Peter T Young

August 5, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Times

Ushi and Kame Teruya emigrated from Okinawa in the early-1900s and settled on the Big Island’s Hāmākua coast where they worked for the sugar plantation before becoming independent sugar growers. The couple had six children – four boys and two girls.

Three brothers, Albert, Herman and Wallace, dreamed of creating a successful business in the ‘land of opportunity’ which Hawai‘i was to thousands of immigrants and their offspring.

In 1929, Albert, seeing no opportunity to improve his bleak life on the plantation, was the first to leave to work in Honolulu. Wallace followed a year later, and the rest of the family moved to Honolulu in 1933.

They lived in the Kapiʻolani district, where the Holiday Mart store is now located. The area was swamp land where many people farmed.

They started out working in restaurants. The Great Depression was on, and one benefit of restaurant work was that it provided room and board plus wages. The brothers worked 14 hours a day, but the enthusiasm of youth fueled by a dream of something better kept them going.

In 1935, the three brothers pooled their savings and bought the lunch counter/soda fountain at a downtown drug store for $600 and named it the T&W Lunchroom.

Three years later, in partnership with their cousin, Kame Uehara, with whom Albert had first lived in Honolulu, they opened ‘Times Grill’ at 635 Kapiʻolani Boulevard, offering 24-hour service.

The name ‘Times’ expresses a progressive attitude: “Keeping up with the times.” In addition, Times was easily pronounced by non-English speaking immigrants and it fit easily on a small sign.

Herman’s interest was in grocery stores; while a student at McKinley High School, from which he graduated in 1938, he would rush home after school and gather up vegetables and eggs his parents had raised. Herman’s dream was to open his own store, and he wanted Albert and Wallace to be his partners.

Two years later, Pearl Harbor was attacked. Herman and Wallace volunteered to serve in the US Army. They served with the most decorated infantry regiment of World War II – the 442d Regimental Combat Team.

Sgt. Herman Teruya, while charging up an Italian hill occupied by crack German soldiers made the supreme sacrifice (he died 3-months before his 25th birthday.) After the war, Wallace returned to Honolulu to resume his activities that began before the war.

In 1947, recognizing restaurant business is long hours, even after-hours, with bars and drinking involved, and after considering opening a variety store, Albert and Wallace thought there was more opportunity in the grocery business. So they sold Times Grill to a former employer at the Kewalo Inn, who had just returned from a California internment camp.

Albert conceded that Herman’s dream of opening a market played a part in their decision to open a market instead of a variety store. They began methodically learning the grocery business.

They got involved in different aspects of the business, working for suppliers, working for another supermarket, learning all the aspects of the grocery business so when they opened their own business, they had a broad perspective of all the different departments.

Wallace worked in Amfac’s grocery warehouse and at Tom, Dick and Harry’s market on Kapahulu. Albert worked at Sears, where he learned how a big company operates and about customer service.

On April 29, 1949, with the help of friends and family who helped stock shelves, they opened the first Times Supermarket, the McCully store at 1772 South King Street. That first store was small by today’s standards, but it was modern, well-stocked and air-conditioned.

When the family went on vacations to the Mainland, part of the itinerary was always checking out supermarkets. They would stop at every market they saw and pulled into the parking lot and see if there were any new ideas they could use in Hawai‘i.

In 1956, they opened their second store, in Wai‘alae-Kahala, which they dedicated to Herman. They put up a plaque to show they appreciated the ideas and dreams he had shared with them: “Dedicated in Memory of Herman T Teruya, Sergeant, USA, 1919-1944.”

Times has grown to include 24-supermarket locations which includes 17-Times locations, 5-Big Save Markets, a small-format supermarket on the East Side of Oahu (Shima’s Supermarket,) a fine wine + specialty foods shop (Fujioka’s Wine Times) and 12-pharmacy locations.

In 2002, Times was sold to California-based PAQ Inc, which owns and operates a chain of supermarkets in Central California and Hawai‘i. In 2017, PAQ Inc sold its Hawaii-based operations – which included 17 Times Supermarket locations, 5 Big Save Markets, Shima’s Supermarket, and Fujioka’s Wine Times – to the Tokyo-based Don Quijote Group. (Lots of information here is from Times, Chapman, Congressional Record and 100th Battalion.)

