General | Page 170 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 1, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Slate

“Not long after the passing of Kamehameha I in 1819, the first Christian missionaries arrived at (Kawaihae), Hawaiʻi on March 30, 1820. (They finally anchored at Kailua-Kona on April 4, 1820.)”

“Their arrival here became the topic of much discussion as Liholiho, known as Kamehameha II, deliberated with his aliʻi council for 13 days on a plan allowing the missionaries to stay.”

“A key point in Liholiho’s plan required the missionaries to first teach the aliʻi to read and write. The missionaries agreed to the King’s terms and instruction began soon after.” (KSBE)

“There was a frankness and earnestness on the part of some, in commencing and prosecuting study, which agreeably surprised us, and greatly encouraged our first efforts.”

“On the Sabbath, very soon after our arrival, Pulunu came to attend our public worship, and brought two shy, but bright looking little daughters, and after the service, she desired us to take them under our instruction.”

“We readily consented; and both mother and daughters became interesting members of the school. In a few weeks the mother conquered the main difficulty in acquiring an ability to read and write, and the others before many months.” (Bingham)

“On the 1st of August (1820), the slate was introduced, and by the 4th, Pulunu wrote on her slate, from a Sabbath School card, the following sentence in English; ‘I cannot see God, but God can see me.’”

“She was delighted with the exercise, and with her success in writing and comprehending it. The rest of the pupils listened with admiration as she read it, and gave the sense in Hawaiian. Here was a demonstration that a slate could speak in a foreign tongue, and convey a grand thought in their own.” (Bingham)

Demand for slates skyrocketed … “Our house has been thronged with natives applying for books & slates – Our yard has sometime presented the appearance of a market stocked with goats, pigs, poultry, melons & bananas brought to be exchanged for the means of instruction.” (Levi Chamberlain, July 18, 1826)

“Sabbath Augt 27 (1826). At the close of the native service in the morning notice was given that some of the mission would meet in the afternoon those persons who might desire to write down the text.”

“After dinner from 50 to 75 persons assembled with their slates and wrote the text which was given out sentence by sentence. A few remarks were made and the exercise concluded by prayer.” (Levi Chamberlain, August 27, 1826)

Writing material (slates) were a medium of exchange … “A very busy week this has been to me. On Wendnesday the ship began to discharge our supplies – and more or less have been landed every day since. Most of the packages and barrels have been delivered and a little more than half the lumber.”

“I have employed from 8 to 12 natives a day and have paid them at the rate of about 50 cts. per day in books or slates.” (Levi Chamberlain, May 1, 1830)

Saturday May 29th 1830. Since the last date I have been very much engaged. Our yard and the premises have been a scene of labor. Mr. Clark has been superintending the erection of houses in the enclosure in which my house stands.”

“The frames of three native houses are now put up, one of which is designed for a dwelling for himself, another for a study and the last for the accommodation of the natives belonging to his family.”

“The two former buildings are separated from the other houses in the yard by a ti fence. A cook house is soon to be built for the accommodation of his family and ours and it will stand about mid way between our two dwelling houses.”

“A front gate has been put up which will serve for us both, without the necessity of passing out by the printing house.”

“I have also come to the conclusion of building a new store house to be connected with a dwelling for myself to be built of stones & carried up two stories.”

“The stones I am now collecting. I purchase them for Gospels & Slates, to be cut & left on the beach -1 to draw them up. For a Gospel 6 stones 2 feet sq. – for the smallest size slates 10 stones & for the next large -12 stones. More than 1000 have been cut. I shall need at least 3000.” (Levi Chamberlain, May 29, 1830)

“Monday (June) 21st (1830). To day a company of men with whom I have made a bargain to dig the cellar of the new Store & dwelling house for myself commenced their work. I am to pay them 2 ps. unbld. factory cotton & 10 middling size slates.”

But, it was not always positive … “(Lyman) says, ‘We have no calls for books not enough to get the common work done of mahi ai. We cannot even hire common work for slates.’”

