THE University of Hawaii through several of its depart-
ments is conducting studies relating to the character of the
peoples of Hawaii and to their social relations. This volume
is the outcome of one of these studies.

Hawaii presents an exceptional opportunity for the ob-
servation and study of a type of social process that has been
going on in many parts of the world for a long time. As a
result of migration, contacts are established between peoples
who differ more or less in culture and in physical race traits.
In the beginning the contacts tend to be mainly of an eco-
nomic character and there is sentiment adverse to all relations
of a more intimate character. At this stage the acculturation
is almost wholly at the technological level and does not in-
volve things greatly affected with sentiment. There is little
tendency toward amalgamation if each group is made up of
families. But gradually and without observation social re-
lations of an increasingly intimate character come into ex-
istence, acculturation tends to take place at the level of the
loyalties and, if the caste principle does not prevail, there is
a more or less rapid amalgamation through intermarriage.
That is, the two or more peoples become one people, one in
blood relationship, one in culture and one in loyalty.

In relation to these processes Hawaii has some of the
characteristics of a laboratory. Its population includes rep-
resentatives of several European peoples and of several
peoples of Asiatic origin. There are also the descendants of
the native Polynesians and even a few thousand persons of
African descent. The area and population of the Islands are
not so large as to make the gathering of data an impossible
task or to discourage one who seeks the insight that comes
from a wide acquaintance with the people and their situations.
Since Europeans and Asiatics began to come to Hawaii there

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