Cattle | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 9, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ikua Purdy

The gift of a few cattle, given to Kamehameha I by Captain George Vancouver in 1793, spawned a rich tradition of cowboy and ranch culture that is still here, today.

With a kapu against killing the cattle, by 1830, wild bullocks posed a serious and dangerous threat to humans. Spurred also by the growing business of reprovisioning visiting ships with fresh meat and vegetables, Kamehameha III and Kaʻahumanu saw the wisdom of bringing in experienced cowboys.

They hired Spanish-Mexican vaquero (cowboys) from California to hunt bullocks and train Hawaiians to rope and handle cattle. The cowboys spoke Spanish – “Espanol” which turned into “paniolo” according to one explanation of the term.

The Hawaiian cowboy, nicknamed “paniolo,” played an important role in the economic and cultural development of Hawaiʻi and helped to establish the islands as a major cattle exporter to California, the Americas and the Pacific Rim for over a century.

Some might not realize that Hawaiʻi’s working paniolo preceded the emergence of the American cowboy in the American West.

After winning the Revolutionary war (1781), American settlers started to pour into the “west;” by 1788, the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory was in Ohio.

In 1800, the western frontier extended to the Mississippi River, which bisects the continental United States north-to-south from just west of the Great Lakes to the delta near New Orleans.

Then, in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the nation.

The Battle of the Alamo was in 1836; later that year, Texas became independent, the Mexicans left, leaving their cattle behind. Texan farmers claimed the cattle and set up their own ranches.

It wasn’t until the 1840s that the wagon trains really started travelling to the far west. Then, with the US victory in the Mexican-American war and gold soon found in California, the rush to the West was on.

The cattle trade in the American West was at its peak from 1867 until the early-1880s.

And, when in cattle country, you can expect rodeos.

Headlines in Island and Wyoming newspapers in August of 1908 announced rodeo history.

Twelve thousand spectators, a huge number for those days, watched Ikua Purdy, Jack Low, and Archie Kaaua from Hawaiʻi carry off top awards at the world-famous Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo (the “granddaddy” of rodeo.).

Unlike today’s calf-roping, riders lassoed powerful, full-grown steers.

The Cheyenne paper reported that the performances of the dashing Hawaiians, in their vaquero-style clothing and flower-covered, “took the breath of the American cowboys.”

Under drizzling skies, Purdy won the World’s Steer Roping Championship—roping, throwing and tying the steer in 56 seconds. Kaaua and Low took third and sixth place.

They each accomplished these feats on borrowed horses.

Purdy worked at Parker Ranch prior traveling to Cheyenne, Wyoming; his victory demonstrated the exceptional skills of the paniolo to mainland cowboys who long regarded rodeo and roping as their own domain.

On arriving home, the men were met at dockside by thousands of cheering fans and also honored by parades and other festivities on Maui and Hawai‘i.

Waimea-born Purdy moved to Ulupalakua, Maui and resumed his work as a paniolo until his death in 1945. He did not return to the mainland to defend his title, in fact he never left Hawaii’s shores again. But his victory and legend live on in Hawaiʻi and the annals of rodeo history.

In 1999, Ikua Purdy was voted into the National Cowboy Museum, Rodeo Hall of Fame. That same year he was the first inductee to the Paniolo Hall of Fame established by the Oʻahu Cattlemen’s Association.

In 2003, a large bronze statue of Purdy roping a steer was placed in Waimea town on the Big Island, erected by the Paniolo Preservation Society. In October 2007, Purdy was inducted into the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame.

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Ikua Purdy in Steer Roping Contest, Frontier Day, 1908

Ikua-Purdy

This undated photo, provided by the Paniolo Preservation Society shows Ikua Purdy, who became Hawaii’s most famous paniolo when he won the steer roping championship at the 1908 Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyo. A 16-foot-high statue honors his legacy at the Parker Ranch Shopping Center in Waimea. The legacy of Hawaii’s cowboys will be honored with an entire year of events during the Waiomina Centennial Celebration. (AP Photo/Paniolo Preservation Society)**AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTED HANDOUT PHOTO. THE COPYRIGHT IS OWNED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO SALES**

Ikua Purdy, Billy Spencer, and Archie Ka’au’a (hawaiianhistoricalsociety)

Archie Kaaua, Ikua Purdy and Billy Spencer (paniolopreservation-org)

Billy Walker, Jack Low and Ikua Purdy

Ikua_Purdy-Statue-Parker_Ranch_Shopping_Center

November 4, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Eben’s Glove

“He was always immaculately dressed and tailored when I saw him.” (Lucas; Watumull)

He was married to Elizabeth Pu‘uki Napoleon (“really Napoli. … Became known as Napoleon later.”)

