University of Hawai'i University Relations Media & Publications Honolulu, HI 96822	(808) 956-8856 Telephone (808) 956-3441 Facsimile ur@hawaii.edu E-Mail
For Immediate Release:	September 2, 1999
Contact: Michael Graves, 808-956-9679, mgraves@hawaii.edu

UH Manoa student Kehau Cachola-Abad receives firstAmerican Anthropological Association Minority Dissertation Fellowship

University of Hawai'i graduate student C. Kehaunani Cachola-Abad has been selected to receive the American Anthropological Association's Minority Dissertation Fellowship Award for 1999-2000. Jane Hill, professor at the University of Arizona and president of the association, notified Cachola-Abad last week that she had won the $10,000 award.

"Kehau" Cachola-Abad is a doctoral candidate in the UH Manoa Department of Anthropology. Her dissertation involves a historical and political analysis of Hawaiian oral histories, according to Michael Graves, the anthropology professor who chairs Cachola-Abad's doctoral committee. She has created a computerized database of individuals mentioned in Hawaiian oral histories, along with their genealogies, places of residence and accounts of their accomplishments and associated events. Cachola-Abad also plans to utilize archaeological data-primarily from religious sites or heiau that can be linked to individuals. Hawaiian oral histories have long been recognized as a source of information about the past, Graves says, but this is the first time that these data will be systematically recorded for all the main islands in the archipelago and interpreted independently of archaeological data. Cachola-Abad's research promises to be a significant contribution to the islands' history and cultural development.

This is the inaugural year of the American Anthropological Association's Minority Dissertation Fellowship. The $10,000 award of support for planned research demonstrates the AAA's commitment to assist promising minority graduate students in anthropology and advances the association's long-range goal of increasing diversity in the discipline. A national competition was held to identify candidates for the award.

Kehau Cachola-Abad earned both her BA and MA from UH Manoa. She has previously been awarded a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in support of her graduate studies. She has conducted and published archaeological and historical research in Hawai'i and east Polynesia. She is currently on leave from the Kamehameha Schools, where she teaches Hawaiian history.

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