General | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

Banyan Tree located in courthouse square in the center of Lahaina

Banyan_Tree,_Courtyard,_Lahaina,_Maui,_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram

The only image of Cleopatra’s Barge in Hawaii – here at Lahaina, Maui

Keopuolani

James William Smith

Mrs (Melicent Knapp) Smith

Banyan-Tree-Lahaina

Banyan_Tree-walkway

Banyan_Tree-trunk

Banyan_Tree_Park_(8625010921)

Banyan_Plaque

Banyan_Tree

William_Owen_Smith

Bernice_Pauahi_Bishop,_San_Francisco,_1875

Liliuokalani_in_1917

April 21, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Cyclorama

On May 1, 1893, nearly five months after the overthrow of the Hawaiian constitutional monarchy, the Chicago World’s Fair opened its doors. This fair was a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

At the fair, a road called the Midway Plaisance showcased different ethnic villages and performances, including Hawai‘i’s.

The Midway Plaisance of the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition packed amusements along a mile-long strip and segregated them from the main exposition or the ‘White City’. (Imada)

The Hawaiian exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 was organized by settler Hawaiians who were rallying for American annexation and trying to encourage tourism and more white settlement in the Islands. (Kamehiro)

“Between the Chinese Theatre and the Ferris Wheel stood the cyclorama (a large pictorial representation encircling the spectator and often having real objects as a foreground) of the greatest active volcano in the northern hemisphere.”

“In front of the pavilion was a heroic statue of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, made by Mrs (Ellen Rankin) Copp, the sculptor, and under the canopy a choir of Kanak musicians sang to the public, evoking much applause.”

“The crater of the volcano is 800 feet deep and 2 miles across. It is a lake of bubbling and thunderous lava set in the side of Mona Loa, a mountain 15,000 feet high. The station for the spectator of the picture was a heap of lava which had exuded and solidified in the center of the crater.”

“A priest climbed the cliffs that rimmed the scene and chanted an invocation to Pele, and his form added to the realism of the effects. The mountain peak and the Pacific Ocean, the baleful fires of the never slumbering volcano, the mists and lava floods, all conspired to make a great picture.” (The Inter Ocean, Chicago, January 7, 1894)

Circling the walls within are some 22,000 square feet or nearly half an acre of canvas, whereon is depicted ‘the inferno of the Pacific,’ the largest volcano on the face of the earth.

While not without merit, it does not compare with the other as a panoramic painting, the effect being largely produced by electric lights, pyrotechnics, and other mechanical contrivances.

The point of observation is in the very heart of the crater, and not on its brow where thousands of travellers have stood. Gazing upward and around, the spectator is encompassed with a hissing, bubbling sea of lava, with tongues of flame and clouds of steam rising from fathomless pits to overhanging crags and masses of rock.

All this is expressed with studied but not with artistic realism, fragments of rock being blended with painted cliffs on which are dummies and painted figures, presumably intended for tourists, while flashlights in various colors, with detonation of bombs and crackers, imitate in showman fashion the awful grandeur of an eruption. (Chicagology)

Such was Hawai‘i’s participation in the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.

The volcano concession also advertised the first hula troupe to perform at a world fair, accentuating the shift in the character of Native Hawaiian displays in international exhibitions from sovereign, historically-situated, and modern self-presentation to feminized, exotic, tourist curiosity.

Jennie Wilson, whose mother is a native Hawaiian, and an unknown companion, performing at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago at the Midway Plaisance in an exhibit called the” South Seas Islanders.”

This was the first time the hula was performed in the mainland of the United States. She and her group inadvertently contributed to the bad reputation of the hula with the ‘come-on’ song they were required to sing to urge audiences to see the ‘naughty hula.’ (Chicagology)

Besides the Hawai‘i cyclorama, there were five other rotunda panoramas represented at World Columbian Exposition: Gettysburg (Philippoteaux studio), Jerusalem On The Day Of The Crucifixion (Reed & Gross), Chicago Fire panorama (Reed & Gross), Bernese Oberland,(import from Switzerland), and Battle Of Chattanooga (Eugen Bracht studio, Berlin).

