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July 28, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Day 087 – January 17, 1820

January 17, 1820 – no entry. (Thaddeus Journal)

17th. saw whales in abundance–of the size of this animal I had no conception before I beheld them. Of the animal kind they are the greatest curiosity that I ever saw. Samuel saw one (for nothing of the marvelous escapes his notice) which he called one of the first settlers. his head being covered with moss and seashells. resembling a craggy rock. We are visited every day by Albatrosses and Cape Pigeons. The former is a large bird resembling a goose only in its wings. which. when spread. extend 10. sometimes 15. feet. (Lucia Ruggles Holman)

Jan. 17. We have thought best to proceed in a systematic all manner. Each one to form a planned, and divide his time as is most for his convenience; appropriating two each portion some particular duty or employment, that no part of it may be wasted or misspent. Concluding you will like to know how I spend my time, I will give you my calendar for the day.
5 to half past 7, private and family devotions, and the use of my needle.
Half past 7 to 9, breakfast and exercise.
9 to 12, writing and study.
12 to 1, recitation and conversation.
1 to 2, dinner, and private devotion.
2 to 5, writing and reading.
5 to 6, study of the language
6 to half past 7, tea, conversation, and exercise.
Half past 7 to half-past nine, private and family devotions.
Half past 9 to 5, meditation and sleep.
In this manner I intend to spend my time for the present should nothing prevent. (Mercy Partridge Whitney Journal)

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July 27, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Day 088 – January 18, 1820

January 18, 1820 – no entry. (Thaddeus Journal)

18. – The pen with which I now write has made was made from a quill which I have just drawn from the wing of an Albatross, a bird peculiar to this country & the Cape of Good Hope. The writing part of the quill is about 5 inches long & is superior to a goose quill. The bird measured 10 feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other. Four of them have been shot but we could get none till today. (Samuel Whitney Journal)

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July 26, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hapa-Haole Music

Traditional Hawaiian music was based upon mele oli and mele hula as performed in the pre-Western-contact era. Mele oli means plain chanting, while mele hula signifies chanting accompanied by hula.

Subsequently, mele hula kuʻi – chant and dance style with western influences – developed in the late-19th and early 20th centuries from mele hula. These three forms served as the foundations of authentic Hawaiian music.

In 1879 in Hawaiʻi, Portuguese musicians (Madeira Islanders) played on “strange instruments, which are a kind of cross between a guitar and a banjo, but which produce very sweet music” (this Madeiran guitar, the machete, was destined to become the Hawaiian ʻukulele.) (Hawaiian Gazette – September 3, 1879)

In about 1889, Joseph Kekuku began sliding a piece of steel across the strings of a guitar, thus inventing steel guitar (kika kila); at about the same time, traditional Hawaiian music with English lyrics became popular.

All of this helped set the foundational sound for a new music in Hawaiʻi.

From about 1895 to 1915, Hawaiian music dance bands became in demand more and more. These were typically string quintets. Ragtime music influenced the music, and English words were commonly used in the lyrics.

This type of Hawaiian music, influenced by popular music and with lyrics being a combination of English and Hawaiian (or wholly English), is called hapa haole (literally: half white) music.

In 1903, Albert “Sonny” Cunha composed “My Waikīkī Mermaid,” arguably the first popular hapa haole song; two years later he wrote “Honolulu Tom Boy,” which became immensely popular. (The earliest known hapa haole song, “Eating of the Poi”, was published in Ka Buke o na Leo Mele Hawaii…o na Home Hawaii in Honolulu in 1888.)

Sonny Cunha was also known as a talented pianist who incorporated the piano into a Hawaiian orchestra for the first time. As a composer, pianist and orchestra leader, Cunha attracted many audiences – residents and visitors alike – with his new type of music; although pure Hawaiian songs still retained their popularity among kamaʻaina residents.

The new style and tempo of Cunha’s music came to exert an enormous influence on another musician, Johnny Nobel (later called the ‘Hawaiian Jazz King;’) in 1918 Noble joined Cunha’s band on drums and xylophones, and thus embraced the new style of music. Nobel also learned composition from Cunha and began to compose in the new style of Hawaiian music.

Noble’s first rise to fame came as the leader of a major hotel orchestra, at the Moana Hotel. He felt that jazz and Hawaiian music blended beautifully and immediately began to shape the sound of the orchestra. With no brass in the orchestra, the mellow sound they produced became the standard of the time.