“She was always known as Lizzie Low. My mother’s people were not well known to us because she was hanaied by Judge and Mrs. Sanford B. Dole when she was about twelve years of age [circa 1879].”

“Judge Dole was a teacher at Kawaiaha‘o Sunday School and had in his class a little girl of about six whose name was Lizzie Napoleon. And he became very attached to this little girl so when she got a little older, he asked her mother if she wouldn’t allow her to live with them.”

“She didn’t want to go at first but she did finally become attached to both Judge and Mrs. Dole and lived there until she was married.” (Lucas; Watumull)

“My father was known as Rawhide Ben because ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper, I guess, he loved the ranch life. And he was brought up as a member of the family in Mana and Kamuela with the rest of them.”

“So as a little boy he always had a chance to do something with animals. And this was his whole life. All he ever thought about was his cowboy experiences. But he became known as Rawhide Ben …”

“… I think, because even though he was sent to Maui and then to Honolulu later, at Iolani School, to get educated when he was a little fellow, he always went back to the ranch and that was all he wanted to do.”

“And as soon as he became an adult, his first job – big job – was given him by Theo. H. Davies and Company as manager of Puakea Ranch which is in Kohala – South Kohala there.”

Eben Parker Low was born in Honolulu, a great grandson of John Palmer Parker I and his Hawaiian wife, Kipikane. He spent his early years on Parker Ranch, Handling cows and calves by the time he was six years old.”

“He had very little education; in his own words, ‘… just plain common sense plus some English grammar and arithmetic and writing.’”

“At the age of 26 he became manager of Pu‘uhue ranch in Kohala, and began a career that made him one of the big island’s most famous and colorful paniolo.” (Hawaii Cattlemen’s Hall of Fame)

Unfortunately, he lost a portion of his left arm while roping … “he was trying to get a wild bullock that they had been chasing for a long time and he finally caught it but it was very wild and the thing was just swishing around this way (she indicates to the right and around the back of her) …”

“… so he had just enough time to duck down and the rope (with which the bullock was lassoed) went over his head. But he had the rope tied at the end of his pommel, which he never does ordinarily but he did that time because he didn’t want to lose it. And it caught his hand, see, ‘cause the loop was around his hand and it just tore the thing right off.”

“So then, there was one man with him and I don’t know how long they had – about two hours before they could get to anyplace. And of course he had this thing up and was bleeding like a cut pig.”

“And when they finally found the doctor and could get him up there, hours had passed and gangrene was starting to come in, so they cut it. They had to cut it down here (indicates forearm) and had to cut it again at the elbow.”

“But he got through that and, well, he was a young man then. I think he was about twenty-five when that happened, so he had a lot of time to get over it, too.” (Lucas; Watumull)

“Low was known as ‘one of the better artists with a rope, horse and steer’. Low had lost his left hand in a roping accident, but ‘managed to excel at roping despite his handicap of the one missing hand’”. (Marion Kelly)

“(H)e had that one arm that had to be amputated forearm and so he’d … usually wore a … false hand with a glove on his left hand and then when he roped he had a thing he’d put on with a hook it just you know a mean hook it you’d look like a pirate you look at the pictures of old pirates”. (Billy Paris; Hawaii Cattlemen’s Association)

“And I remember that leather glove. I always remembered that leather glove. I can just see him so clearly.”

“Yeah, he was a rascal with that glove because obviously, you know, there was an artificial arm. Let’s see now, his arm was cut here (indicates it was just below the elbow) so there was just a little leverage here, right below the elbow, and would give him leverage, so this thing – this gloved hand – would fit right into the end of this stump.”

“And so, he could twist it and take it off or not as he pleased. And half the time he would take it off and put a hook on it because he could handle a hook more easily than he could a glove. But oh, he used to do terrible things with that glove.”

“For instance, I remember one time when a woman – I can’t remember who she was now but it was someone that I thought should not have been in any way fooled with because she was very dignified and she was very well dressed and she was so sedate, so prim and proper …”

“… and my father just couldn’t stand it and so he just twisted this thing off and threw the [gloved] hand in her lap. That woman nearly died of a heart attack.” (Lucas; Watumull)

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Eben ‘Rawhide Ben’ Low-PP-75-5-007-1939

April 2, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Loading Cattle

“In 1777 there was not one cow, sheep, horse or goat anywhere in the area that is now the State of Hawaii. In fact, the only land mammals in the Islands were a small light weight pig, Poi Dogs (eating type), Polynesian rat, Hoary bat, and Hawaiians.”