Times-first store-King & McCully-1949-(times)

August 4, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamakahonu

“The view of the king’s camp was concealed only by a narrow tongue of land, consisting of naked rocks, but when we had sailed round we were surprised at the sight of the most beautiful landscape.”

“We found ourselves in a small sandy bay of the smoothest water, protected against the waves of the sea; on the bank was a pleasant wood of palm-trees, under whose shade were built several straw houses …”

“… to the right, between the green leaves of the banana-trees, peeped two snow-white houses, built of stone after the European fashion, on which account this place has the mixed appearance of a European and Owhyee village”.

“(T)o the left, close to the water, on an artificial elevation, stood the morai (heiau) of the king, surrounded by large wooden statues of his gods, representing caricatures of the human figure.” (Kotzebue, visiting in 1816)

Several large and densely populated Royal Centers were located along the shoreline between Kailua and Hōnaunau. One such center was located along the north end of Kailua Bay at Kamakahonu.

Kamakahonu (lit. turtle eye) was possibly established as early as the sixteenth century by ʻUmi-a-Līloa. It was during the early nineteenth century that Keawe a Mahi, a kahu of Keaweaheulu presided over Kamakahonu, and upon the death of Keawe a Mahi, Kamakahonu became the residence of Kamehameha I.

During Kamehameha’s tenure at Kamakahonu several structures were erected using both traditional materials and techniques and more “modern” materials and techniques.

Kamehameha first moved into the former residence of Keawe a Mahi. He then built another house on the seaward side of that residence, that was referred to as hale nana mahina ‘ai.

This house was built high on stones and faced directly upland toward the planting fields of Kūāhewa. Like an observation post this house afforded a view of the farm lands and was also a good vantage point to see canoes coming from South Kona and from the Kailua vicinity. (Rechtman)

Much of the following is from John Papa ‘Īʻi’s book, ‘Na Hunahuna no ka Moʻolelo Hawaii’ (Fragments of Hawaiian History;) he was a member of the Kamehameha household.

‘I‘i describes that the “King erected three houses thatched with dried ti leaves,” a sleeping house (hale moe) and separate men’s (hale mua) and women’s (hale ‘āina) eating houses. The hale ‘āina belonged to Kaʻahumanu, and as ‘I‘i described:

“This house had two openings in the gable end toward the west, and close to the second opening was the door of the sleeping house. A third opening was in the end toward the upland.”

“There were three openings in the sleeping house. The one in the middle of the west end, one which served as a window on the upland side of the southwest corner, and one mauka of the window. This window lay beyond the men’s house (mua) on the south. The door mauka of the window was the one entered when coming from the men’s house.”

“The door of the men’s house closest to the sleeping house was the one used to go back and forth between these two houses. There was also a door in the end wall on the west side of this house, and two small openings in the south seaward corner, one in the upper side and one on the lower side of the corner.”

“These faced the many capes of Kona and took in the two extremities of this tranquil land and the ships at anchor. However, should the ships be more to the ocean side, only the masts were visible.”

“A fifth opening was a little on the seaward side of the northeast corner, where the upland side of the men’s house extended a little beyond the sleeping house, and it was only through this entrance that the men went in and out. It was near the door that was used to enter from the sleeping house.”

“Near the door facing westward in the mua, was the king’s eating place. On the upper side were large and small wooden containers that served as bowls and platters, together with a large poi container always filled with poi from the king’s lands.”

“The men’s eating house, the sleeping house, and the women’s eating house were at the end of a 7- to 8-foot stone wall that ran irregularly from there to the shore at the back of the hale nana mahina ‘ai. Outside of the wall was the trail for those who lived oceanward of Kamakahonu. Immediately back of the wall was the pond of Alanaio, where stood some houses.”

“Two eating houses were built for Kaheiheimālie and her daughter, Kekāuluohi, opposite the three houses thatched with ti leaves. They stood back of the kou trees growing there at Kamakahonu, both facing northwest.”

“Kaheiheimālie’s eating house had two doors, but Kekāuluohi’s had but one door. In front of her house was a bathing pool, at the upper bank of which were some small houses and that of the king.”

