Categories

November 17, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Roughing It

“Early in 1866, George Barnes invited [Mark Twain] to resign [his] reportership on his paper, the San Francisco Morning Call, and for some months thereafter, [he] was without money or work; then [he] had a pleasant turn of fortune.”

“The proprietors of the Sacramento Union, a great and influential daily journal, sent [Twain] to the Sandwich Islands to write four letters a month at twenty dollars a piece.”

He also wrote books about some of his travels (that included a visit to Hawai‘i) … one such, Roughing It. Here are some of his first impressions of Honolulu – from that series, as well as his other writing.

“This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science.”

“Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes.” …

“On the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond Head”.

“So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich Islands – those islands which to me were Paradise; a Paradise which I had been longing all those years to see again. Not any other thing in the world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did.”

“On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying low on the lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to look. After two thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a welcome one.”

“As we approached, the imposing promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the ocean its rugged front softened by the hazy distance, and presently the details of the land began to make themselves manifest …”

“… first the line of beach; then the plumed coacoanut trees of the tropics; then cabins of the natives; then the white town of Honolulu, said to contain between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants spread over a dead level; with streets from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of them straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew.”

“The further I traveled through the town the better I liked it.”

“Every step revealed a new contrast–disclosed something I was unaccustomed to. In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of San Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, adobies, and cream-colored pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral, cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement ….”

“… also a great number of neat white cottages, with green window-shutters; in place of front yards like billiard-tables with iron fences around them, I saw these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad with green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate …”

“… in place of the customary geranium, calla lily, etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I saw luxurious banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes …”

“… in place of the dingy horrors of San Francisco’s pleasure grove, the “Willows,” I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance –trees that cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand alone without being tied to green poles …”

“… in place of gold fish, wiggling around in glass globes, assuming countless shades and degrees of distortion through the magnifying and diminishing qualities of their transparent prison houses, I saw cats …

“… Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep.”

“I looked on a multitude of people, some white, in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on every morning …”

“… but the majority of the people were almost as dark as negroes–women with comely features, fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the voluptuous, clad in a single bright red or white garment that fell free and unconfined from shoulder to heel …”

“… long black hair falling loose, gypsy hats, encircled with wreaths of natural flowers of a brilliant carmine tint; plenty of dark men in various costumes, and some with nothing on but a battered stove-pipe hat tilted on the nose, and a very scant breech-clout; –certain smoke-dried children were clothed in nothing but sunshine –a very neat fitting and picturesque apparel indeed.” (Twain)

Like they get to a lot of people, the Islands struck a chord with Clemens.

“I was there for four or five months, and returned to find myself about the best known man on the Pacific Coast.” (Twain) Popular pieces, some credit the series with turning Twain into a journalistic star.

November 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Inventions

On November 16, 1836, in High Chief ‘Aikanaka’s compound of many grass structures for cooking, eating, gathering, and retainers’ quarters was one larger hut in which lay Keohokalole, awaiting the birth of her second born. The first child had died at birth.

The great prophetess and High Chiefess Liliha had said it would be a man child, and he would live. “From this child, the bones of our ancestors will have life.” She also said that he would see the demise of the Kamehamehas.

The child about to be born was promised in hānai to Liliha. ʻAikanaka thought Liliha was the perfect hānai for his daughters’ child.

Liliha was particularly pleased with this hānai. She and her husband, Boki, had no sons. Liliha had two daughters; Abigail and Jane Louea. But she had seen great things in her prophesies for the child who was soon to be her hānai.

The chanters began their mele. The child’s ancestry was extolled: His mother was descended from Keawe-a-Heulu and his father was the grandson of Kame‘eiamoku. The two had been trusted warriors and close advisors to Kamehameha l.

The child was born – news traveled quickly, and suddenly the compound was crowded with people, rejoicing, singing, dancing. Kīna’u had come to name the child. It was her privilege.

Children were named by notable historical events, which would date their birth. Kīna’u decreed; Kalakaua, “Battle Day.” History and the ancients give the complete name as Laamea Kamanakapuu Mahinulani Nalolaekalani Lumia-Lani Kalakaua.

Liliha came to collect her hānai child. Then Kīna’u stepped between her and the child. “The child is to go to Ha‘aheo” she decreed. Liliha protested bitterly but knew she could not win, for Kīna’u’s word was law in this matter.

The tiny Kalakaua was wrapped in kapa and taken by his hānai mother, Ha‘aheo, to the royal grounds, followed by the entourage of Kïna‘u.