“All this was destined to change abruptly and dramatically. Goats were introduced to some of the Islands by Captain James Cook, who rediscovered them in 1778 …”

“In two voyages, 1792 and 1793, Captain George Vancouver landed 7 cows, 1 heifer, 2 bull calves, and 1 bull on the Big Island. These animals were for the most part black longhorns, believed to be of the line that the Mexicans used for their bull-bear contest.”

“The animals were obtained from what is now British Columbia and Monterey, Calif. In addition to the 11 longhorns, 7 rams, 9 ewes, and some goats were also presented to the ruling monarch, King Kamehameha.”

“The King placed a kapu (taboo) against the killing of these animals, which were subsequently turned loose upon the unsuspecting vegetation. By 1830, the number of animals on the Big Island alone was estimated to be 20,000 cattle, 3,000 sheep, 1,200 horses (introduced in 1803) and numerous goats.” (Smith)

“Beginning in 1786, ships trading in the Pacific had begun to stop in Hawaiian ports on a regular basis. Their captains were very interested in securing fresh provisions, including water, salt, wood, vegetables, and meat.”

“They also saw Hawaii as a good place to rest and recuperate, especially during the harsh winters of the northern seas. Captains found the protected, natural harbor at Honolulu the most accessible and, therefore, the most attractive in the islands, Thus, by 1810, Honolulu had already become a port of great commercial importance.” (Strazar)

Salt meat could store longer than fresh – what about fresh meat for those in the Islands?

Refrigeration first came to Hawai‘i in the middle of the nineteenth century. “The first Boston ice brought to these islands, was received on the 14th inst. (September 14, 1850) by brig Fortunio, Hasty, via San Francisco.” (Polynesian, September 21, 1850)

Then, “(a) few tons of ice were brought to this port from San Francisco by the bark Harriet T Bartlet, Capt Heeren, and a part sold by our friend Thompson, at auction, on Tuesday.”

“This is the first importation of the kind, in any quantity, to this market, and but the beginning, it is to be hoped, of a regular supply of this luxury to the inhabitants of this city.” (Polynesian, June 26, 1852)

Then, they started to make ice in the Islands. “Ice Manufacture. The establishment on the Esplanade for the manufacture of ice by chemical process, has been in operation during several days past. “

“Like all new beginnings, difficulties have had to be met and overcome, but yesterday the machinery was in the full tide of successful experiment, and to-day we expect to be able to see home-made ice.”

“It is expected that enough will be manufactured to supply the demand for the city, and at such rates as will prevent the necessity of importing the luxury from California.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 2, 1871)

“Before the days of refrigeration, cattle, for other than the local markets of each island, had to be shipped live to the island of O‘ahu where, because of the larger population and accelerated development, the demand for fresh beef was always greater.”

“The transporting of live cattle posed dramatic technical challenges that were complicated by the absence of deep-water wharfs where an inter-island schooner or steamer could dock for loading of cattle.”

“Ranchers, therefore, had to have their paniolo drag cattle out through the pounding surf to longboats that rowed out to the main steamer with cattle tied by the head to the gunwales.”

“Later solutions included a drop chute utilizing a trap door that released the cattle one by one to the sea where a rope would then be thrown to the waiting longboat.” (Strazar)

“The cattle at Napo‘opo‘o were driven and dragged into the water, a rope around the neck and a cowboy holding the animal’s tail …. Drawn alongside the small boat, another rope was secured to the horns and the one taken from the neck, the head being secured to the side of the boat.”

“They are tied very close together, perhaps eight or ten on either side, and in some cases the animals fought and pawed one another in the water. The small boat is drawn out to the steamer and some of the animals loaded by slings under the middle while others are drawn up by the horns.”

“A woman in Kona, and whose cattle these happened to be, was present and I spoke to her about the nonuse of slings. She said the ‘light’ cattle were always loaded that way and slings used for the heavy ones…” (National Humane Review, July 1919)

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SS James Makee Cattle Steamer

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Manele-Cattle-Chute-(Munro-Story)

Manele-Cattle_Chute_(Munro-Story)

December 28, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kona Cattle

“…the meat-eating population has increased, while the areas devoted to grazing and the numbers of cattle have gradually diminished, so that at the present time we are face to face with a situation in which the supply will no longer cover the demand.”

“Formerly (cattle) had wider ranges to rove over and feed upon; they were possessors of the land, and their value consisted chiefly in the labor and hides that they yielded.”

“At that time the plantations, which were of smaller areas than now, were almost wholly worked by bullock labor… In the course of time, and that very recent, the sugar industry has undergone great expansion.”

