Bishop Museum

Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

The Bishop Museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in tribute to his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who was the last descendant of the Kamehamehas. The museum was built on the site of the Kamehameha School for Boys, which had been established by Princess Bernice. After her death, Charles Reed Bishop started the museum to showcase the Kamehameha family heirlooms and other Polynesian artifacts. The school eventually moved, allowing the Bishop Museum to expand, and it has grown over time so that it now houses a rather massive collection. One of the important pieces is a historic Heiau Ku carving - there are only two others, in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, and in the British Museum in London. In 2010, all three Ku tikis were put on display at the Bishop museum. The other two were shipped back to their respective museums three years later. The museum also features a section dedicated to what they call "Ku Kitsch," known to us as Polynesian Pop, with many fine examples of modern uses of the image of Ku, including a mug from Tiki Farm.