Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hui Nalu

When Duke Kahanamoku, Kenneth Winter and William ‘Knute’ Cottrell decided to form a boat club, one of the names they initially came up with for it was the ‘Very Lazy Surfers.’ They later settled on ‘Hui Nalu’ (the club of the waves, or surf club.) The club was loosely organized in 1905 and officially formed in 1911. (Others suggest it was formed in 1908.) Based at the Moana Hotel in Waikiki, swimming was the primary activity of the club in the early years; it expanded into surfing and canoe paddling.

Composed primarily of surfers of full or partial Hawaiian blood. Hui Nalu was a longtime rival to the 1908-formed Outrigger Canoe Club. Membership to Hui Nalu, in contrast to Outrigger, was by election, and the club, while social in its own way, was for athletes only. In 1915, Hui Nalu surfers opened lucrative beach concession businesses in Waikīkī. Through these concessions, Hui Nalu surfers found regular and profitable work and became known as Waikīkī beachboys. The beachboys were lifeguards, bodyguards, instructors, entertainers, and tour guides for visitors in Waikīkī.

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Remembering, Through Street Names

People, places, events and times continue to live through various symbols found around us. One such reminder of the past can be found by the name on a street sign; they help us remember people and places of the past. As an example, Waikiki is rich in history, pre-contact and modern – as George Kanahele once noted, “Waikīkī’s significance is as a place of history, not destination.”

While many of the sites and structures are gone, there are numerous reminders of Waikīkī’s and Hawai‘i’s past, even in this modern constructed environment. Of course, it is not just Waikīkī street names that remind us of stories about people, places, events and times – look around you, the signs noting stories of history and remembering the past are everywhere.

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau

According to legends, the Menehune built a fort and a temple at the top of the hill ‘Ulumalu. They were driven away from their fort by the high chief Kuali‘i during his reign (sometime in the 1700s). Kuali‘i rebuilt it after his seizure of the fort. This heiau was the center piece of a string of heiaus that strung across the Kona district of O‘ahu. The existence of such an important heiau at the mouth of the valley could be taken as an indication of the early importance of Mānoa.

Another legend says that the Menehune were driven from their fort and temple by the owls, who became their bitter enemies. The legends say that the Menehune built a temple and a fort a little farther up the valley above Pu‘u-pueo, at a place called Kūka‘ō‘ō. The heiau has been restored and is part of the Mānoa Heritage Center, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Hawai‘i. The site consists of Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau, a Native Hawaiian garden and Kūali‘i, a Tudor-style house, built in 1911.

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Dickie Cross

Until the 1930s, modern surfing in Hawaiʻi was focused at Waikīkī; there the waves were smaller. Then, in 1937, Wally Froiseth and John Kelly, reportedly on a school trip, witnessed the large break at Mākaha and later surfed its waves. Mākaha became the birthplace of big wave surfing. Then, they looked to the North Shore. On December 22, 1943, Woody Brown and a young friend named Dickie Cross paddled out at Sunset on a rising swell. Up to this time, Sunset had rarely been ridden. “There were 20 foot waves breaking on each side.” They paddled down to Waimea.

“All of a sudden, his eyes see the darn mountains coming way outside in the blue water, just piling one on top of another, way out there.” “So, they washed me up on the beach. I was so weak, I couldn’t stand up. I crawled out on my hands and knees and these army guys came running down.” “The first thing I said to them was, ‘Where’s the other guy?’ They said, ‘Oh, we never saw him after he got wrapped up in that first big wave.’” Cross’s death contributed greatly to what California big-wave rider Greg Noll later described as the ‘Waimea taboo’ – a general fear that kept surfers from riding the break until 1957.

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George Douglas Freeth, Jr

Around 1905, George Douglas Freeth Jr was the first – or among the first – to reintroduce angling across the wave as opposed to heading straight for shore. In 1907, real estate entrepreneurs Abott Kinney and Henry Huntington were heavily promoting their respective coastal resorts. Kinney had the lead, having dedicated his “Venice of America” (Venice Beach) on July 4, 1905. Henry Huntington, in June 1907, was putting the final touches on his own elaborate beach resort in Redondo Beach. At about that time, 19-year old, hapa-haole, Freeth was riding the waves at Waikiki.

In 1907, Freeth headed for California to ‘give exhibitions of Hawaiian water sports to the people of that section.’ Within six months of his arrival, Freeth was commuting between the two seaside communities performing his surfing act, as well as being a swim instructor/lifeguard. For heroic acts in saving lives of fishers caught in a winter squall on December 16, 1908, a special act of Congress dated June 25, 1910, awarded Freeth the nation’s highest civilian honor: the Congressional Gold Medal.