“The lands, some of which formerly were among the best for meat-making uses, have been absorbed by the plantations, and the cattle have been gradually forced within narrower limits at higher altitudes.” (Walter Maxwell; Thrum 1900)

Let’s look back …

With the arrival of Western ships, new plants and animals soon found their way to the Hawaiian Islands. In 1793, Captain George Vancouver gave a few cattle to Kamehameha I. When Vancouver landed additional cattle at Kealakekua in 1794, he strongly encouraged Kamehameha to place a 10‐year kapu on them to allow the herd to grow.

In the decades that followed, cattle flourished and later turned into a dangerous nuisance. (By 1846, 25,000-wild cattle roamed at will and an additional 10,000-semi‐domesticated cattle lived alongside humans.)

Kamehameha III lifted the kapu in 1830 and the hunting of wild cattle was encouraged. The king hired cattle hunters from overseas to help in the effort; many of these were former convicts from Botany Bay in Australia.

Wild cattle were hunted for consumption, as well as provisioning ships with salt beef, and hides and tallow to the growing whaling fleets replenished their stocks.

In addition, Kamehameha III had vaqueros (Mexican-Spanish cow hands) brought to the islands to teach the Hawaiians, the skills of herding and handling cattle.

“The formalization of ranching operations on Hawai‘i evolved in response to the growing threat of herds of wild cattle and goats to the Hawaiian environment, and the rise and fall of other business interests leading up to the middle 1800s.” (Maly)

The vaqueros found the Hawaiians to be capable students, and by the 1870s, the Hawaiian cowboys came to be known as the “paniola” for the Espanola (Spanish) vaqueros who had been brought to the islands (though today, the Hawaiian cowboy is more commonly called “paniolo”). (Maly)

“The forest areas of the Hawaiian Islands were very considerable, covering the upland plateaus and mountain slopes at altitudes above the lands now devoted to sugar growing and other cultures.”

“Those areas, however, have suffered great reduction, and much of the most valuable forest cover has been devastated and laid bare. The causes given, and to-day seen, of the great destruction that has occurred are the direct removal of forest without any replacement by replanting.”

“Again, in consequence of the wholesale crushing and killing off of forest trees by cattle which have been allowed to traverse the woods and to trample out the brush and undergrowth which protected the roots and trunks of trees, vast breadths of superb forests have dried up, and are now dead and bare.”

“All authorities of the past and of the present agree in ascribing to mountain cattle, which were not confined to ranching areas, but allowed to run wild in the woods, the chief part in the decimation of the forest-covered lands. (Maxwell; Thrum)

“While the visits of the whaleships were confined to a few ports, the effects were felt in many other parts of the kingdom. Much of the domestic produce, such as potatoes, vegetables, beef, pork, fowls, and firewood, that was supplied to the ships was raised in the back country and had to be taken to the ports for sale.”

“The demand for firewood to supply so many ships over so great a period of time must have had an appreciable effect in reducing the forest areas and helping to create a serious problem for later generations.”

“Cattle for beef were, where possible, driven to the ports on the hoof and slaughtered as needed; at times they were led carelessly through the streets, to the annoyance and danger of the peaceful populace.” (Kuykendall)

In the years prior to the Māhele of 1848, nearly all of the cattle (as well as goats and sheep) belonged either to the King, the government, other chiefs close to the King, and a few foreigners who had been granted the right to handle the cattle. By 1851 there were around 20,000 cattle on the island of Hawai‘i, and approximately 12,000 of them were wild. (Maly)

The issuance of land title through the Māhele and Royal Patent Grant program of the Hawaiian Kingdom facilitated the development of large scale ranching activities on Hawai‘i. Every ahupua‘a in the area between Keauhou to Kealakekua (as well as on lands to the north and south) was put into ranching.

Ranchers, such as Samuel Rice, Charles Hall, William Johnson, Henry N. Greenwell, John D. Paris, James Atkins, Preston Cummings, Henry Weeks, George Trousseau and several others, operated in the uplands of Kona. (Maly)

The ranches of this region were generally situated between the 1,500 to 4,500-foot elevation, above the lands that in the same period were being turned over to the cultivation of coffee and other crops.

There were also important mauka-makai trails at various locations in the Keauhou-Kealakekua vicinity (such as Honalo, Kawanui, Lehu‘ula, Honua‘ino, Kalukalu, Onouli, and Ka‘awaloa), where ranchers would drive their cattle to the lowlands for grazing and shipping.

Māhele records also tell us that the native Hawaiian land owners in the same region, kept pigs and goats (and probably cattle and horses) on their own lands at lower elevations as well.