“It is evident for this that the business of learning is becoming to the natives an irksome business. Piopio the head woman is thought to be an opposer to that which is good.”

“The course which she has taken with a teacher whom the brethren have favored, & whom she had been seeking an occasion against and unfortunately for him had found, evinced a great deal of hatred.”

“This young man she has sent to Lahaina and Mr. Lyman adds. ‘We do not expect that she will attempt to remove us, but want of power alone will prevent.’ Her influence is of no doubtful character.” (Levi Chamberlain, September 19, 1833)

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Writing Slate-1800

July 31, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Gorham Dummer Gilman

“Somewhere about the year 1848, possibly earlier (actually, 1841,) a young man from Boston landed on the shores of our Islands; he was about eighteen years of age, an entire stranger, coming out to those distant fields of labor to seek his fortune. “

“My adopted father, the chief Pāki, befriended him, gave him the first helping hand which welcomed him to his new country, and rendered him such assistance as was in fact the means of showing to him the opportunity of making his way in the world …” (Lili‘uokalani)

Gorham D Gilman was born in Hallowell, Maine, May 29, 1822. He shipped on a vessel, arriving in Honolulu early in 1841. He found commercial employment, mastered the Hawaiian language, and pursued his career at several locations in the islands. For some years, he was in business at Koloa, Kauai.

Lured by news of the gold strike, by mid-November 1848, he was in San Francisco. There he formed a partnership with Mr Wetmore. But California proved a disappointment; in the spring of 1849 Gilman returned to Hawaii. (Sharpless & Greer)

“(A)s years passed by he established himself in business, and soon became one of the leading merchants of Lāhainā, at that time the port of call in the Islands for the whaleships, ranking second only to Honolulu.”

“It was then the base of supplies to this fleet of vessels, was a thoroughly thrifty place, and a business city of growing commercial importance. But the oil-wells of the land have thrown into neglect the oil-ships of the sea, and since this decline and decay Lahaina is little more than a city of ruins.” (Lili‘uokalani)

This phase of Gilman’s long life lasted until 1861. By then the whaling fleet, on which his prosperity depended, had deserted Lāhainā. (Sharpless & Greer)

“Mr. Gilman probably saw the approaching decline of the industry by which the place was supported; for he broke up his business connections there, sundered certain personal ties, and returned to the East with a very handsome fortune, it is said, the result of the accumulation of years of mercantile life on Hawaiian soil and under Hawaiian laws.” (Lili‘uokalani)

From Honolulu he returned to Boston where he and his brothers, John A and Samuel K Gilman, entered the wholesale drug firm of Gilman Brothers. After making his home at Newton, Massachusetts, in 1865, he became a prominent citizen of that community.

He developed an active interest in politics and served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature. Gilman retained connections with Hawaii and the West Coast (as late as 1902 he was vice-president of an organization of California pioneers). (Sharpless & Greer)

“Gilman had been earlier in life a conspicuous figure, not only in the drug trade but in civic, Masonic and religious affairs. At various times in his career he was both a representative and a senator in the State legislature, an alderman in his home city of Newton, and Consul-General for New England of the Hawaiian government.” (Bulleting of Pharmacy, 1909)

“In 1887, during my journey with Queen Kapiʻolani, we met Mr. Gilman, who was at that time very kind and attentive to me. To be sure, he had a point to gain; he wanted a decoration from the king, and did not hesitate to say so.”

“On the return of the queen’s party to the Islands, letters were received from Mr. Gilman, directly applying for the honor to my brother. Chiefly by means of my personal influence his petition was granted, and he was made a Knight Companion of the Order of Kalākaua, and the decoration forwarded to him.” (Lili‘uokalani)

“Gorham D. Gilman, Hawai‘i’s good friend at the Hub of the Universe Boston will be honored by the Chamber of Commerce with a testimonial in the form of a laudatory letter, accompanied by some suitable memento of the Islands, in appreciation of his promotion efforts on behalf of Hawaii.”

