Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

H Hackfeld

On September 26, 1849, sea captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers.

Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

In 1850 he moved to a larger location on Fort Street. This store was so popular, it became known as “Hale Kilika” – the House of Silk (because it sold the finest goods available.) As business grew, the nephew took over management of the store while Hackfeld traveled the world for merchandise. The company took BF Ehlers’ name in 1862.

Hackfeld developed a business of importing machinery and supplies for the spreading sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. H Hackfeld & Co became a prominent factor – business agent and shipper – for the plantations.

Its shipping interest, manufacturing and jobbing lines developed a web of commercial relationships with Europe, England and the eastern seaboard of the US. German whalers were still sailing the Pacific in the 1850s and Hackfeld bought and outfitted several whalers, brought in Pacific Coast lumber beginning in 1855 and engaged in the trans-shipment trade.

By 1855, Hackfeld operated two stores, served as agent for two sugar plantations, and represented the governments of Russia, Sweden and Norway. (Later the firm or its principals also represented Austro-Hungary, Belgium and Germany.)  When Hackfeld left on a two-year business trip to Germany and Pflueger took charge in his absence.  (Greaney)

In 1871 Hackfeld and Pflueger both went back to Europe to launch a German affiliate in Bremen. There they placed into service a line of ships sailing under the Hawaiian flag between Bremen and Honolulu with wheat, oil, wool and hides for the Islands and sugar shipments on the way back.

The old Honolulu Courthouse site was advertised for sale at auction in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser of May 9, 1874; H Hackfeld & Co bought it at the upset price of $20,000. As reported by the Hawaiian Gazette, “It is the best business stand in Honolulu.”

Then, the Treaty of Reciprocity (1875) between the US and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market.  Through the treaty, the US gained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets.  Sugar boomed.

In 1881, Hackfeld and Paul Isenberg became partners.  Isenberg, who had arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1858, had extensive experience in the sugar industry, previously working under Judge Duncan McBryde and Rev. William Harrison Rice in Kōloa and Lihuʻe.

From that time on Mr. Isenberg was a factor in the development of the Hackfeld business, which became one of the largest in Hawaiʻi.

Hackfeld became the first Swedish and Norwegian Consul in the Islands. In 1862, he returned to Hamburg, and afterwards to Bremen, where he settled and managed the business of H. Hackfeld & Co. there until 1886, when he retired from the firm.  In 1886 Hackfeld sold his interest in the company and returned to Germany; he died there on October 20, 1887.

When the partnership was incorporated in 1897, a new building was erected at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets; it stood there for 70-years.

After the US annexation of Hawaii in 1898, Isenberg returned to Germany to live; however, he retained the role of president, with Hackfeld’s son, Johan (John) Friedrich Hackfeld serving as 1st vice president and Isenberg’s son, Alexander Isenberg as 2nd vice president.

John later took over; however, he, too, returned to Germany in 1900.  His cousin, George F Rodiek, became the executive in charge of H Hackfeld & Co.  (Weiner)  In 1905, Rodiek built an estate in Nuʻuanu.

A few years later, with the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co.

In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares.  (Jung)

The Alien Property Custodian’s Office noted, “The powerful German hold on the sugar industry of the Hawaiian islands has been crushed. The control of Hawaii’s most important industry has been restored to its people.”

“This is the effect of the announcement of A Mitchell Palmer, alien property custodian, that he had completed the Americanization of the H Hackfeld Co, the threat German owned corporation which for years has played so important a part in the sugar situation of the Hawaiian islands.”

“Mr. Palmer Americanized this German concern by … selling the entire assets and business of the German Hackfeld Co to (an) American company, whose stockholders are all loyal American citizens, most of them residents of the Hawaiian islands.”  (Alien Property Custodian’s Office; Daily News Almanac, 1919)

The patriotic sounding “American Factors, Ltd,” the newly-formed Hawaiʻi-based corporation, whose largest shareholders included Alexander & Baldwin, C Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, HP Baldwin Ltd, Matson Navigation Company and Welch & Company, bought the H Hackfeld stock.  (Jung)  Thus, the German-started H Hackfeld & Co became one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five.”