“A stone house was built between the three houses thatched with ti and those of these chiefesses. Its builder was either a Frenchman or a Portuguese named Aikona. He was skilled in such work…”

“When Aikona began building the end and side walls of the house at Kamakahonu he built a third wall between them and arranged stones in the center of this middle wall to from a door.”

“The walls rose together until the house, from one end to the other, was finished. When Aikona later removed the stones set up in the doorway of the center wall, the doorway looked like the fine arched bridge of Pualoalo at Peleula in Honolulu.”

“As he removed the stones, Aikona explained that had they been piled inexpertly, the whole house might have collapsed. This house was well completed.”

“In the stone house were stored the king’s valuables and those of Aikona’s. These valuables were kegs of rum and gunpowder and guns, of which the guns and powder were placed on the inside near the inner wall. “

“Later, another storehouse was built in Kamakahonu, on the north side of the hale nana mahina ‘ai. It had stone walls and was constructed like a maka halau. The upper of its two stories was for storing tapa, pa‘u, malos, fish nets, lines, and olona fiber; and all other goods went into the lower story.”

“The thatching was of sugar-cane leaves, the customary thatching on the house along that shore. Dried banana trunk sheaths were used for the inside walls and were cleverly joined from top to bottom. Banana trunk sheaths were also used in the hale nana mahina ‘ai.”

“After these houses were built, another heiau house, called Ahuʻena, was restored (ho‘ala hou). This house stood on the east side of the hale nana mahina ‘ai, separated from it by about a chain’s distance.”

“The foundation of Ahuʻena was a little more than a chain from the sand beach to the westward and from the rocky shore to the eastward. Right in front of it was a well-made pavement of stone which extended its entire length and as far out as the place where the waves broke.” (ʻĪʻi, Na Hunahuna no ka Moʻolelo Hawaiʻi’ (Fragments of Hawaiian History))

August 3, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Homeless

An often-repeated statement is, “The missionaries came to do good, and they did very well.” (Suggesting the missionaries personally profited from their services in the Islands.) It is simply not true.

A review of the facts shows that the missionaries were forbidden to “engage in any business or transaction whatever for the sake of private gain” and they did not, and could not, own property individually. Many sold what they had before taking the long trip to serve in the Islands.

To supply the mission members, a Common Stock system was initiated, a community-based economic system designed to enable the missionaries to accomplish their goals without having to worry about finding sustenance and shelter. It was a socialistic, rather than capitalistic, economic structure.

Mission family members were allowed to keep personal gifts from family and friends as private property, but those gifts were subtracted from what they would otherwise be entitled to receive from the Depository. (Woods)

In essence, except for the gifts of individuals to individuals, virtually no private property was actually held by the individual missionaries.

The missionaries were constantly reminded of Matthew Chapter 6, verse 24: “No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money.)” (Woods)

Hiram and Sybil Bingham were part of the Pioneer Company of missionaries who came to the Islands in 1820. “Life in the Paradise of the Pacific was anything but healthy in the years when Honolulu was a village of grass huts on a dusty plain.” (Bingham)

“Sybil was frail to begin with, if one can judge from her likeness in the portrait of the Binghams painted by Samuel FB Morse (of the Morse code and telegraph) before their departure for the Pacific: where an idealized Hiram gazes confidently from the little oval frame, Sybil’s long thin nose and watery blue eyes make her look as if she had a cold.” (Bingham)

“For twenty years she worked with him and for him and bore his children, but the cost to nature was a wasted body that finally came to seem to Hiram more important than his mission.”

“Hiram anticipated that a few months rest in what they considered the more healthful climate of New England would put her on her feet, and they would return to carry on the great work with which the Mission Board had originally charged them.” (Bingham)

On August 3, 1840, they sailed back to the continent on the Flora. “The cabin of the Flora is very small, having three state-rooms, one of which belonging to the captain is the only one whose dimensions were intended, for comfort.” (Olmstead)

They returned to New England. “Sybil’s health did not improve. … (she went to) Hartford to be nursed by her sister. She had a chronic cough. Whether she or Hiram knew it, she was dying of the prevailing malady, ‘consumption’ (tuberculosis).” (Bingham)

The Binghams did not go back to a family estate and had not accumulated any money (or any context of wealth) while in the Islands. (The missionaries were not paid under a salary system until 1848, well after the Binghams left.)