“For years a resident of Honolulu; and for many, many years, a citizen of Boston, Mr. Gilman has not lost sight of the Islands, and his interest has gone so far that he has kept the progress of the group before the reading public and at great gatherings in the East.” (Recognition of Gilman by Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, PCA, July 16, 1897)

“His library of Hawaiiana was one of the most extensive in the northeastern US; it was supplemented by paintings, photos, and curios.”

“As consul, Gilman rendered great service by giving illustrated (stereopticon) lectures on Hawaii—especially during the critical year of 1893. And the student of Hawaiian history owes him much.”

“Besides the several journals he kept at various times, he produced a number of articles for Thrum’s Hawaiian Annual. These reminiscences add greatly to our knowledge of Honolulu in the 1840s and 1850s. ” (Sharpless & Greer)

“He made the acquaintance of King Kamehameha III, and of four kings who succeeded him, including King Kalākaua, also Queen Kapiʻolani and the present dethroned Queen Liliuokalani.”

“Mr. Gilman received from these various royal personages many decorations and gifts. His mastery of the native language was so easily accomplished that he became very proficient, and his translation of an important United States Government treaty was accepted officially, in preference to that of a man of far greater experience.”

“Mr. Gilman lived widely, tried to do his whole duty, achieved a splendid record, kept at work under a full head of steam until he reached the fine age of 87 years, and has gone to the larger life, a noble alumnus of Mother Earth, well fitted for the career upon which he is now entering.” (The Friend, November 1909) Gilman died at Newton on October 3, 1909.

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Gorham D. Gilman-PCA-July 16, 1908

Halekamani; residence of Gorham D. Gilman (formerly the home of Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena); Lāhainā, Maui.

Gilman_Store-Custom_House_and_Meeting_House

July 29, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Flying in Rough Air’

The 1930s were the romantic years of flight. At the beginning of the decade, flying across oceans was a life-risking experience. However, beginning in 1936, Pan Am began to fly across the Pacific. (Pacific Aviation Museum)

That year, Patricia Kennedy, in the bow of the plane, christened a plane with coconut water: “I christen thee Hawaii Clipper for the American Territory of Hawaii.” (hawaii-gov)

A couple years later, “Martin flying boat ‘Hawaii Clipper’ (one of three flying boats in regular trans-Pacific service for Pan-American Airways) departed Alameda (on San Francisco Bay) on a flight across the Pacific Ocean to Manila. Intermediate stops were made in Hawai‘i and Guam.”

“A few minutes before 6 a.m. on July 29, 1938, Pan American Airways Captain Leonard Terletzky taxied the Clipper out of Apra Harbor, Hawaii Guam.”

“Terletzky was more than halfway through the six-day, 9,000-mile flight from Alameda, California, to Hong Kong. He’d already made stops in Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island and now Guam. Manila, Macao and Hong Kong were still to come.” (Geoghengan)

The Pan Am crew consisted of Terletzky, First Officer Mark A. Walker, Second Officer George M. Davis, Third Officer Jose M. Sauceda, Fourth Officer John W. Jewett, Engineer Officer Howard l. Cox, Assistant Engineer Officer T.B. Tatum, and Radio Officer William McGarty. The passengers were attended by Flight Steward Ivan Parker. (This Day in Aviation)

“The airliner’s six passengers were: Lieutenant Commander Edward E. Wyman, United States Naval Reserve, of Bronxville, New York. Commander Wyman was the former assistant to Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan American Airways. He was now employed by Curtiss-Wright. Pan American’s traffic manager, Kenneth A. Kennedy, was also on board.”

“Colonel Earl E. McKinley, M.D., United States Army Reserve, Dean of Medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., a bacteriologist, and Fred C. Meier, Ph.D., were collecting airborne bacteriological samples to research transocean bacterial transfer.”

“Major Howard C. French, Air Corps, United States Army (Reserve), the commanding officer of the 321st Observer Squadron based at Vancouver, Washington.”