(Hawaiʻi’s Big 5 were: Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H. Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C. Brewer (1826.))

At that same time, the BF Ehlers dry goods store also took the patriotic “Liberty House” name.  In 1937 a second store was opened in the Waikiki area. Eventually there would be seven stores on Oahu, and several more on the other islands.

During the 1970s, Liberty House expanded into California, Nevada and Washington, but the Washington stores were sold in 1979 and the California and Nevada locations were sold in 1984.  In 2001, Federated Department Stores Inc bought Liberty House, Hawaiʻi’s oldest and largest department store chain, and turned it into Macy’s.

American Factors shortened its name to “Amfac” in 1966.  The next year (1967,) Henry Alexander Walker became president and later Board Chairman.  Walker bought the former Rodiek estate.

Over the next 15-years, Walker took Amfac from a company that largely depended on sugar production in Hawaiʻi to a broadly diversified conglomerate. After adding so many companies, Amfac sales were $1.3 billion by 1976, up from $575 million in 1971.  (hbs-edu)

After subsequent sales of controlling interests in the company and liquidation of land and other assets, in 2002, the once dominant business in Hawaiʻi, the biggest of the Hawaiʻi Big Five, Amfac Hawaiʻi, LLC filed for federal bankruptcy protection.  (TGI)

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Kapalua

The traditional district (moku) of Kāʻanapali consisted of five major stream valleys (Honokōwai, Kahana, Honokahua, Honolua and Honokōhau), all of which were extensively terraced for wet taro (loʻi) in early historic and later times.

Honokahua Valley has been described as having wet taro (loʻi) lands, although not in great abundance; sweet potatoes were reportedly grown between Honokōhau and Kahakuloa Ahupuaʻa, presumably on lower kula lands.  The Kahana Ahupuaʻa was known as a place of salt gathering for the people of Lāhainā.

The Kāʻanapali District is noted for an alaloa (a path or trail) that reportedly encircled the entire island. Walker wrote: “The north end of Maui also is traversed by a paved trail. Sections of it can be seen from Honolua to Honokōhau to Kahakuloa. It is paved with beach rocks and has a width of four to six feet.”  (PBR)

There are six bays located on Maui’s west shore whose names begin with the word Hono. These bays and coves are collectively known as Hono a Piʻilani.  From South to North, six of the identified bays are Honokōwai (bay drawing fresh water), Honokeana (cave bay), Honokahua (sites bay,) Honolua (two bays), Honokōhau (bay drawing dew) and Hononana (animated bay).

Kapalua Resort is situated along this coast between Honokeana and Honolua.  (Kapalua loosely translates as “arms embracing the sea”.)

After seventeen years of service, Dr Dwight Baldwin was granted 2,675-acres, the lands of the Mahinahina and Kahana ahupuaʻa, for farming and grazing. From that base, new lands were acquired until the holdings, known as Honolua Ranch, reached 24,500 acres in 1902.

First starting as Honolua Ranch (1912,) then Baldwin Packers (1914,) this area was home to the largest producer of private label pineapple and pineapple juice in the nation.

After mergers and other name changes, in 1969, Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc (ML&P) was created; then, the largest employer on the island of Maui.

In 1974, ML&P carved out 1,650-acres of its nearly 22,000-acres to form a wholly-owned subsidiary, Kapalua Land Company.  That year, the master-planned community that makes up the Kapalua Resort (with five white sand beaches) was approved by Maui County.

In 1978, the Kapalua Bay Hotel opened, beginning the change of the former ranch and pineapple lands at Honokahua into a world-class destination resort complex.

In 1987, during the excavation and construction of the Ritz Carlton hotel within the Kapalua Resort, hundreds of native Hawaiian burials were discovered on the planned hotel site.

