Katharine Luomala

Katharine Luomala (September 10, 1907 – February 27, 1992) was an American anthropologist known for her studies of comparative mythology in Oceania.

Born in Cloquet, Minnesota and educated at the University of California, Berkeley, Luomala began her anthropological studies there by working with the Navajo people in the 1930s, chronicling their changing lives. She earned her AB in 1931, MA in 1933, and PhD in 1936. In 1941 she became an honorary associate at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, which position she maintained for the rest of her working life. In 1946 she became a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii, where she studied Hawaiian mythology and, from 1950, the ethnobotany of the Gilbert Islands, remaining there until her retirement in 1973. Luomala was a fellow of the American Anthropological Association and a member of the Anthropological Society of Hawaii, the Polynesian Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi.

Luomala owned the MV Joyita at the time of the vessel's accident in 1955.

Luomala's 1955 book, Voices on the Wind, was the book used as a reference by Imagineer Rolly Crump while he was designing Walt's Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room and its pre-show. Crump also referred to the book as Whispers on the Wind. It is what served as a huge part in the popularity of the "tiki-style" and culture in the United States.

Works

• Oceanic, American Indian, and African myths of snaring the sun (The Museum, 1940)
• Maui-of-a-Thousand-Tricks: His Oceanic and European Biographers (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin #198; Honolulu: The Museum, 1949)
• The Menehune of Polynesia and other mythical little people of Oceania (The Museum, 1951)
• The Menehune of Polynesia and other mythical little people of Oceania (Published by the Museum, 1951)
• Plants of Canton Island, Phoenix Islands (Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1951)
• Ethnobotany of the Gilbert Islands (The Museum, 1953)
• Voices on the Wind: Polynesian Myths and Chants (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, c1955), illust. by Joseph Feher