Kalakaua was given to a kahu [a wet nurse] to be fed and nurtured. His warm infancy was, however, short-lived, for Ha‘aheo died a year later and Kinimaka, her husband, took the baby to live in Lahaina.

However, he lived only a short time on the palace grounds there – as Kinimaka’s high chief linage was less than his late wife’s. Kinimaka moved to a frame house on the outskirts of Lahaina. Within the year he married a Tahitian woman, Pai, who welcomed Kalakaua with love and tenderness.

When Kalakaua was nearly four, his biological mother, who served on the King’s privy council with one of the most powerful woman in Hawaii, Konia, the granddaughter of Kamehameha l, appealed to her to have Kalakaua sent to the High Chiefs’ Children’s School in Honolulu.

Kalakaua was admitted to the school, but not before he was baptized and given the name “David.” Hence, David Kalakaua. In 1839, when Kalakaua entered the school, the three throne-aligned princes were also attending: Moses, twelve; Lot, ten; and Alexander Liholiho, nine.

After Kalakaua left the High Chiefs’ School, he attended the George Beckwith Royal School. At the age of fourteen, Kalakaua returned to his blood father, Kapa‘akea.

In 1853, at the age of seventeen, Kalakaua began his study of Law under Charles Coffin Harris. Enchanted by the young man, Harris took him into his home to live. It was Kalakaua’s years with Harris that formulated his legalistic oratory.

In 1855, life changed considerably for this young man. Kamehameha III died on December 15, 1854, and after a period of mourning, Alexander Liholiho became King as Kamehameha IV.

Kalakaua was attracted to Julia Kapiolani; she was educated in both English and Hawaiian and spoke only Hawaiian and was thoroughly Hawaiian oriented. She was described as lovely, shy and gracious.

Julia Kapiolani was of high chiefly background; she was born December 31, 1834, in Hilo, Hawaii, of High Chief Kūhiō and High Chiefess Kinoiki. She was named in honor of the first High Chiefess to defy the Goddess Pele.

From her early teens she was under the custody of Kamehameha III and had been a member of the court. In 1852, when she was eighteen, she married Benet Namakeha, thirty years her senior. They had both gone on a missionary expedition to Micronesia.

A year later they returned to the court of Kamehameha IV. Shortly after her arrival in Hawaii, Kapiolani become widowed, and her path constantly crossed Kalakaua’s.

On December 8, 1863, Kalakaua’s romance with Julia Kapiolani crystallized, and they were married in a quiet, secret ceremony by an Episcopal minister.

By the 1870s, Kalakaua was beginning to feel the pressure of poverty. The Kalakaua family did not have the riches of the Kamehamehas. Kalakaua’s government salaries were low and his talent for making money was negligible.

But as Queen Emma wrote that with Kalakaua’s “faults we must give him credit for great ambition — he has faltered but keeps on trying. He is not idle, he has stumbled and blundered before the public till actually he really has gained courage amongst the and speak out and write boldly.”

Emma’s reference to Kalakaua’s faults, faltering, stumbling, and blundering referred to Kalakaua’s disastrous tenure as postmaster and his engagement in newspaper work. Along with his political duties, Kalakaua’s dreams and interests were with the arts and in writing.

In the early-1870s, with a young wife to support, Kalakaua reached for a means to support himself beyond his salaries as chamberlain, attorney (he passed the bar in 1871), and as clerk in the Land Office.

He became an inventor. Remembering the wonderful ships he had visited years before, he turned his attention to naval defense. He wrote Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil on Sept 19, 1872 for funds to build a torpedo-proof vessel. (Kelley)

“‘I flatter myself,’ Kalakaua wrote, ‘among the inventors of instruments of naval warfare to have invented a submarine torpedo for the destruction of an enemy vessel advancing on a hostile coast …’ and went on to cite its versatility, practicality and effectiveness.”

“‘The important feature of the invention is the direct action of destruction and the sure annihilation of anything crossing its way . . . I may safely assert that there is nothing afloat (with) the thickness of iron armor and carrying a plate of three to four inches thick at the ships bottom, save the invention proposed by me, and submitted to the British Government …’”

“Kalakaua tried to cover all possibilities for funding, it seems, and submitted a request for patronage to Queen Victoria as well. ‘I have refrained from sending a model, as it would be liable to miscarriage.’ Kalakaua did, however, send detailed drawings of his proposed vessel …”

“‘I am, Sire, with the most profound respects,’ Kalakaua closed the letter, ‘your Imperial Majesty’s most obedient and humble Servant. David Kalakaua, chief of staff and aide camp to His Majesty the King of Hawaii. Knight Companion to the Order of Kamehameha I, Knight Commander of the Order of His Imperial Majesty Francis Joseph of Austria.”