The scope of the burial site, combined with growing Native Hawaiian consciousness, mobilized protesters.  Native Hawaiians and supporters rallied at Honokahua, and in late-1988 at the state Capitol, finally halting the burial disturbance. The hotel was built farther inland.  (Honolulu Advertiser)

The Hui Alanui O Makena filed for a contested case hearing; eventually a plan was devised in September 1989 for the proper reburial of more than 900-native Hawaiian bodies disinterred.  (Aoude)

Associated with that, the state paid $6-million for a perpetual preservation easement and restoration of the burial site.  A 14-acre site is now a historical and cultural landmark.

In addition, as a result of this, Hawaiʻi’s burial treatment law, passed in 1990, gives unmarked burials, most of which are Native Hawaiian, the same protection as modern cemeteries.

In 1988, Kapalua began management programs, under a management agreement with The Nature Conservancy of Hawaiʻi, for the protection of the Pu‘u Kukui Preserve in the West Maui Mountains.  (Access to the Preserve is restricted by ML&P.)

Now, Kapalua includes The Ritz-Carlton, the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences at Kapalua Bay, the Kapalua Spa, eight residential subdivisions, two championship golf courses (The Bay and The Plantation,) ten-court tennis facilities, several restaurants, and over 800 condominiums, single-family homes and residential lots.  (In 2006, the Kapalua Bay Hotel was taken down.)

Kapalua serves as the home of two of Maui’s longest running signature events, the Kapalua Wine & Food Festival and the PGA Tour’s Hyundai Tournament of Champions.

The intent of the Kapalua Resort was to provide a luxurious resort atmosphere removed from the Lāhainā-Kāʻanapali area.  With that, it serves as an example of a low-key, low-density destination resort community.

Recently a public coastal trail was incorporated into the Resort; eventually, the trail will be approximately 3.5-miles in length, running from Lower Honoapiʻilani Road through the Kapalua Resort to Honolua Bay.

Future components of the Kapalua Land Company in and around Kapalua Resort include Kapalua Mauka (640- residential units, commercial space and up to 27 holes of golf on a total of 800 acres;) the Village at Kapalua (a central commercial component;) and Pulelehua (a new traditional community for working families in West Maui.)

The image shows Kapalua in 1976.  In addition, I have added related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Wetland Taro

Wākea and Papa, sky-father and earth-mother, who by the ʻOpūkahonua lineage were half-brother and half-sister, were said to be the parents of islands, Hawaiʻi and Maui (and later Kauaʻi, Niʻihau, Lehua, and Kaʻula – the rest were added later.)  According to tradition, their first human offspring was a daughter, Hoʻohōkūkalani (to generate stars in the sky.)

Wākea seduced his daughter, Hoʻohōkūkalani.  Their first child was born prematurely; they named him Hāloa-naka (quivering long stalk.)  They buried him in the earth and from that spot grew the first kalo (taro) plant. The second child, named Hāloa in honor of his elder brother, was the first Hawaiian Aliʻi Nui and became the ancestor of all the Hawaiian people.

Thus kalo, which was the main staple of the people of old, is also the older brother of the Hawaiian race.

Traditions on the island of Oʻahu provide the names of a dynasty of ruling chiefs including Mā’ilikūkahi, around 1500 (about the time Columbus crossed the Atlantic.) Māʻilikūkahi is said to have enacted a code of laws in which theft from the people by chiefs was forbidden.

A son of Mā’ilikūkahi was Kalona-nui, who in turn had a son called Kalamakua. Kalamakua is said to have been responsible for developing large taro gardens in what was once a vast area of wet-taro cultivation on Oʻahu: the Waikiki-Kapahulu-Mōʻiliʻili-Mānoa area. The extensive pond fields were irrigated by water drawn from the Mānoa and Pālolo Valley streams and large springs in the area.

Other chiefs mentioned in Oʻahu traditions were associated with organizing activities in more systematic ways than those in times previous to them; one such high chief was Kākuhihewa.