Back on the continent, the Binghams were effectively homeless.

Right after they arrived back at the continent, their son “nine-year old Hiram was shipped off to relatives and then to a succession of schools willing to take a penniless missionary’s son, and from then on his contact with his parents was mostly by letter.”

Sybil and the girls “had come to North Haven … hoping to board with a farmer who might allow them milk, but no farmer wanted to take in boarders, and the family where she has been staying, ‘with four hungry children, the fifth in arms, around a small kitchen table,’ can only afford to buy half a pint of milk a day and ‘one pound of cheese in the month.’”

They relied on “the hospitality of relatives and friends, placing his children in a succession of schools, and carrying on a voluminous correspondence with his children, with friends and supporters”.

“Sybil, committed to their ‘joint endeavor,’ went along while her waning strength lasted [and moved from] Boston, to Brooklyn, to Philadelphia, to upstate New York, to New Haven, to Norwich, to Boston again, then to Hartford to be nursed by her sister.” (Bingham)

The separation of the family and movement from house to house and school to school lasted for about eight years.

Then, in 1847, “Hiram and Sybil had found a ‘refuge’ in Easthampton (Massachusetts) with ‘kind friends.’”

“This was the time of Mr [Samuel] Williston’s ‘benevolences.’ He may have admired Mr Bingham, but he had more personal feeling for Sybil, with whom he was connected on her mother’s side of the family.”

“He must have realized what it meant for her to have her children forever scattered, living with relatives, off at distant boarding schools as pensioners.”

Hiram Jr, “his parents and his sisters Lizzie and Lydia arrived and for a few months the dream of a family under one roof was realized.”

“With his button factory a success and his fortune growing, [Williston] had recently founded in Easthampton, his home town, the ‘Seminary’ that bore his name, and built himself a handsome mansion next door.”

“He arranged for the admission of the three younger Bingham children, and helped the family find a house nearby to rent. And so, for the last year of her life Sybil had a home, and three of her children with her. … Sybil died in her rocking chair on February 27, 1848 in Easthampton, Massachusetts.”

In 1852, Hiram married Naomi Morse and helped at her Seminary for Young Ladies in New Haven. Hiram Jr was ordained in New Haven and married Minerva Clarissa (Clara) Brewster; together they sailed from Boston, December 2, 1856, bound, via Cape Horn, not for the Sandwich Islands, only 18,000 miles away, but for the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia, 2,500 miles farther. (Bingham)

In 1867, the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society (HMCS – an organization consisting of the children of the missionaries and adopted supporters) decided to support a girls’ boarding school.

HMCS invited Miss Lydia Bingham (daughter of Reverend Hiram Bingham, leader of the Pioneer Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi) to return to Honolulu to be a teacher in this family school; she was then principal of the Ohio Female College, at College Hill, Ohio.

In January 1869, her sister, Miss Elizabeth Kaʻahumanu (Lizzie) Bingham, arrived from the continent to be an assistant to her sister. Lizzie was a graduate of Mount Holyoke and, when she was recruited, was a teacher at Rockford Female Seminary. (Beyer) Hiram I died later that year.

Later, Lydia and Lizzie’s niece (daughter of Hiram’s first child Sophia Bingham), Clara Lydia Moseley (later Sutherland), joined them at Kawaiaha‘o.

“When Miss Bingham came to Hilo (on October 13, 1873 she married Titus Coan,) the seminary was committed to the charge of her sister (Lizzie), whose earnest labors for seven years in a task that is heavy and exhausting so reduced her strength, that in June, 1880 she was obliged to resign her post.” (Coan)

August 2, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Signing the Declaration of Independence

The Revolutionary War broke out in Massachusetts (Lexington and Concord) on April 19, 1775.

For the first few months of the conflict, the Patriots had carried on their struggle in an ad-hoc and uncoordinated manner. On September 13, 1775, the Second Continental Congress reconvened and assumed leadership of the war effort. They resolved to prepare for war but continued to seek reconciliation.

