What would you write first, if you had never been able to fix your words to a page — if everything you knew of language swirled incessantly within your head, or was, at best, mere air vibrating through your lips?

For Native Hawaiian youths educated in the 1830s at Maui's Lahainaluna Seminary, that question was not abstract. Fascinated by their newfound ability to codify an exclusively oral history, students documented, among other things, native genealogies. Their biblically proportioned lists were published in 1834 in Hawai'i's first newspaper, Ka Lama Hawai'i (the Hawaiian Luminary).

It's hard to imagine a time when genealogies were news; but you can see the original dispatch for yourself at the Mission House Museum's exhibition, "Treasures of Hawai'i's Past," culled from its collection.

Mission Houses Museum, the often overlooked member of the city's cultural centers, has Smithsonian Institution-worthy pieces that should bring it more attention. And they're brought to light in this show.

While sewing kits and missionary garb are standard historical fare, a number of extraordinary gems are also on display: a pocket watch inscribed with a dedication from President Abraham Lincoln; some of the earliest daguerreotype photographs of Native Hawaiians; and a quaint depiction of Hilo Bay, circa 1868, by the first Native Hawaiian to paint in the Western style, "Renaissance man" and anti-statehood activist Joseph Nawawi (the subject, incidentally, of an in-the-works flick by the Center for Biographical Research at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa).

The items assembled are rich with story; some lore may be more embellished than not — though who knows for sure? That's the fun of it.

Take the exquisite 1860s gold hunting case pocket watch, one of several gifts bestowed on the Rev. James Kekela by Lincoln. The first Native Hawaiian ordained to the Christian ministry, Kekela spent nearly half a century missionizing in the Marquesas. The watch, inscribed in Hawaiian, relates the president's gratitude to the holy man for an act of heroism.

As the story goes, men from a ship (possibly Peruvian) docked at the Marquesan island of Hiva Oa, kidnapped several islanders, then "hauled anchor," so to speak. Soon after, another vessel arrived in the bay; its American sailors unwittingly entered a hornet's nest of enraged islanders, who mistook it for the first ship. The English-speaking Kekela realized their error and thwarted a vengeful, murderous plot.

It's not clear, from multiple tellings, what exactly happened all those years ago in the Marquesas. Was just one sailor saved, as the watch's inscription suggests — or a whole shipful, as some legends go? And did Kekela, during the negotiations, give up his boat, or even risk his own life, as some say?

There's surely a "Kekela would go" bumper sticker for the making.

The watch, handed down for generations in the Kekela family, was donated to the museum for safekeeping.

Every year, clan members make a pilgrimage to town from the Wai'anae Coast to visit this tangible reminder of their ancestor's valor.

Alternately, those who've only seen apothecary chests at Pottery Barn (or worse, in the "Friends" sitcom episode that features the store's antique knock-offs) might find some diversion in the real thing: Dr. Gerrit Judd's traveling cabinet for totable medicinals.

The 19th-century mahogany medicine chest, which folds out on hinges, once carried an armory of proto-pharmaceuticals and medical implements for various uses — or, as it were, tortures: The tooth extractor on display makes one hope that the good doctor offered more than an alcohol swab as anesthetic.

Deciphering its abbreviated drawer labels ("P.Tart.Crem" — crEme of tartar? "Rad.Gentian" — gentian root?) plays out a little like a bookish Harry Potter quest.

Judd's famously arduous life work as a missionary settler involved treating diseases that felled the Native Hawaiian population, and which, ironically, were caused by initial contact with Westerners.

That early intersection of Western and indigenous cultures through trade and travel is nowhere more apparent in this exhibition, perhaps, than in the quilts on view.

An 1830s missionary quilt, for example, is a patchwork of remnant fabrics from gowns sewn for ali'i — a testament not only to changing dress (the adoption of Western garb to cover flesh devoutly, as missionaries advised), but also to the active China trade, which ferried the fine silks used.

Native Hawaiians intuited that the ever-resourceful quilt form could provide an enduring statement of the spirit's survival. Each appliqued Hawaiian quilt is, like a living thing, centered by its own umbilical piko. And during the monarchy's collapse, afraid that the Hawaiian flag would never again fly, quietly subversive native seamstresses quilted the national symbol onto fabric — not to be used, but hung like the pristine "flag quilt" on display here.

A doll made from a bedpost by missionary Hiram Bingham recalls that early evangelist settlers strove to rear their children in the familiar New England tradition; some would even cordon off a portion of their yards to restrain, literally, their more free-thinking children from "going local."

That, and a 19th-century version of "MySpace" — a collection of calling cards (social cards printed with their bearers' photographic likeness) — remind us of what's central here, as in any display of cultural artifacts: The trappings may change dramatically, but human nature, less so.