Another great chief of Oʻahu, Kualiʻi, was famous for the kolowalu law: “If a man says, ‘I am hungry for food’ feed (him) with food, lest he hungers and claims his rights by swearing the kolowalu law by his mouth, whereby that food becomes free, so that the owner thereof must observe the law faithfully.”

In pre-contact (prior to Captain Cook) times, kalo played a vital role in Hawaiian culture. It was not only the Hawaiians’ staple food, but the cultivation of kalo was at the very core of Hawaiian culture and identity.

The early Hawaiians probably planted kalo in marshes near the mouths of rivers. Over years of progressive expansion of kalo lo‘i (flooded taro patches) up slopes and along rivers, kalo cultivation in Hawai‘i reached a unique level of engineering and sustainable sophistication.

Hawaiians knew the productive advantages of growing wetland taro and placed the greater effort in this area very early, when required to increase food production capabilities for the rapidly increasing number of people. By the time of Captain Cook’s visits in 1778 and 1779, every large river valley in the islands contained many loʻi (pond fields,) and each was systematically irrigated by means of ditches delivering water to the fields spread throughout the valley.

Usually, water was fed into an irrigation ditch from a stream. A loose-rock dam built across the stream allowed water to flow between and over the top of the rocks to provide for farmers living downstream. The dam functioned to raise the water level just high enough at that point to permit water to flow into the ditch leading to the terraces.

In this way the amount and speed of the water could be controlled. If too much water was found to be flowing into the ditch, a few stones could be removed from the dam, thus lowering the water level and reducing the volume of water entering the ditch.

The speed of the flow of water into the pondfields was controlled by the length and slope of the ditch. By varying the length and grade of the ditch, its builders were able to maintain a constant and low-level gradient over variegated terrain. The flow through the pond fields was controlled by the height of the terraces.

Kalo lo‘i systems are typically a set of adjoining terraces that are typically reinforced with stone walls and soil berms. Wetland taro thrives on flooded conditions, and cool, circulating water is optimal for taro growth, thus a system may include one or more ʻauwai (irrigation ditches) to divert water into and out of the planting area.  (McElroy)

The ʻauwai construction and maintenance formed foundations around which an entire economy, class system and culture functioned.  The ʻauwai, lo‘i and the taro plant’s mythical and spiritual connections in Hawaiian society influenced individual and social activity within the ahupua‘a.  (Handy, HART)

The different representatives in the ahupuaʻa taking part in the work furnished men according to the number of kalo growers on each land.  (The quantity of water awarded to irrigate the loʻi was according to the number of workers and the amount of work put into the building of the ʻauwai.)

David Malo explained how a taro garden could keep a large number of people in vegetable food continuously:  “Some farmers did not plant a great deal at a time. They would plant a little, and after waiting a few months, they planted more land. So they continued to plant a little at a time during the months suitable for planting. The food did not all ripen at once, and by this plan the supply was kept up for a long time and they had no lack of food.”

On the question of the productivity of wet-land taro versus dry-land taro, some missionaries recorded their experiences and observations in 1847 and 1848. They helped answer the question: What number of people could be fed by one acre of land, of average quality in the district, if cultivated for kalo?

Rev. Armstrong suggested that there would be ‘food enough for ten persons’ on an acre of average taro land in Honolulu, that is, subsistence for ten persons.  “With proper management, kalo (taro) land needs no rest. So the natives tell me. Let the water be kept constantly upon it and the weeds cleared out and that is all that is needed. The kalo plants, however, must be changed every crop. It requires about a year to bring a crop of kalo to maturity.”  (Armstrong)

Rev. Johnson of Hanalei, Kauaʻi, a noted wetland taro-producing valley, suggested that 25 people subsist on an acre of good taro land.

Writing from his experiences on the well-watered windward side of Oʻahu, Rev. Parker wrote:  “An acre of kalo land would furnish food for from twenty to thirty persons, if properly taken care of. It will produce crops for a great many years in succession, without lying fallow any time.”

