BISHOP MUSEUM

in full Bernice P. Bishop Museum, in Honolulu, research centre for the study of Hawaiian and Polynesian archaeology, natural history, and culture. It also exhibits Hawaiian and Polynesian arts, crafts, artifacts, and flora and fauna. Among items on display at Hawaiian Hall are royal jewelry, crowns and thrones, weapons, feather capes and cloaks, outrigger canoes, surfboards, artifacts of whalebone and tortoise shell, and a ceiling-mounted whale. The museum was founded in 1889 by the American husband, Charles R. Bishop, of Hawaiian princess Bernice Pauahi (d. 1884), the last direct descendant of Kamehameha the Great. In 1961 a planetarium and observatory were added to emphasize the role of astronomy in the cultural history of Pacific Island peoples.