their power.
INTRODUCTIONspecialist, reasons and motives for participating in craft specialization, and societal expectations regardCraft specialization has traditionally been as-ing craft specialists' behavior. Of central importance sumed to have played an important role in the de-then are craft specialists themselves and who they velopment of chiefdoms and other complex soci-are, what they do, and why they do it in their pareties. A common distinction made in discussions of ticular society. craft specialization is that between independent speThis paper synthesizes information on several cialization and attached specialization. Independent Hawaiian crafts and focuses in particular on whether specialists produce utilitarian items for use in the sub-and how each was controlled by the chiefly elite, sistence economy, but attached specialists are sup-The organizational requirements of each craft and ported by political elites to produce wealth items the social identity of the craft specialists is discussed for use within the political economy. It is the spon-in an effort to explain why similarities and differsorship of attached specialists and control of the ences in the crafts exist. In the Hawaiian case, it is goods they produce which allows the elite to in-evident that there is much variation in the amount crease their power and leads to increased cultural and type of chiefly control between and even within complexity (Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Clark and crafts. For example, feather workers were much Parry 1990). Sponsorship and control can assume more clearly attached to chiefly households than camany forms, however.noe makers, but canoe makers were much more The nature of the good being manufactured clearly sponsored by the chiefs than adze makers, by craft specialists, and specifically, the practical or Among canoe makers, only some made canoes for technical requirements for the manufacture and dis-chiefly use. All craft specialists, however, were motitribution of that good are important in determining vated by the belief that their occupations were dithe way(s) in which a particular craft can be con-vinely ascribed and that Hawaiian chiefs were entrolled and its products used. Also important, how-titled to the fruits of specialists' labors. Chiefs were ever, is the social and cultural context within which con...
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