“Finally, there was Choy Wah Sun (also known as “Watson Choy”), of New Jersey. Mr. Choy was believed to be transporting $3,000,000 in U.S. Gold Certificates for the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party of China, which was headed by Chiang Kai-shek.” (This Day in Aviation)

“The airplane departed Guam at 11:39 (18:30 CST). The last radio contact was at 22:03 CST saying that it was 565 miles from the Philippine coast, flying through ‘layers of clouds’” and ‘Flying in rough air’. (Aviation Safety)

Her Captain, “Capt. Terletzky was described by Pan-American officials as one of their best flyers. He started flying for the company about 10 years ago and formerly was attached to the South American and Carribean lines. He was a 43-year-old naturalized Russian.”

“In addition to her crew and passengers, the plane carried several hundred pounds of mail and express. Pan-American officials said the three ships flying the Alameda-Manila route had logged a total of nearly 2,000,000 miles of flying over the Pacific.”

“The Clipper’s strong hull was designed to keep the big flying boat afloat indefinitely unless it were demolished by impact with the ocean. It was constructed with bulkheads, like those of surface ships, that could shut off various parts of the plane by closing doors.”

“The ship, equipped with four 800-horsepower wasp motors, could fly if one motor cut out. Moderately-loaded as the ship was, it could keep aloft even if two engines stopped if the pilot ‘tacked’ it to keep it on an even keel.” (Evening Star, July 29, 1938)

“In her noon report the clipper said she was flying through cloud banks and the wind was ‘a bit rough.’ The Weather Bureau here said its maps indicated the weather was good at sea in that vicinity and no storms were in sight.” (Evening Star, July 29, 1938)

“On July 29, 1938, at 0411, Greenwich Civil Time, the Captain of the Hawaii Clipper, an aircraft of Pan American Airways, Incorporated, flying westbound between Guam and Manila, P. I., in regular scheduled foreign air commerce, sent a routine radio position report giving their 0400 O.C.T. position as being Latitude 12 degree 27′ North, Longitude 130 degree 40′ East.”

“This position is approximately 582 nautical miles east-southeast of Manila. The position report was received by the radio operator at Panay, P. I., who was at that time standing radio guard over the operation.”

“The ground station acknowledged this report and requested the Clipper to stand by for a routine weather sequence report. The radio operator at Panay was unable to obtain acknowledgement of messages sent the clipper”. (CAA Investigation; Lost Clipper)

“For several hours after the Clipper’s usual landing time – between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. (1:30 and 2:30 a.m. Eastern standard time) Pan-American officials insisted they were not worried.”

“At 6:30 p.m. one official, although unable to explain the Clipper’s failure to report by radio at the regularly scheduled intervals, said: …”

“‘She had to go around the storm and buck headwinds, therefore we did not expect her until around 6 o’clock tonight (5 a.m. Eastern standard time) even now we consider her only a half hour late. But that is not unusual.’” (Evening Star, July 29, 1938)

Hawaii Clipper never arrived at its destination. What happened to it and the fifteen persons on board remains one of the enduring mysteries of aviation history. (This Day in Aviation)

“Flying conditions and visibility had been generally good, but the plane had flown through scattered showers. No reason was advanced as to why she might have been forced down, but it was pointed out that if she made a safe landing she could float on the Pacific Ocean as well as any boat.”

“The Army transport Meigs, only 87 miles away from the Clipper’s last reported position, was immediately ordered to search the area. The Navy tender Penguin was sent from Guam at 8:20 p.m., Guam time (6:50 a m., E. S. T.), carrying a Pan-American radioman and an airways mechanic. She was expected to reach the scene Monday.” (Evening Star, July 29, 1938)

“The giant Hawaii Clipper, with 15 occupants, missing approximately 12 hours on a flight from Guam to Manila, was made the object of an intensive search by air, sea and underwater craft tonight.”

“The only possible clue to the fate of the Pan-American Airways trans-Pacific plane, which vanished Friday en route here from Guam and California, was a huge oil slick ominously spreading across the ocean some 500 miles east of here and near the spot where the clipper last reported herself.” (Evening Star, August 1, 1938)

“A ‘thick oil area,’ marking the spot where the Trans-Pacific Hawaii Clipper presumably hit the ocean, was discovered by the army transport Meigs today 500 miles from Manila.”