By 1855, the King signed a law requiring all cattle owners on Hawai‘i to register their brands between April 1st to September 30th 1855. On October 16, 1855, SL Austin (secretary to Governor of Hawai‘i), reported to John Young (Minister of the Interior), that 13 individuals had submitted the necessary documentation. (Maly)

For the most part, Kona Ranching operations continued on leased or fee lands by descendants of the earlier ranchers – Greenwell, Johnson, Paris, Wall and Roy.

Most of the ranching was/is in the uplands (areas extending from the Māmalahoa Highway vicinity to around the 4,800-foot elevation).

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Kailua Bay looking down on beach by pier

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December 3, 2014 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Makawao

Makawao (literally ‘forest beginning’) is an ahupuaʻa in Hāmākuapoko, Maui. It’s an area with both wet and dry forests.

Growing here were koa, sandalwood and ʻōhiʻa lehua; maile and ferns thrived in these forests. In the drier regions of Makawao, sweet potato was cultivated extensively, as it was in Kula.

The landscape began its transformation following the gift of (and subsequent kapu on killing) cattle and sheep from Vancouver to Kamehameha in 1793.

The cattle numbers increased, in places to the point of becoming a dangerous nuisance. Roaming wild cattle destroyed gardens, scared the population and were a general nuisance.

Then, on June 21, 1803, Captain William Shaler (with commercial officer Richard Cleveland,) gave Kamehameha a mare and a stallion at Lāhainā. Soon the horses, like the cattle, were roaming freely across the Islands.

Kamehameha I employed “a varied crew with unsavory reputations who had immigrated to the islands to escape their pasts” as bullock hunters to capture the animals. (DLNR) The earliest Hawaiian bullock hunters hunted alone, on foot, and used guns and pit traps. (Mills)

Most histories credit Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) with the idea of hiring vaqueros to manage the cattle. Joaquin Armas arrived in Hawai‘i on April 4, 1831 and stayed in Hawai‘i at the bequest of the King.

Armas had grown up in Monterey, where undoubtedly he learned how to rope cattle and process hides. He and others began working for the Hawaiian monarchy and teaching the Hawaiians their techniques. (Mills)

Hawaii’s cowboys became known as paniolo, a corruption of español, the language the vaquero spoke. The term still refers to cowboys working in the Islands and to the culture their lifestyle spawned.

Missionary Hiram Bingham noted, “several striking exhibitions of seizing wild cattle, chasing them on horseback, and throwing the lasso over their horns, with great certainty, capturing, prostrating, and subduing or killing these mountain-fed animals, struggling in vain for liberty and life.”

By the 1800s, agriculture in the region had transitioned from a subsistence activity to a commercial one. A market was developed to supply whalers who stopped to replenish their supplies; Upcountry Maui provided vegetables, meat and fruit.

In the early days only sweet potatoes had been obtainable at the Islands, but after 1830, if not sooner, cultivation of the Irish potato was taken up and during the 1840s and 1850s became of great importance.

It was shortly before 1840 that Irish potatoes were first grown in Upcountry, which proved to be so well adapted to them that it soon came to be called the ‘potato district.’ (Kuykendall)

“I had here the first glimpse at the extensive Irish potatoe region. It ranges along the mountain between 2,000 and 5,000 feet elevation, for the distance of 12-miles. The forest is but partially cleared, and the seed put into the rich virgin soil. The crop now in the ground is immense.” (Polynesian, July 25, 1846)

Despite claims that “the soil in this area of Maui grows rocks” due to the many areas of exposed bedrock and scattered boulders and gravels in the surrounding fields, crop production expanded exponentially in the first half of the nineteenth century with sweet potato, potatoes, corn, beans and wheat. (DLNR)

In addition to the changing landscape, there were changes in land tenure.

Kameʻeleihiwa stated that Makawao District was the first area in Hawai‘i to experiment with land sales. In January 1846, land was made available for eventual ownership to the makaʻāinana (commoners.)

Makawao land was reportedly sold for $1-per acre; this would mark the beginning of land grants. Experimental lots purchased by Hawaiians ranged from 5 to 10-acres, with a total land area of approximately 900-acres of grant lands purchased in Makawao. (DLNR)

Today, Makawao continues the Paniolo tradition and proudly proclaims its community as Paniolo Country.

The community participates in an annual Independence Day rodeo and parade (2015 will be its 50th annual parade and 60th annual rodeo celebrations.) Likewise, there are regular ‘Makawao Third Fridays on Baldwin Avenue, closed between Brewer Road and Makawao Avenue.

The image shows a street scene in Makawao. In addition, I have included more related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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