 In practice, the word "moke" is similar to "redneck", as it is only used to describe a certain personality type, instead of an entire ethnic group.John William's "A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands" (1832) is one of the earliest records of Mokes in literature.Williams, a missionary with the London Missionary Society, equates mokes with "Heathen Darkness", a claim that portends the later antagonism between whites and Hawaiians over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.