“For nearly six days, warships and fighting planes combed the Pacific stretches in all directions from a point more than 500 miles east of here where the flying boat radioed her last position a week ago today.”

“Army and Navy authorities said they stood ready to answer any call if a clue to the plane’s whereabouts was found, but naval officials said they had abandoned the search for the present because every probability and possibility of finding the clipper was exhausted.” (Evening Star, August 5, 1938)

“There was no indication of how disaster overtook the Hawaii Clipper, whose last radio report at 8:09 pm. Thursday indicated that all was well. She had mentioned rain and moderately rough winds. But her log showed no indication of a storm, which might have brought lightning and sudden death to her veteran crew of nine and six prominent passengers.” (Lowell Sun, July 30, 1938)

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Patricia Kennedy christens the Pan American Hawaii Clipper with coconut water, Pearl Harbor-PP-1-9-004-May 1935

Ceremony christening the Pan American Hawaii Clipper, Pearl Harbor-PP-1-9-006-1936

hawaii_clipper

Hawaiian musicians who performed at the christening of the Pan American Hawaii Clipper, Pearl Harbor-PP-1-9-003-1936

Cutaway drawing of the Boeing 314 reveals the clipper’s various cabins and compartments-Smithsonian

First trans-Pacific passengers boarding the Pan American Hawaii Clipper continuing their flight across the Pacific-PP-1-9-005-1936

Pan Am’s Boeing 314 had a lower set of seawings to provide balance and buoyancy on the water-Smithsonian

A Martin M-130 clipper could seat 16 passengers confortably with plenty of room to walk around-Smithsonain

The Martin M-130 clipper’s main cabin also served as a dining room-Smithsonian

Lounge on Pan Am’s Boeing 314 transformed into a dining room at mealtime-Smithsonian

A Martin M-130 clipper provided comfortable sleeping berths for the long overnight flight to Hawaii-Smithsonian

First paying passengers of the Pan American Hawaii Clipper-PP-1-9-002-1936

First paying passengers of the Pan American Hawaii Clipper-PP-1-9-001-1936

Pan Am brochure captures the romance of flying on a Boeing 314 clipper to Hawaii Smithsonian

Pan Am brochure captures the romance of flying on a Boeing 314 clipper to Hawaii-Smithsonian

Cutaway drawing of a Martin M-130 clipper reveals the multiple cabins in the plane-Smithsonian

Cutaway drawing of the Boeing 314 reveals the clipper’s various cabins and compartments-Smithsonian

July 28, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

He keiki aloha nā mea kanu

Beloved children are the plants (Pukui 1983:76, verse 684)

The forests, as the home of the akua, were seen as awesome and profoundly spiritual places. One did not enter them, or take from them, without first asking permission, and respectful behavior was always shown to all of the beings that lived there. (Anderson-Fung & Maly)

The gathering of plants served many important cultural purposes. Plants were consumed for food and medicine (e.g., the bark of the root of the ʻuhaloa was used for sore throat), used as tools and building materials, art, and adornments. (Kumupaʻa)

Participants in a recent Puna-based ethno-historical analysis noted that the Puna uplands have been traditionally accessed to gather lāʻau (plants, wood) for a variety of uses, and these practices must continue to be exercised today.

1. Native Out-planting: Because many of the native plants gathered by practitioners are rapidly dying off, it was recommended that action be taken to replace and reestablish these valuable forest plants.

2. Cultural Access: Community participants recommended that the forest be kept open and accessible to cultural practitioners such as hālau hula, artists, and lāʻau lapaʻau healers for native plant gathering. (Kumupaʻa)

Papa Henry Auwae, a prominent Kahuna Lā‘au Lapa‘au (Hawaiian herbalist), spoke of some of the different medicinal plants and herbs in the forest (and concern for the plants that had been impacted by the prior contemplated geothermal use):

“Plenty lā‘aus out here. Kōpiko. Oh boy. Oh my, the lama and the ‘ōpikos are all down. You see this tree here? Oh, my goodness. This is ‘ōpiko, this tree here. And the bark, all this bark here is all wasted already, you see. Poho, all this, all wasted.”