As a composer and arranger, Noble really became a great composer of hapa haole tunes including, “My Little Grass Shack”, “King Kamehameha” and “Hula Blues.” He was responsible for ‘jazzing up’ and making popular the traditional “Hawaiian War Chant” song.

In 1935, Noble became the first Hawaiian composer inducted into The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

The hapa-haole sound was a “new wave” in the Hawaiian music scene. The new sound undeniably met the tastes and attitudes of the audience in Waikīkī in the first half of the twentieth century.

The lyrics usually expressed attractive images of Waikīkī – sand, surf, palm trees and hula girls. The new style of Hawaiian music responded to the transformation of the American pop music scene. From 1900 to 1915, it was based upon simple ragtime rhythms and sometimes upon waltz-like melodies.

The hapa-haole sound adopted jazz and blues from 1916 to the 1930s and then it incorporated the big-band sounds from the 1940s to the 1950s, rock ‘n roll in the 1950s and surf-style in the 1960s.

As time went by, the sound became less and less Hawaiian, despite its lyrics referring to Hawaiʻi.

At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, hapa-haole songs were featured in the Hawaii exhibits. The Hawaiian songs accompanied by ukulele fascinated the audience and triggered a Hawaiian boom on the mainland.

By 1916, there were hundreds of Hapa Haole (half “foreign”) tunes written. That same year, reportedly more Hawaiian records were sold on the mainland than any other type of music. And they came in all the popular styles of the day: in ragtime, blues, jazz, foxtrot and waltz tempos, as “shimmy” dances and–even–in traditional hula tempos, but jazzed up a bit.

In 1935, a radio program began, broadcasting live from the Banyan Court of the Moana Hotel on the beach at Waikīkī, and radios nationwide tuned in to hear “Hawaii Calls.” Not only did nearly every island entertainer cut his or her teeth on the program, many went on to become well known.

A number of non-Hawaiian continental musicians exploited the marketable commodity. Songs like “Yacka Hula Hicky Dula” and “Oh How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Wacki Woo” reflected the Hawaiian vogue, but did not represent the hapa-haole sounds in the true sense.

In Waikīkī, composers and musicians carefully blended Hawaiian music with jazz and blues, and attached the music to the Waikīkī landscape.

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Hapa Haole Music Festival (PAI_Foundation)

Alfred Apaka and his Hawaii Village Sernaders. Tapa room late 1950’s >>> Property of The Honolulu Advertiser

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Wahine_Division-Hapa_Haole-Music_Festival-(PAI_Foundation)

July 26, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Day 089 – January 19, 1820

January 19, 1820 – Just obtained the first sounding since we left Boston, in 65 fathoms of water, off cape Helena. Three vessels are now in sight. Two of them appear like men-of-war and the third is a Brig. Whether friends or foes we know not: but we are always gratified to see a sail, and when one appear we never fail to think of home. – P.M. A huge spermaceti whale has just appeared and approached very near our Brig. His head seemed to be covered in part with sea-shells. After elevating the upper part of his head and monstrous back above the surface of the water repeatedly, and through the large orifices on the back part of the head, blowing up the briny spray, he descended and passed our stern, and after rising again to the surface, tossed his broad tail high into the air, and went down again to the chambers of the deep, thus he obeys the voice of God. – The maneuvering of the three vessels indicate that they are whalemen, probably English. (Thaddeus Journal)

Jan. 19th. We have been driven back from the 45° and have not yet passed it. This morning it was thought bottom might be found—sounded and found it 65 fathoms.
In Lon. W. 60°. Just now three sails appear off towards the coast—supposed to be Spanish. We find different emotions, almost at the same moment, at sight of a sail.
2 o’clock. A monster of the deep has just presented itself to full view. There is a calm and the vessel is lying to. I found a little nook, behind one of the sails let down, where I was enjoying a few turns before commencing my after—noon studies, when my eye was suddenly turned by a dashing in the water, and, much to my gratification, caught a huge whale whose hump back was quite above the surface. He spouted as if in a frolick. All eyes were soon turned towards him, while he advanced, jumping up and down, till he came along side the vessel, when at once all was still and smooth. Every one was upon the watch, but nothing more was known of him till he had passed silently along a great distance, the other side of the vessel. His monstrous head appeared as if covered with shells, and on the back part of it were orifices through which he spouted the water. We have been much gratified with the sight of those noble birds, called Albatross; within a few days. Previous to a gale they are about our vessel, moving with majestic wing.
When it is a calm they sit upon the water along its side, like tame geese. One was killed, last week, and brought on board. It measured, from the extremities of the wings, about ten feet—its bill was long and hooked—its feathers white, spotted with black, and very numerous.
I am writing with one of its quills. (Sybil Bingham)