Kilauea cyclorama on the Midway Plaisance at the World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago-1893

Kilauea cyclorama on the Midway Plaisance at the World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893

Jennie Wilson and companion hula at Midway Plaisance at the World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893

World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, Map-1893

World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, Map 1893

Chicago-1893

April 20, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hope

“(T)he maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast of America had its origin in the accidental discovery by Captain Cook’s sailors that the furs which they had obtained at Nootka in exchange for the veriest trifles were of great value in the eyes of the Chinese. Naturally the earliest of these traders came from India and China.”

“In September of (1788) appeared at Nootka a new flag – that of the United States of America. This first American venture consisted of the Columbia and the Washington, commanded by captains Gray and Kendrick.”

“After about a year spent on the coast the Columbia sailed for China with the furs collected by both vessels, and thence to her home port, Boston, where she arrived August 10, 1790.”

“Though the voyage had proved a great disappointment, financially, yet other enterprising Boston merchants determined to essay another venture. The vessel they selected was the Hope, a brigantine of seventy tons and slightly built.”

“In command they placed Joseph Ingraham, who had been mate of the Columbia. This move angered the owners of that vessel, who seemed to think that as they had introduced Ingraham to the fur trade they had some vested right in his services.”

“The Hope sailed from Boston September 16, 1790. … On January 4, 1791 the Falkland Islands were sighted just west of Falkland Strait.”

“‘Remaining very long at sea is often of disheartening seamen and thereby bringing on sickness, only the sight of land, even if no refreshments are procured it, has often a wonderful effect; it awakens them from lethargy occasioned by the sameness of viewing nothing and water’.” (Ingraham)

“Three months after his departure from the Falkland Islands Ingraham anchored in the Bay of Madre de Dios in the Marquesas. (He then) sailed to the westward.”

“Late that afternoon (April 21, 1791) two islands appeared under his lee. Startled by the discovery them he bore away towards them and soon two others appeared upon the horizon. The next day three more were seen. Feeling confident that these we no part of the Marquesas group and that they had never been seen by Europeans, he named them after Washington and other prominent Americans.”

“But Ingraham was in search of furs, not on a voyage of discovery. He hastened towards the Sandwich Islands. On May 17 only five casks of water remained; early on the morning of the 20th, Ingraham was delighted to see the snow-capped summit of Mauna Loa appear above the western horizon.”

At Owyhee (Hawai‘i) he met Tianna … “Hogs, fowls, potatoes, plantains and sugar cane were obtained as the vessel skirted the shores of Owyhee, Mowee (Maui) and Atooi (Kauai).”

“Finally on June 1 the Hope emerged from the channel between Atooi and Oneehow (Ni‘ihau), and the course was set for the Northwest Coast of America.”

“The anniversary of the Declaration of Independence occurred while the Hope lay in Magee Sound. … ‘I caused a hog of 70 lbs weight to be roasted whole, on which we all dined on shore. I with my officers and seamen drank the President’s and made the forest ring with three cheers; after which every one returned to their several employments as we could not time to sit long after dinner.’” (Ingraham)

“(H)e had left a boar and two the hope that they might increase and be of use to future visitors; and desiring that these animals be not molested until they multiplied.”

“Gray of the Columbia was the first to show the Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands how to cultivate the potato. Thus to the credit of the Americans are the introduction of domestic animals and vegetables in those islands.”

“On the morning of July 7 the fast was cast off and the Hope towed out of the sound, ready to begin trading. … Having obtained about three hundred sea otter skins and completely cleared the village of the least particle of fur, Ingraham sailed on July 19 through Cox Strait or Parry Passage, and shaped his course eastward. …”

“It was now the 15th of August; only a little over a month since he had begun his trading at Cloak Bay; and in that interval Ingraham had collected more than eight hundred and fifty sea otter skins. Each day added a few to his stock …”

“… but all the cloth and clothing were gone; and in the competition with at least three other vessels this would place him at a distinct disadvantage. He therefore decided, instead of wintering on the coast, to sail to China, dispose of his cargo of furs, obtain further supply of trading goods, and return to Queen Charlotte Islands in time for the opening of the next season.”

“The crew were set to work to take out the furs, beat, clean, and dry them, obtain wood and water, and prepare for the voyage across the Pacific. These necessary occupations consumed about a fortnight. The Hope still lay at anchor in the little cove at Cumshewa’s village, visited each day by the natives.”