On June 7, 1776. in accordance with the terms of Virginia’s instructions, Richard Henry Lee, ranking delegate from Virginia, formally proposed independence to Congress. Speaking for his colleagues, Lee introduced the following resolution, written in his own hand and reading:

“Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

“That it is expedient to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances.”

“That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.”

The Lee Resolution, also known as the resolution of independence, was an act of the Second Continental Congress declaring the Thirteen Colonies to be independent of the British Empire. It is the earliest form and draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Because many members of the Congress believed the actions Lee proposed to be premature or wanted instructions from their colonies before voting, approval was deferred.

On June 10, Congress appointed a committee of five to draft a statement of independence for the colonies. The committee included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, with the actual writing delegated to Jefferson.

Jefferson drafted the statement between June 11 and 28; he submitted drafts to Adams and Franklin who made some changes, and then presented the draft to the Congress following the July 2nd adoption of the independence section of the Lee Resolution.

On July 1, after a long day of debate, the Congress voted. Each colony had one vote, requiring the delegations to decide among themselves how to cast their single vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted no; New York – whose provincial government was then fleeing the invading British Army – abstained. Delaware’s two delegates were split.

Although a majority of the delegations at this moment voted in favor of the resolution, proponents of independence sought unanimous support.

On July 2, the remaining pieces fell into place. South Carolina reversed course and voted in favor of Lee’s resolution.

Delaware’s Caesar Rodney, in an act memorialized in 1999 on Delaware’s commemorative state quarter, rode through the night to arrive at the State House to break his delegation’s tie in favor of independence.

Within the Pennsylvania delegation, John Dickinson and Robert Morris, both opponents of independence, abstained, leaving Pennsylvania’s delegation 3-to-2 in favor of independence. (Philadelphia Encyclopedia)

The Congress voted unanimously in favor of independence.

After voting on independence, the Continental Congress needed to draft a document explaining the move to the public.

The congressional revision process took all of July 3rd and most of July 4th. Finally, in the afternoon of July 4th, the Declaration was adopted. The words of the Lee Resolution are echoed in the Declaration of Independence. (National Archives)

Officially, the Second Continental Congress declared its freedom from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, when it approved a resolution in a unanimous vote. In the late morning of July 4, 1776, the Declaration had been officially adopted by the Continental Congress.

Some of the delegates – Adams most famously – considered July 2 as the day of American independence. It was July 4, however, when the final editing and wording of the document was approved and sent to Philadelphia printer John Dunlap at his shop at Second and Market Streets for publication. (Philadelphia Encyclopedia)

Under the supervision of the Jefferson committee, the approved Declaration was printed on July 5th and a copy was attached to the “rough journal of the Continental Congress for July 4th.”

These printed copies, bearing only the names of John Hancock, President, and Charles Thomson, secretary, were distributed to state assemblies, conventions, committees of safety, and commanding officers of the Continental troops. (National Archives)

Philadelphians first heard the document on July 8, when John Nixon, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Philadelphia militia, read the Declaration of Independence in the State House Yard.

The public reaction was passionate and widespread. According to historian William Hogeland, the crowd shouted “God bless the free states of North America!” three times. In the ultimate act of defiance, Pennsylvania militiamen removed the king’s coat of arms from the State House and threw it into a large bonfire. (Philadelphia Encyclopedia)

Signing the Declaration of Independence

One of the most widely held misconceptions about the Declaration is that it was signed that day, by all the delegates in attendance.

The engrossed document is itself largely responsible for the erroneous views which have been held respecting the date of the signing. Being headed by the legend, “In Congress, July 4, 1776,” and ending with the fifty-six signatures, the natural inference to be made, until better information was obtainable, was that this official document was signed on that day.

It is further misinforming, not only as regards the date of signing, but in its title, “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States,” under the date July 4. For on that day, as has been shown, New York s delegates had no authority to vote, so that unanimity was procured by their silence, but twelve colonies, therefore, taking part in the final ballot.” (Friedenwald)

On July 4, 1776, 12 of the 13 colonies voted in favor and New York abstaining due to lack of instructions from their Colony.

The Declaration of Independence was unanimously approved when the New York Convention gave its approval on July 9, 1776.