Rev. Bishop, writing from ʻEwa District on Oʻahu, suggested that 15-20 people could be fed from an acre of taro:  “Good kalo land, irrigated by water, improves by cultivation. It only requires time enough between crops to rot the weeds, which serve as manure.”

Rev. Emerson lived and worked in Waialua District on Oʻahu where several large rivers and numerous springs watered the land.

He wrote: “Twenty persons, I think can be fed on an acre of good kalo land. The land can generally be cultivated perpetually, if it has two or three months between each crop, in which to decompose the weeds which might grow during the time the kalo was ripening.”

“I have a large kalo patch that has not been left to rest one month at a time for fifteen years, and yet it produces as largely as fifteen years since. I presume the same parch was cultivated centuries before I knew it. It requires one year for kalo to come to maturity.”

In 6 to 12-months, depending upon plant variety along with soil and water conditions, the taro is generally ready to harvest. Each parent tuber produces from two to 15 ʻohā, side tubers of corms, up to 6 inches in diameter.

The Hawaiian concept of family, ‘ohana, is derived from the word ‘ohā (Fig., offspring, youngsters,) the axillary shoots of kalo that sprout from the main corm, the makua (parent.)  Huli, cut from the tops of mauka and ‘ohā are then used for replanting to regenerate the cycle of kalo production.

Taro or Kalo has been a traditional form of food sustenance and nutrition, particularly in ancient Hawaiian culture.  Reportedly, it is the world’s fourteenth most-consumed vegetable.  All parts of the plant are eaten, including poi, table taro (the cooked corm,) taro chips and luau leaf.

The foregoing information (primarily from Marion Kelly and Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa (with some help from some others to fill some gaps)) helps answer some of the When, Why, Where and How Much questions related to wetland taro farming.

The 22nd Annual East Maui Taro Festival is being held May 3-4, 2014.

The image shows kalo (Markell.)  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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Maunalei Sugar

In ancient times, the windward coast of the island of Lānaʻi was home to many native residents. Maunalei Valley had the only perennial stream on the island and a system of loʻi kalo (taro pond field terraces) supplied taro to the surrounding community.

Sheltered coves, fronted by a barrier reef, provided the residents with access to important fisheries, and allowed for the development of loko iʻa (fishponds), in which various species of fish were cultivated, and available to native tenants, even when the ocean was too rough for the canoes to venture out to sea. (Lānaʻi Culture and Heritage Center)

In 1861, Walter Murray Gibson came to Hawaiʻi after joining the Mormon Church the year before; he was to serve as a missionary and envoy of the Mormon Church to the peoples of the Pacific. He landed in Lānaʻi and eventually created the title “Chief President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Islands of the Sea.” He more regularly went by the name Kipikona.

The experience with the Church was relatively short-lived; in 1864, he was excommunicated for selling priesthood offices, defrauding the Hawaiian members and misusing his ecclesiastical authority (in part, he was using church funds to buy land in his name.)

By the 1870s, Gibson focused his interests in ranching in the area called Koele, situated in a sheltered valley in the uplands of Kamoku Ahupuaʻa. As the ranch operation was developed, Koele was transformed from an area of traditional residency and sustainable agriculture to the ranch headquarters. (Lānaʻi Culture and Heritage Center) In 1872, Gibson moved from Lānaʻi to Lāhainā and then to Honolulu.

After Gibson’s death in 1888, the ranch was turned over to his daughter and son-in-law, Talula and Frederick Hayselden. As early as 1896, the Gibson-Hayselden interests on Lānaʻi, which held nearly all the land on the island in fee-simple or leasehold title, began developing a scheme to plant and grow sugar on Lānaʻi.