“The trade went steadily on, and the stream of furs flowed uninterruptedly into her hold. When, at last, the vessel was ready to sail, Ingraham found that he had more than fourteen hundred sea otter skins and upwards of three hundred sables, besides beaver, wolverine, etc.”

“Forty-nine days trade on the northern and eastern side of Queen Charlotte Islands. He attributes his success to the method, first introduced by him, of visiting a village, casting anchor and remaining until no more furs could be secured.”

“In this he is probably right, for the natives naturally preferred to deal in this way, rather than paddle out four or five leagues to a moving vessel, as they must do to trade with the others.”

“The results support this view, for the Columbia, pursuing the old fashion of flitting hither and thither had in about the same time obtained only six hundred skins, and the Hancock between five hundred and six hundred.”

“Just as the Hope was under way a canoe came out and traded twenty skins – the very last they possessed … ‘seeing we were about to leave them, they traded quick.’ He left Queen Charlotte Islands on September 1 for China by way of the Sandwich Islands.”

“On October 6 the island Owyhee (Hawaii) was seen at a distance of twenty leagues. … In four or five days Ingraham, having collected seventy hogs, some fowls, and a great quantity of vegetables, resumed his voyage to China carrying with him three Sandwich Island lads as an addition to his crew. He anchored in Macao Roads November 29, 1791.”

“(However,) that, owing to war between China and Russia, the Chinese, under the mistaken idea that the fur trade was wholly connected with Russian interests, had prohibited all vessels having furs on board from entering Canton, the great Chinese mart.”

“(H)e he had come to China to sell his furs, and sell them he would despite the prohibition. … There was no market; had there been one, it would have been flooded, for the cargoes of the Grace, Hancock, Gustavus, Hope and La Solide, added to those of the Spanish vessels from Manilla amounted to about eleven thousand sea otter skins.”

“After ten days spent in a vain endeavor to get the skins ashore, and in which they narrowly escaped seizure the boat returned. Some two hundred skins were sold to other captains who took the risk of running then ashore.”

“While slowly getting rid of his skins, disposing of a few here and a few there, and smuggling a boat load ashore to every available opportunity Ingraham was also obtaining his trading goods.”

“He purchased a large quantity of broadcloth and began on shore the manufacture of jackets and trousers, but when h attempted to put the cloth and the clothing on the Hope, the mandarins demanded $100 to be paid before they would allow them to leave the shore.”

“He and his friends Coolidge and Rogers agreed to invest the proceeds of their sales in a cargo of tea and to charter a small vessel, the Fairy, to transport it to Boston.”

“He accordingly purchased one thousand eight hundred and sixty chests of tea as his share of the lading, but soon discovered that he had obtained far too much. The tea was brought to Macao to be loaded; only a hundred chests had been put on board when the mandarins again interfered and seized sixty-seven chests.”

“On April 1, 1792 the Hope in company with the Grace for the Northwest Coast of America. Head winds drove them back, and it was not until the 26th that they finally left the Chinese coast.”

The Hope made it back to the northwest coast … “Ingraham was surprised to meet at Nootka the Sandwich Islander, Opie, whom he had brought out from Boston and Owyhee in May 1791. This man who had evidently an attack of the wanderlust had embarked with Vancouver in March 1792.”

“He now wished to return to his home and begged Ingraham to him a passage. This, however, was refused unless Vancouver would discharge him. When Vancouver declined to do so Opie suggested that he would desert and meet the Hope in a canoe outside Nootka, but to this Ingraham would not consent … in any event, the Hope was already overmanned.”

Then, “The season was ended. More than three months had been spent in the vain endeavor to procure a cargo of skins. … On October 12 Ingraham sailed from Nootka for China by way of the Sandwich Islands. His Journal ends here quite abruptly”. (All here from Howay)

Ingraham Voyage-1Boston 2Cape Vert Islands 3Falkland 4Juan Fernandez 5Marquesas 6Hawaii 7Queen Charlotte-Vancouver 8Macau

April 19, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Asian Influence?

“The influence exerted on ocean currents by the Earth’s rotation was not generally appreciated until 1835, when G. de Coriolis, while studying equations of motion in a rotating frame of reference, discovered what is now called Coriolis force.”