On July 19, Congress was able to order that the Declaration be “fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile [sic] of ‘The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America,’ and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.”

On August 2, 1776, John Hancock, the President of the Congress, was the first to sign the sheet of parchment measuring 24¼ by 29¾ inches. He used a bold signature centered below the text.

In accordance with prevailing custom, the other delegates began to sign at the right below the text, their signatures arranged according to the geographic location of the states they represented.

On August 2, the journal of the Continental Congress records that “The declaration of independence being engrossed and compared at the table was signed.” Eventually 56 delegates signed, although all were not present on August 2.

New Hampshire, the northernmost state, began the list, and Georgia, the southernmost, ended it.

Most likely, 50 of the 56 signers signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776; five more signed later in 1776. Thomas McKean, the 56^th (and last) signer, signed sometime after January 1777. (NPS)

Some of the signers were not present during the July 4 vote; different members made up several of the State delegations. Some of the delegates who voted for declaration of independence did not sign the actual document, and several of those that signed had not voted on July 4. In addition, not all of the delegates were in Philadelphia on August 2.

For more on this:

Click to access Signing-the-Declaration-of-Independence-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Signing-the-Declaration-of-Independence.pdf

August 1, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nanaue

Puʻumano (Shark Hill) is in the ahupuaʻa of Kainalu on the south-western side of the Island of Molokai. There is a shallow ravine leading up the slope to the summit – tradition suggests this was caused when Nanaue was dragged by Unauna.

Let’s look back …

During the time of ʻUmi, there was a beautiful girl from Waipiʻo named Kalei. She was an expert swimmer, a good diver and noted for the neatness and grace with which she would ‘lelekawa’ (jump from the rocks into deep water without any splashing of water.)

Kalei was very fond of shell-fish, and frequently went to the coast for her favorite food. She generally went in the company of other women, but if the sea was a little rough, and her usual companion was afraid out, she very often went alone.

In those days, the Waipiʻo River emptied over a low fall into a basin partly open to the sea. (The forces of nature have since filled the pool with rocks.) Back then, it was a deep pool and a favorite bathing place.

The shark-god, Kamohoaliʻi, also used to visit this pool.

Kamohoaliʻi was the King-shark of Hawaiʻi and Maui. It was the belief of the ancient Hawaiians that several of these shark-gods could assume any shape they chose, even the human form, when occasion demanded.

Kamohoaliʻi had noted the charms of the beautiful Kalei, and took a liking to her. Knowing he couldn’t court her in his shark form, he assumed the form of a very handsome man, and waited for the girl to show up at the beach.

It was a rough day and Kalei came alone; caught in a wave (raised by the god himself,) the handsome stranger came to Kalei’s rescue. The acquaintance was established and Kalei met the stranger from time to time – finally becoming his wife.

Some little time before she expected to become a mother, her husband, who all this time would only come home at night, told her his true nature, and informing her that he would have to leave her, gave orders in regard to the bringing up of the future child.

He particularly cautioned the mother never to let him be fed on animal flesh of any kind, as he would be born with a dual nature, and with a body that he could change at will.

In time, Kalei delivered a healthy boy named Nanaue; he was apparently the same as any other child, but he had, besides the normal mouth of a human being, a shark’s mouth on his back between the shoulder blades.

Kalei had told her family of the kind of being her husband was, and they all agreed to keep the matter of the shark mouth on the child’s back a secret.

The old grandfather, far from heeding the warning given by Kamohoaliʻi in the matter of animal diet, as soon as the boy was old enough to come under the tabu in regard to the eating of males, and had to take his meals at the hale mua (men’s eating house,) took special pains to feed him on dog meat or pork.

When he became a man, Nanaue’s appetite for animal diet, indulged in childhood, had grown so strong, that the ordinary allowance of a human being would not suffice for him.

The old grandfather had died in the meantime, so that he was dependent on the food supplied by his stepfather and uncles, to feed his shark-like appetite. This gave rise to the common native nickname of a ‘manohae’ (ravenous shark) for a very gluttonous man, especially in the matter of meat.

People were curious as to why Nanaue always kept a kihei (a loose garment of tapa thrown over one shoulder and tied in a knot) on his shoulders.