They chose the ancient fishing community of Keōmoku for the base of operations, and in early-1899, the Maunalei Sugar Company was formally incorporated. Gear, Lansing & Co was the largest stockholder (Gear was President, Lansing was Treasurer – W Stodart was the plantation manager)

“The plan is that a sugar company will be incorporated at once with a capital of $1,000,000 and that 1,000 acres will be put into cane without delay. There will be no “wildcat” business in the enterprise and all persons signing for shares will be obliged to put down 10 percent of the amount desired. It is the intention of the promoters to avoid gambling in Lanai stocks as much as possible.” (Gear & Lansing, The Independent, February 28, 1899)

They developed larger support communities along the coast, cleared the lands, developed a narrow gauge railroad between Keōmoku Village and Kahalepalaoa (where the boat landing was situated,) and planted sugar cane, irrigated by water from Maunalei Valley.

“At the landing a very substantial wharf has been built, and a railroad to the camp two miles distant is in operation with a rolling stock of a locomotive and nineteen cars. Including the laborers quarters we have at the plantation fifty buildings, and the new buildings in contemplation are the pumping plants and the mill, a very respectable town and a very busy one.” (Stodart in Evening Bulletin, October 13, 1899)

Work on the plantation was largely done by immigrant Japanese laborers. “We have 400 laborers … and will have 200 more in a few weeks. The first crop will be ready to grind in 1901 and I have no doubt the yield per acre will be entirely satisfactory. The land is proving all that was promised and I have no doubt of the substantial returns to the stockholders.” (Stodart in Evening Bulletin, October 13, 1899)

Both men and women were brought from Japan, and a finder’s fee of $27- $36 per male employee, and $23 – $30 per female employee was paid to the immigration companies. Laborers were typically paid around $0.70 to $0.75 per day, with expenses for merchandise and board deducted from pay at the end of the month.

All did not go as planned.

Before completing the construction of the mill and associated facilities, and prior to the first harvest being collected for processing, the Maunalei Sugar Company went bankrupt. Sugar is a thirsty crop and the necessary water resources for the plantation were never realized.

Additional hardships arose following an outbreak of the bubonic plague in Honolulu, which led to a devastating fire and the closure of many Chinatown businesses (many of whom had invested in the Lānaʻi sugar operation.)

But those were not the major shareholders’ only financial concerns. A heading “Business Concern is in Difficulties” called attention to the financial problems of Gear, Lansing & Company; a sub-heading notes, “Failure of Maunalei Sugar Co. a Leading Factor in the Corporation’s Trouble Kaimukī and Other Large Real Estate Transactions”. (Honolulu Republican, June 19, 1901)

The story noted, “The corporation has, since its organization a few years ago, dealt heavily in real estate, besides participating largely in the boom of general stocks that two years ago strained the entire financial situation.”

“Gear, Lansing & Co.’s largest real estate deal was the exploitation of the Kaimukī residence tract. They laid out streets and installed a modern water works plant. A large proportion of the lots sold readily, but the hope deferred of rapid transit communication prevented a full measure of, success to the enterprise.”

Plantation records during the three year period of the plantation’s operation, some 70 employees (most of Japanese origin) died and were buried on Lānaʻi. In 1932, members of the Lānaʻi Hongwanji Mission built a memorial for Japanese employees of the sugar plantation near the grave sites.

Some other unfortunate consequences resulted from the Lānaʻi sugar endeavor. A part of the plantation’s work resulted in the introduction of the algarroba (kiawe) tree – the hardwood was to have been used as fuel for the furnaces, and the seeds as feed for the livestock. Left untended, the trees became an invasive pest on the island.

Following the sugar failure, Keōmoku was used as ranchland until 1954. The nearly 3,000 acres of cleared land led to significant erosion and siltation that spread from the uplands to the shore, burying sites and the reef under as much as nine feet of silt. (Lānaʻi Culture and Heritage Center)

The image shows a map of Maunalei Sugar (Lanai Culture and Heritage Center.) Here is a link to more images.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park (KAHO)

Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park (KAHO) was established in the Kekaha region of North Kona (Kailua to Kalaoa) in 1978 in order to preserve and protect traditional native Hawaiian culture and cultural sites.