“Coriolis showed how the effects of the Earth’s rotation could be incorporated into the Newtonian equations of motion by adding two additional terms. One, the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation and the coriolis force that modifies direction.”

“Asia’s seamen have known the Kuroshio (current) since ancient times. They named it Kuro-shio (which means ‘black stream’ in the Japanese language) because of the deep ultramarine colour of the warm, high salinity water which is found flowing north”.

“The first European chart to show the Kuroshio was Varenius’ “Geographia Generalis” of 1650. Later, expeditions headed by Captains James Cook (1776-80) and Krusenstern (1804) added to western knowledge about the Kuroshio.” (Barkley)

“Between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Kuroshio’s treacherous waters swept numerous Japanese ship and their frightened passengers out across the Pacific, depositing them rudely on the coral reefs of the Hawaiian archipelago.” (Ogawa & Grant)

“Inadvertently, the Kuroshio became a rough-hewn bridge between the civilizations of feudal Japan and the stone-age world of the Hawaiian culture.”

“Across this bridge came not only castaways but the artifacts of Japanese culture, several of which became incorporated into the indigenous lifestyle of the tolerant, friendly native.”

“For example, the Hawaiian game of konane perhaps evolved from the Japanese game of go. The plumbed standard of state which Hawaiian royalty retained, the kahili, was possibly derivative of the Japanese keyari”. (Ogawa & Grant)

“The name ‘Keyari’ is a derivative of the Japanese name for the feathered or haired pike carried in feudal Japan as a symbol of rank (毛槍).” (Schmid)

“Hawaiian native culture, whilst basically Polynesian, included many features not found elsewhere in Polynesia. Such cannot be explained satisfactorily by local evolution, nor extra-Polynesian immigration.”

“Some features appear to be European, but since most suggest an origin in the North Pacific coastal regions, their presence in Hawaii may be due to involuntary or drift voyages”. (Stokes; Journal of the Polynesian Society))

“From a study of many authorities writing of drift-voyages – Stokes quotes from forty-seven – he concludes that the most definite recorded drifts have been from Japan, and of these drifts he gives a list of fifty-three Japanese ships which have drifted, disabled, into the northern Pacific.”

“On most of them survivors were found – in one instance after a drift of seventeen months. At least one ship reached Hawaii, after a drift of ten or eleven months, four people out of nine surviving.”

“These drifts were in historic times, all but eight in the eighteen-hundreds; the eight date between the years 1617 and 1794; and (Stokes) writes: …”

“‘With the definite record of one drift to Hawaii from Japan, and none from other Pacific regions in historic times, it is obvious that many of the castaways mentioned in Hawaiian traditions were Japanese, traces of whose culture should be found’”.

“‘The dates when foreign influence apparently was manifest centre around A.D. 1600. Such may be arrived at by a comparative study of the Aukele legend and the accounts of Liloa, Umi, Keawenui, and Lono – kings reigning between 1550 and 1630, as estimated from the genealogies – a period standing out as replete with stories having the appearance of historical narrative.’”

“‘It also indicates an era of many innovations. If the items then mentioned for the first time were not introductions, the period must at least mark the introduction of some new intellectual element which left its record in contemporary unwritten literature.’”.

“The artifact to which (Stokes) devotes most attention is the kahili of Hawaii, which compares with the keyari of Japan, which two present striking similarities in appearance and function.”

“‘One description will apply to both: a staff or standard with feathers arranged in cylindrical form on the upper part; insignium of rank, preceding the ruler or high noble on the road on ceremonial visits, and requiring the obeissance due to its owner …’”

“‘… feathered portion, unicoloured or banded; shaft generally banded – the colours being brown, black, and white … In Hawaii also was a smaller feathered kahili, used in the house to brush flies from royal personages and high or low chiefs.’”

“‘In form, size, and method of feather attachment, it is similar to the Chinese feather-duster of commerce (unchanged for at least fifty years) of which the present-day Japanese feather-duster is a shortened model.’”

“‘The term kahili is the Polynesian tahiri, ‘to wave, fan,’ etc., and has nothing to do with the shape or material of the implement. The same term is applied to the simple bundle of crude leaf-midribs comprising the native broom.’”