“Either the emperor of Brazil was also suffering from a general flatness of the purse or his fancy was not captured by Kalakaua’s flowery descriptions and entreaty because Kalakaua’s Torpedo Proof Vessel and Torpedo apparently never did get off the drawing board.”

“Kalakaua also tried his hand at designing a sort of semi-submerged, steam-propelled ship battering ram, a ‘Fish Ram’ …. It was shaped like a fish with the steam emitting from the half of the tail which protruded above the water. The battering ram was the elongated snout of the fish, and a compass was inset just where the fish’s eye would be.”

“His most practical invention [was] a bottle cap, much like the plastic caps that you can pick up today …. The cap has a loop which fits around the neck of an opened bottle.”

“The cap is attached to the loop and fits snugly over the mouth of the bottle. Kalakaua designed his ‘improved bottle (stopper) cover’ Nov. 16. 1872, at Kaalaa.” (Brown, Star Bulletin)

Kalakaua reigned as King of the Islands from February 12, 1874 until his death in San Francisco, California, on January 20, 1891.

November 14, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kilauea Iki Eruption – 1959

Volcanologists knew something was coming.

Between November 1957 and February 1959 measurements from newly installed sensitive tiltmeter bases around the summit indicated that the whole caldera region was tilting outward, apparently because magma was welling up from the mantle and accumulating in the reservoir several miles beneath the caldera.

Between August 14 and 19, 1959, a swarm of deep earthquakes was recorded on the seismographs at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. The earthquakes were located about 35-miles below the volcano.

By October, tilt surveys of the caldera, using the new water-tube tiltmeter network, indicated that the summit reservoir of Kīlauea was beginning to inflate with new magma. Scientists later concluded that magma began its upward journey during the August swarm.

Another series of earthquakes – shallow tiny events beneath the caldera – began in mid-September near Halema‘uma‘u Crater. By November 1, more than 1,000 tiny earthquakes were being recorded per day.

Scientists conducted another caldera tilt survey during the second week of November and discovered it was swelling at least three times faster than during the previous months. Magma was moving into the summit reservoir at a high rate.

During the afternoon of November 14, earthquakes beneath the caldera suddenly increased about tenfold in both number and intensity. For five hours, the entire Kīlauea summit region shook as seismic tremor signaled magma was forcing its way from the summit reservoir toward the surface.

An erupting fissure of small lava fountains broke through the south wall of Kīlauea Iki Crater at 8:08 p.m. In the first 24 hours, activity decreased and then eventually ceased at the outermost fissure vents. By nightfall on November 15, only a single vent on the west side of the fissure remained active.

Over the next five days, lava fountain heights fluctuated between about 650 and 980-feet, with a maximum fountain height of 1,247-feet.

A brand new cinder cone called Puʻupuaʻi (translates to “gushing hill”) was formed. As cinder and spatter rapidly accumulated to form Puʻupua‘i, slabs of congealed spatter occasionally broke loose and slid down the cone into the churning lava lake.

The 1959 summit eruption occurred in Kilauea Iki, a collapse crater adjacent to the main summit caldera of Kilauea. There were 17 eruptive ‘episodes’ (or phase) of the eruption which ranged in duration from 1 week to 1¾-hours..

On December 17, episode 15 produced lava fountains that were approximately 1,900-feet high, the highest recorded in Hawaii during the 20th century.

That’s about three times the size of the Washington Monument. That’s also 124 feet higher than the tallest building in the US now: One World Trade Center. (CNN)

Downwind from high lava fountains, forests suffered tremendous damage. Trees were stripped of leaves and branches – or completely buried – by falling cinder. You can now walk through this area of the National Park; it’s called ‘Devastation Trail.’

A few ōhi‘a trees, dead and bleached, poke up through the pumice and very gradually some ōhi‘a, ōhelo and ferns are beginning to recolonize the dead zone (unfortunately, some blackberry, too.)

Here is a video of the eruption (unfortunately, there is no sound, the sound of an eruption is as impressive as the visual):

The lava lake attained its greatest depth (414 feet) and volume (58 million cubic yards) at the end of the eighth phase on December 11, 1959. The eruption ended December 20, 1959.