“And this is, we can use this for — you know, a woman when they miscarriage, all the time miscarriage. And this is the kind of bark we use for tea, make it into a tea form. But this is all waste. How many years this thing old? Oh, my goodness, cannot get anything. Poho.”

“You cannot get a tree like this to grow overnight. It takes years. And this kind of tree, they don’t grow too fast, they grow real slow, very slow. That one here took about 300 years, 300, 400 years. This is all waste, waste, wasted forever.

“And this is the kind of thing, we should stop people like this desecrating the forest. Why don’t they see people like us Hawaiians and we can help them, you know …”

“… go into a place like this and then try and save our herbs, our trees, you know, our lifestyle, instead of just waste it for themselves, through greediness. They like all the money. But how much life can they save? I can save life. Can they save life?”

“And this tree is gone forever. We cannot get this tree back in life again. And how many more trees like this that they had damaged and wasted? Cannot tell. We have use of the forest, we have the use of all the herbs in the forest to save people, to save human life.”

“And every time I walk and I see in a forest like this, I feel, I feel for the ‘āina. I feel what my grandmother taught me about the lā‘aus, how long it takes for the lā‘au to grow.”

“And people just come over here with a bulldozer and just knock it down. They don’t think, they don’t have any feelings.”

“You see that small leaves there? ‘Olu‘olu. That’s another medicine that we use. And it’s very scarce and very rare. This root here is important. This root here I would take this for medicine now. And I’m going to take this home for medicine right now. ‘Ohu nui.”

“For a person, I have a person coming up and he has been losing his voice; he cannot talk. So this is what we’re going to use to try and bring his voice back again. In a forest like this, there are a lot of lā‘au that can cure people. People all over the world you can cure.” (Nā Maka o ka ʻĀina; Kumupa‘a)

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Forest-WKOP-Portrait

July 24, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Machu Picchu Commemorations

A story told to some of the early Spanish chroniclers noted a mythical place from which the Incas had come when they started out and to make the beginnings of that great empire which was to embrace a large part of South America.

Thousands of years ago there lived in the highlands of Peru a megalithic folk who developed a remarkable civilization, and who left, as architectural records, such cyclopean structures as the fortresses of Sacsahuaman and Ollantaytambo. These people were attacked by barbarian hordes coming from the south – possibly from the Argentine pampas.

They were defeated, and fled into one of the most inaccessible Andine cañons. Here, in a region strongly defended by nature, they established themselves; here their descendants lived for several centuries. The chief place was called Tampu Tocco.

Eventually regaining their military strength and becoming crowded in this mountainous valley, they left Tampu Tocco, and, under the leadership of three brothers, went out of three windows (or caves) and started for Cuzco.

The migration was slow and deliberate. They eventually reached Cuzco, and there established the Inca kingdom, which through several centuries spread by conquest over the entire plateau, and even as far south as Chile and as far north as Ecuador.

This Inca empire had reached its height when the Spaniards came. The Spaniards were told that Tampu Tocco was at a place called Pacaritampu, a small village a day’s journey southwest of Cuzco and in the Apurimac Valley.

The chroniclers duly noted this location, and it has been taken for granted ever since that Tampu Tocco was at Pacaritampu. (National Geographic, 1913)

Tampu means “tavern,” or “a place of temporary abode.” Tocco means “window.” The legend is distinctly connected with a place of windows, preferably of three windows, from which the three brothers, the heads of three tribes or clans, started out on the campaign that founded the Inca empire.

“So far as I could discover, few travelers have ever taken the trouble to visit Pacaritampu, and no one knew whether there were any buildings with windows, or caves, there.” (Bingham)

Hiram Bingham III was born in Honolulu, on November 19, 1875, the son of missionaries to Micronesia and grandson of Hiram and Sybil Bingham, leader of the Pioneer Company of Missionaries to Hawaii. He completed his studies at Yale, earning a doctorate in Latin American history.