The park is the site of an ancient Hawaiian settlement and is considered a locale of considerable cultural and historical significance. Cultural resources include fishponds, petroglyphs and a heiau (temple.)

The physical location of Kaloko-Honokōhau made the settlement easy to manage. Situated on the lower portions of a sloping terrain, the settlement’s activities were directed by kahuna chiefs, from a vantage point, such as the bluff overlooking the fishpond of ʻAimakapā, where a commanding view of Kaloko-Honokōhau was available.

“In ancient times, the chiefs would regularly live along the shore, that is, the chiefs of Kaloko and Honokōhau. At the place called Ahauhale, is where the chiefs of Kaloko lived. The place called Waihalulu, is where the chiefs of Honokōhau lived.”  (“Ka Wai o Kahinihini‘ula” (1923) Kumu Pono)

“There were men, women, and children, the houses were filled with large families. Truly there were many people (in Kekaha.) …  The lands of Honokōhau were filled with people in those days, there were many women and children with whom I traveled with joy in the days of my youth.  Kaloko was the same … Those families are all gone, and the land is quiet. There are no people, only the rocks remain, and a few scattered trees growing, and only occasionally does one meet with a man today”.  (“Na Hoonanea o ka Manawa” (1924) Kumu Pono)

The two dominant features in the Kaloko-Honokōhau National Park are Kaloko and ʻAimakapā Ponds.  (Prior to conversion and utilization as ponds, they were originally inland bays.)

The two ponds are different types of Hawaiian fishponds.  Kaloko is a loko kuapā (what we consider the typical coastal fishpond, artificially enclosed by an arc-shaped seawall (or in this case a seawall enclosing the mouth of a small bay) and containing at least one sluice gate (mākāhā.))

ʻAimakapā is a loko puʻuone (an shore fishpond containing either brackish or a mixture of brackish and fresh water, formed by development of a barrier beach paralleling the coast and connected to the ocean by a channel or ditch.)

Nearby (also in the Park) are the remnants of the ʻAiʻōpio fishtrap.  An opening in the trap to the sea enabled fish to enter, and the walled sections of the trap allowed fish to be stored until needed.

At high tide, fish entered the trap by swimming through the seaward opening or over the submerged walls.  At low tide, the fish were trapped in the enclosure and were easily netted.  Fishtraps differ from fishponds in that the fish are trapped and caught, but not raised.

The 1,160 acre park, a landscape of rugged lava rock, was at one time a thriving ancient Hawaiian settlement. More than 200 archeological sites document the Hawaiian’s use of the area over time.

The Hawaiians of this ancient settlement harvested fish from the sea and from fishponds they constructed. They grew coconuts, sweet potatoes and gourds and raised chickens and pigs.

Those living closest to the shore harvested fish and other food from the sea, while others living within the ahupuaʻa (sea to mountain land division) grew staple resources such as taro, breadfruit, paper mulberry, wood, and fiber for clothing. To ensure everyone’s survival, they would trade these items with one another.

Archeological resources at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park also include kahua (ancient house site platforms), heiau (temples,) a holua (toboggan slide), kiʻi pōhaku (petroglyphs), papamu (kokane game boards), stone enclosures, ahus (stone mounds that serve as altars, shrines, or security mounds), lava tube shelters and parts of the Māmalahoa Trail (Kings trail.)

Of all the Aliʻi associated with Kaloko-Honokōhau, the most famous is Kamehameha l, who settled and established his Royal Center at Kamakahonu in Kailua-Kona.  (Some believe Kamehameha was buried at Kaloko.  Kaloko is also believed to be the resting place of King Kahekili from Maui.)

Hale Ho’okipa Visitor Center, the Hawaii Pacific Parks Association store, and the adjoining parking area are open from 8:30 am to 4:00 PM daily.  (The Kaloko road gate is open from 8:00 am to 5:00 PM daily.)  Admission to the park is Free.

The image shows Kaloko Fishpond at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park (USGS.)  In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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