When we were kids, living on Kāne‘ohe Bay on O‘ahu, whenever the eruption happened we’d go to the Big Island to see it, including the 1959 eruption of Kīlauea Iki.

November 13, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Months

Mahina, the moon, was the goddess who kept time for the Hawaiian. Mahina was more important to everyday life than the sun or the stars.

It was the duty of certain priests trained as astronomers to keep the annual calendar and watch the moon to determine just when certain tabu should be placed on the fish or land.

A proper planting season for the farmer depended upon the time as announced by the astronomer. The bird catcher, the canoe builder and many other craftsmen depended upon the astronomer’s announcement of the correct Mahina. (Taylor)

The Kilokilo (observer of the sly for omens) was an important person generally attached to the court of a king or to the temple of the king’s high priest. He was an astronomer priest, versed in the language of the stars.

The rising and the setting of the moon marked a day for the Hawaiian, only he did not call the time a day, he called it a night. The appearance of the new moon and the death of the old moon marked the month for the Hawaiian, which he called Mahina. Twelve such moons made a year for him.

The importance of knowing the passing of a year was to know when to celebrate the Makahiki, the great harvest festival. It was important to know just when the festival should be celebrated because it coincided with the coming of the god Lono on a visit to each district in the Islands. (Taylor)

The Hawaiian divided his calendar into the space of a year composed of 12 months or moons. He did not control the division of time known as a year by the sun, as we do, but by a small group of stars which we call the Pleiades and he called Makalii (small eyes).

There are many bright and beautiful stars with whom the Hawaiian was familiar and by which he might have regulated his calendar. Instead, he chose to regulate it by the rising and setting of this small constellation of seven stars. As a result, he considered the Pleiades the most important stars in the heavens.

Just why the Pleiades were selected as the regulator of the year is lost in antiquity. Most Asiatic, all the Pacific Island peoples and some Indian tribes use the rising and setting of the Pleiades as the regulator of the year.

The “Small Eyes” are to be seen on the eastern horizon about the middle of November each year. They travel across the sky for six months on the Black Shining Road of Kane and set about the middle of June in a pit located in the western sky. (Taylor)

In attempting to keep an ancient moon calendar, it is essential to know when to correct the moon calendar so that the seasons will correspond with the sun. That is the secret of the ancient astronomer which we do not know.

King Kalakaua said the astronomer corrected his calendar by adding five bonus days at the end of the Makahiki each year. Other old Hawaiians say that the astronomer simply knew when to add extra days or an extra month. (Taylor)

It is evident from the various accounts of the naming of the months of the year that the same names occurred in the various islands but that they were not applied to the same months. (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

Traditional month names are Ka‘elo, Kaulua, Nana, Welo, Ikiiki, Ka‘aona, Hina‘ia‘ele‘ele, Mahoe Mua, Mahoe Hope, Ikua, Welehu and Makali‘i.

The names of the months varied on each Island and within moku (districts) on each island, a result of the different methods the astronomer priest used to calculate days and months.

Apparently, astronomers on the different Islands and in the different districts had various methods of adjusting the calendar because we know that the names of the months varied on each Island. (Taylor)

The months of the pre-contact Hawaiian were lunar months, each beginning with the appearance of a new moon and lasting 29 or 30 nights until the appearance of the next new moon. Each night of the month had its individual name.

All authorities seem to agree that there were 12 named months. However, there is considerable disagreement as to their names, some disagreement as to their sequence, and evidence that the nomenclature both varied from island to island and was subject to change with time. (Schmitt & Cox)

Hawaiians divided the year into two seasons: Ka‘u, or Summer, when it was dry and hot (beginning in May when the Pleiades set at sunrise). The other part of the year was Ho‘oilo (beginning in October), when it was rainy and chilly. (Handy, Hany & Pukui) There were six months in Ka‘u and six in Ho‘oilo.

While most authorities agree that the months were grouped into two seasons, there is considerable disagreement as to the names of the seasons and the details of the grouping. Some, moreover, report three or four seasons. (Schmitt & Cox)

The lunar cycle was reconciled with the sidereal year (of or relating to stars or constellations) by the insertion of an extra month about once in three years.

The passage of sidereal was noted by the date on which the Pleiades were seen to rise just after sunset. However, the exact rule governing the insertion of the extra month, the point of its insertion in the sequence of the 12 named months, and the name given to the extra month have, apparently, all been forgotten. (Schmitt & Cox)

(Check out the attached images that further explain the names, what actions happen during certain months and some of the differences in names assigned to the calendar names we are used to (January through December).