Jan. 19. We are now in latitude 45° S and are pleasantly sailing along the coasts of Patagonia, 6 miles an hour. The sea is calm, and the weather moderate. The motion of the vessel is but gentle, so that I can write very well. Sometimes it is almost impossible to use my pen we are in such unpleasant motion. We have had much boisterous weather of late, and a pleasant day is hailed with gratitude. We feel a peculiar pleasure, when our family are able to be about and enjoying comfortable health. Brother Ruggles, Sister Holman, and Sister Loomis, have been quite gone well most of the time. Indeed Brother R has scare seen all well days since he left America. (Mercy Partridge Whitney Journal)

19. – We have not had a pleasanter day since we left Boston. Fast approaching Cape Horn. The north & east winds warm, the south winds cold & dreary. (Samuel Whitney Journal)

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July 25, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Simon Metcalfe

Simon Metcalfe (sometimes spelled Metcalf) (1735-1794) was an American fur trader. He traded furs from the Pacific Northwest for goods from China.

Reportedly, Simon Metcalfe was the first American captain to take sea otters on the Northwest Coast and the first American to trade those skins in China.

Traders used Hawai‘i as a trading and provisioning site; they would take on food and water from Hawai‘i on their way across the Pacific.

Metcalf was, by all accounts, a snappish, irritable, harsh individual, who believed in strong and immediate punishment for infractions of his rules.

Two actions by Simon Metcalfe at the end of the 1700s set in motion a series of events that, without which, the history of Hawai‘i could have been very, very different.

In 1789, Simon Metcalf (captaining the Eleanora) and his son Thomas Metcalf (also a trader, captaining the Fair American); their plan was to meet and spend winter in the Hawaiian Islands.

Because of some infraction, Metcalf mistreated and insulted Kame‘eiamoku (some reports say Metcalfe had Kame‘eiamoku flogged – by the way, Kame‘eiamoku is one of the twins embossed on the Royal Coat of Arms.)

Metcalf then sailed to the neighboring island of Maui to trade along the coast (and ultimately initiated the Olowalu Massacre.)

Kame‘eiamoku vowed revenge on whatever American ship next came his way; the next one happened to be the Fair American. He overpowered the ship and turned it (and its weapons) and its only survivor, Isaac Davis, over to Kamehameha.

Unaware of the events and fate of the Fair American, the Eleanora returned from Maui and arrived at the Big Island; Captain Simon Metcalf sent his boatswain, John Young, ashore to see the country.

That evening, as Young attempted to return to his ship, Kamehameha’s forces detained him (Kamehameha had placed a kapu on anyone going on the ship.) Young was captured and Metcalf, unaware, was puzzled why Young did not return.

Metcalf waited two days for Young to return; finally, sensing danger or becoming frustrated, Metcalf departed and set sail for China (abandoning Young,) not knowing that his son had been killed not far away.

It’s not clear what happened right after Metcalfe left Hawai‘i in 1790.

It was reported, however, that, in 1794, after apparently friendly trading with the Haida natives in Canada, he and his ship were captured (there was only one survivor.)

Looking back at Metcalfe’s two significant events of 1790, it makes you wonder, what would Hawai‘i’s history be like after 1790 if (1) Metcalfe hadn’t insulted Kame‘eiamoku, who later sought revenge and (2) John Young had not gone ashore on their return from Maui.

As it turns out, Kamehameha befriended Young and Davis, who became respected translators and his close and trusted advisors. Their skill in gunnery, as well as the cannon and other weapons from the Fair American, helped Kamehameha win many battles.

With these two men and the weapons, Kamehameha’s military was successful in his eventual conquest and unification of the Hawaiian Islands; first to Maui in 1790 and then O‘ahu in 1795. (Art by Herb Kane.)

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