“‘Probably a feather-duster reached Hawaii in a Japanese boat and was used as a fly-brush, and the larger type was evolved and highly dignified through the Japanese recollection of the keyari …’” (Stokes; Journal of the Polynesian Society))

“In his exhaustive comparison, among others, of the tall Hawaiian kahili and Japanese keyari for example, Stokes notes that the tall kahili is first mentioned in published Hawaiian traditions in the generation of King Lonoikamakahiki (c. 1630 A.D.) with no known prototype …”

“… whereas the keyari in Japan is traceable as far back as 1190 A.D. and was in use extending to the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867). In short, Stokes suggests that the arrival of intermittent Japanese drifts to Hawaii and the resulting diffusion of ideas may provide the best explanation for some of these uniquely Hawaiian ‘elaborations’.” (Braden)

Keyari-Kahili

Keyari-tokyobling

Kahili_Bishop_Museum-(WC)

Kuroshio Current-Qiu

April 18, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Joe the Statue Worshipper

“Honolulu like other and larger cities, has its street characters. They are, fortunately, but few, which fact renders them perhaps all the more familiar to residents and noticeable to strangers.” (Thrum)

“Jose de Medeiros, 1880(?)-1932, popularly known as ‘Joe the Statue Worshipper,’ kept an almost daily vigil in front of the Honolulu statue for about 35 years. In tattered clothes he would shuffle back and forth in front of the South Iolani Palace gate.”

“Sometimes he would cross the street to stare fixedly at the statue and go through various obeisances.” (Adler)

He “began his strange veneration in 1896, when he was sixteen. Daily he would appear in early morning before the monument.”

“He would shuffle back and forth or stand in apparent rapture staring at the bronze figure. He would depart in late afternoon.” (The Bend Bulletin, August 19, 1932)

“Once a reporter asked him if he liked to see Kamehameha every day, and he answered: ‘He step down some day. Then I see him.’”

“Joe became a familiar sight to townspeople, many of whom gave him gifts of clothes or food or cigars.”

“Former Mayor John H. Wilson remembered seeing him in front of the statue as early as 1896. By 1930 Joe was missing from his usual post, and it turned out he was sick. He died in July, 1932.”

“How account for his strange behavior? As a child of two, Joe came to Honolulu in 1882 with his Portuguese immigrant parents on the Earl of Dalhousie, the same ship that brought the damaged original statue. He may have been influenced by the awed superstition of the immigrants toward it, or by remarks of his parents.” (Adler)

“Old Joe, who truly was one of the extraordinary characters of the Pacific, possessed an endurance record that put in the shade the activities or such persons as marathon dancers, pole sitters, pie-eating champions and the like.”

“He stood voluntary guard before the gilded statue of Kamehameha the Great in the plaza between ‘Iolani Palace and the Judiciary Building, Honolulu for thirty-four years.”

“As to way he stood there day after day, year after year, no one ever found out.”

“That was the mystery of Joe.”

“All that the oldest residents of Honolulu ever knew Joe to say was that ‘Someday he step down – then we talk.’ The ‘he’ was the great bronze Kamehameha effigy of the first of the line of Hawaiian kings, the ‘Napoleon o’ the Pacific’ who united the group in government and whose intellect was said to have been proportionate to his mighty stature of seven feet.”

“Kamehameha reigned about the time the American Colonies were setting their faces against kings in general.”

“The gilt statue of the great king stands today in the middle of Honolulu and is the tribute of this age to a man whose tactful efficiency made a true golden one of his reign a century and a half ago.”

“Hence, the legend rose that perhaps Joe Medeiros. Whose family came from the Azores, was the reincarnation of some far-wandering Portuguese seaman who landed in Hawaii when Kamehameha was king and remained there to live and love as his heart dictated.”

“Some, however, said that the reason poor Joe stood there before the statue was that he in his youth on the Island of Hawai‘i had been kicked on the head by a calf.”

“For some years, Riley H. Allen, Editor of The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, as a test of ingenuity, would send new members of the staff from the mainland to interview old Joe.”

“But with one exception, there was uniform failure.”

“Joe would accept a cigar or maybe a half dollar, regard the donor tolerantly and return to his ‘job.’”

“Old Joe lived with his sister in that section of Honolulu between the palace and the Ala Moana, and, contrary to general opinion, he never married. He was fifty-two years old.” (Noted within Goodrich)