In 1905, Bingham made his first trip to South America, following the route of Simón Bolivar, from Caracas, Venezuela to Bogotá, Colombia. He returned in 1908 and retraced the Spanish trade route from Buenos Aires to Lima.

While in Peru, in February, 1909, he visited Choqquequirau, a recently discovered Inca site that had once been thought to be the last refuge of the Inca rulers after they were defeated by the Spanish explorer, Francisco Pizarro. This visit inspired him with the desire to find the legendary “lost city of the Incas.”

In 1911, Bingham went back to Peru with two goals: to climb Mount Coropuna to see whether it was higher than Mount Aconcagua and to seek out the last capital of the Incas, the almost mystical city of Vilcabamba.

Arriving in Arequipa, in June 1911, he decided that it would not be wise to try to make the climb in winter and instead decided to look for ruins in the valley of the Rio Urubamba. (Encyclopedia)

“In 1911, a young Peruvian boy led an American explorer and Yale historian named Hiram Bingham into the ancient Incan citadel of Machu Picchu. Hidden amidst the breathtaking heights of the Andes, this settlement of temples, tombs and palaces was the Incas’ greatest achievement.”

“Tall, handsome, and sure of his destiny, Bingham believed that Machu Picchu was the Incas’ final refuge, where they fled the Spanish Conquistadors.”

“Bingham made Machu Picchu famous, and his dispatches from the jungle cast him as the swashbuckling hero romanticized today as a true Indiana Jones-like character.” (History)

“Some experts believe that parts of the city, which Bingham named Machu Picchu (Old Peak), are 60 centuries old, which would make it 1,000 years older than ancient Babylon. More recently, if its ruins are interpreted correctly, it was at once an impregnable fortress and a majestic royal capital of an exiled civilization.”

“Built on a saddle between two peaks, Machu Picchu is surrounded by a granite wall, can be entered only by one main gate. Inside is a maze of a thousand ruined houses, temples, palaces, and staircases, all hewn from white granite and dominated by a great granite sundial.”

“In Quechua, language of the sun-worshipping Incas and their present-day descendants, the dial was known as Intihuatana—hitching post of the sun.” (Time)

Four different plaques commemorate the ‘find.’ Two plaques attached to a rock face near the entrance to Machu Picchu pay tribute to Hiram Bingham and his “discovery” of Machu Picchu.

The first plaque was erected in October, 1948, by the Rotary Club of Cusco. It reads (in Spanish): “Cusco is grateful to Hiram Bingham, scientific discoverer of Machu Picchu in 1911.” The second was put in place in 1961. It reads (also in Spanish): “Tribute to Hiram Bingham on the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Machu Picchu.”

The second was put in place in 1961. It reads (also in Spanish): “Tribute to Hiram Bingham on the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Machu Picchu.”

A third bronze plaque marks the 75th anniversary of the “scientific discovery” of Machu Picchu. It doesn’t mention Hiram Bingham, nor does it mention anyone else, apart from a reference to the “sons of Inti” who built Machu Picchu (Inti being the Inca sun god).

In 1993, Peru’s National Institute of Culture decided it was time to pay tribute to the locals who helped Hiram Bingham find his way to Machu Picchu. The sign reads: “The National Institute of Culture Cusco pays homage to Melchor Arteaga, Richarte and Álvarez who lived in Machu Picchu before Hiran [sic] Bingham.” (Atlas Obscura)

Melchor Arteaga was instrumental in Bingham’s expedition to Machu Picchu. A local farmer living at Mandor Pampa near Aguas Calientes, Arteaga knew the location of Machu Picchu and showed Bingham the way.

The other two names, Richarte and Álvarez, refer to two men and their families who lived up near Machu Picchu and still farmed on its lower terraces when Bingham arrived.

Bingham and Arteaga met Toribio Richarte and Anacleto Álvarez on their tough trek up the steep, jungle covered mountain. It was Anacleto’s son, Pablo, who on July 24, 1911 guided Bingham along the last leg of the trek, into the heart of Machu Picchu. (Atlas Obscura)

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