November 12, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lewalewa Settlement

“[Gilbert] Islanders were brought [to Hawai‘i] in different ships under contracts for labor work during the years 1880 and 1882. In the contract was a clause agreeing to ship the Gilbert Islanders back to their homes after conclusion of the contracts.”

“[Many] of them were employed on Koloa plantation, Kauai, and a large proportion were taken back according to agreement. Others remained. It is stated, voluntarily. Many it is claimed were not offered passages. During their stay here the Islanders have kept themselves in colonies.” (Hawaiian Gazette, Oct 16, 1903)

“An outcome of the scattering of poor South Sea Islanders after the destruction of Chinatown in January of last year, was the building of a mushroom village of shacks within the breakwater on the Waikiki side of the channel [into Honolulu Harbor]”. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Sep 9, 1901)

By that time, residential construction began with the filling of fishponds, marshes and mudflats starting with the area closest to downtown Honolulu; Kakaʻako flourished as a residential settlement where immigrant workers joined the Hawaiian community to form areas such as Squattersville, a shantytown which sprang up along the district’s makai border. (KSBE)

“Within this rock wall enclosure several sand spits have been formed by the action of the tides, and upon these the homeless and destitute people from the South Seas built their squalid homes”.

“That these people are poverty stricken is evidenced by the makeshift affairs which they call their homes. Driftwood, boards secured from any chance place, pieces of tin, boxes, crates and general debris are the component parts of these odd, misshapen structures, which they have erected to shelter them.”

“Picturesque as the village may seem to the stranger who visits it, the Board of Health has determined that cleanliness shall be the first rule of the place”. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Sep 9, 1901)

“For some time many [of the Gilbert Islanders] lived in a settlement of huts on sand enclosed by the stone wall built, into the sea at Kakaako, back of the Quarantine wharf.”

“There they supported themselves by fishing, the women assisting by braiding hats and mats. … The Gilbert Islands being a British protectorate the colonies here are under the control of that country and British Consul Hoare has taken a strong interest in the matter of sending them home.” (Hawaiian Gazette, Oct 16, 1903)

“The Lewalewa settlement, or the South Sea Island settlement, as it is more commonly known, which has existed on the breakwater enclosure beyond the boathouses, for several months, is doomed.”

“The Board of Health says that too many deaths from tuberculosis have occurred there, and with the co-operation of Captain Merry, who has charge of the Naval Station here, it is hoped that the settlement may be removed.”

“Since the plague of last year this sand spit, protected by the stone breakwater, has been a refuge for the poverty-stricken South Sea Islanders. They built small shacks of driftwood, and almost anything that would keep out wind and rain, and have eked out a miserable existence”.

“Yesterday the question of the health of the inhabitants of that interesting village was brought up and the statement made that there was at present too much tuberculosis in the place. Deaths have been numerous from this cause, and it was declared that a change of conditions must take place there.” (PCA, June 6, 1901) They later moved to Kalihi. (PCA, Oct 16, 1903)

Later, “Acting Governor Atkinson and Superintendent of Public Works Holloway had a meeting this morning with the representatives of seventeen families of Hawaiians who have ‘squatted’ on land in Kakaako and who were served with notices of eviction at the instance of Mrs. Ward, owner of the property.”

“It appears that the Hawaiians were living principally by fishing in the private fishing right adjoining the land. As a result, it was impossible to lease the fishery.”

“The Hawaiians are all poor people and arrangements are being made to find them homes elsewhere. ‘We hope to place them on lands In Kalihi where they will be all right,’ said the Acting Governor, ‘and thus all parties will be satisfied.’”

“Aside from the fishery proposition complaints were made that the colony of squatters was a somewhat noisy one.” (Hawaiian Star, May 25, 1906)

Even later, a much larger settlement on the ‘Ewa side of Kewalo at Kaʻākaukukui, near the former location of Incinerator Number One at Kaka‘ako, was referred to as “Squattersville” because the residents lived without authorization on land belonging to the Territory of Hawai‘i.

The dwellings that lined the shoreline, where the present Olomehani Street now runs, were protected from the ocean by a low seawall about three feet high.

The community of about 700 Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians was evicted in May 1926 and their homes were razed. The City and County of Honolulu constructed two incinerators and an ash dump at Kewalo (what we now call Kakaʻako Makai).

Despite its use as a refuse dump, the Kaʻākaukukui area continued to be heavily utilized as a fishing and swimming area. (HABS Report)