He also didn’t participate in the games and pastimes of the young people (for fear that the wind or some active movement might displace the kapa mantle, and the shark-mouth be exposed to view.)

About this time children, and eventually grown-ups, began to mysteriously disappear.

Nanaue had one good quality that seemed to redeem his apparent unsociability; he was almost always to be seen working in his mother’s taro or potato patch when not fishing or bathing. People going to the beach would pass by, and it was Nanaue’s habit to ask where they were going.

If they answered ‘to bathe in the sea’” or for ‘fishing,’ he would answer, ‘take care or you may disappear head and tail.’ Whenever he so confronted anyone, it would not be long before some member of the party so addressed would be bitten by a shark. If it should be a man or woman going to the beach alone, that person would never be seen again.

The shark-man would immediately follow, and watching for a favorable opportunity, jump into the sea. Having previously marked the whereabouts of the person he was after, it was an easy thing for him to approach quite close and changing into a shark, rush on the unsuspecting person and drag him or her down into the deep, where he would devour his victim.

This was the danger to humanity which his king-father foresaw when he cautioned the mother of the unborn child about feeding him on animal flesh, as thereby an appetite would be evoked which they had no means of satisfying, and a human being would furnish the most handy meal of the kind that he would desire.

Eventually, while he was in human form, folks managed to remove his kihei and see the shark mouth on his back. The news of the shark-mouth and his characteristic shark-like actions were quickly reported to the King.

The King was told of the disappearance of so many people in the vicinity of the pools frequented by Nanaue; and of his pretended warnings to people going to the sea, which were immediately followed by a shark bite or by their being eaten bodily, with every one’s surmise and belief that Nanaue was the cause of all those disappearances.

ʻUmi asked the priests and shark kahunas to make offerings and invocations to Kamohoaliʻi that his spirit might take possession of one of his ‘hakas’ (medium devoted to his cult,) and so express to humanity his desires in regard to his bad son, who had presumed to eat human beings, a practice well known to be contrary to Kamohoaliʻi’s desires.

The shark-god manifested himself through a ‘haka’ and expressed his grief at the action of his wayward son. He told them that the grandfather was to blame for feeding him on animal flesh contrary to his orders.

Then the shark-god, promised they would be forever free from any persecutions on account of their unnatural son, and Nanaue left the island of Hawaii, crossed over to Maui and, later on to Molokai.

It was not very long before he was at his old practice of observing and accosting people, giving them his peculiar warning, then following them into the sea in his human shape, then seizing one of them as a shark and pulling the unfortunate one to the bottom, where he would devour his victim.

This went on for some time, until the frightened and harassed people in desperation, went to consult a shark kahuna, as the ravages of the man-eating shark had put a practical tabu on all kinds of fishing. It was not safe to be anywhere near the sea, even in the shallowest water.

Following the instructions of the kahuna, the people overpowered Nanaue and started a fire to burn him (it was well known that only by being totally consumed by fire that a man-shark can be thoroughly destroyed, and prevented from taking possession of the body of some harmless fish shark, who would then be incited to do all the pernicious acts of a shark-man.)

The people also called to their aid the demi-god Unauna, who lived in the mountains of upper Kainalu. It was then a case of Akua vs. Akua.

Nanaue was finally conquered and hauled up on the hill slopes of Kainalu to be burnt. The shallow ravine left by the passage of his immense body over the light yielding soil of the Kainalu hill slope, can be seen to this day.

The place was ever afterwards called Puʻumano (Shark Hill,) and is so known to this day.

Unauna ordered the people to cut and bring for the purpose of splitting into knives, bamboos from the sacred grove of Kainalu. The shark flesh was then cut into strips, partly dried and then burnt; but the whole bamboo grove had to be used up before the big shark was all cut up.

The God Mohoaliʻi, (another form of the same God Kamohoaliʻi) father of Unauna, was so angered by the destruction of the grove, that he took away all the edge and sharpness from the bamboos of this grove forever.

To this day they are different from the bamboos of any other place or grove on the islands in this particular, that a piece of them cannot cut any more than any piece of common wood. (This summary comes completely from The Legend of the Shark-Man Nanaue, by Mrs Emma M Nakuina.)

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