General | Page 224 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 2, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Duke of Uke’

William ‘Bill’ Tapia was born in Liliha, Honolulu on New Year’s Day 1908. As a child he heard musicians playing at a neighbor’s house and became fascinated by the size and sound of the ukulele, which had been introduced to the Islands by Portuguese immigrants in the late 19th century.

He bought his first ukulele at age 7 for 75 cents from one of the first men to make them commercially. At 10 he came up with his own version of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” which he played for troops headed for duty in the last months of World War I.

Bill Tapia, Stars and Stripes Forever:

The youngest of five children, he had to help support his mother after his father, a barber, left the family. At 12, he dropped out of school to play in vaudeville shows in Honolulu.

“I worked in every theater on the islands. The Hawaiian Amusement Company ran almost all the theaters, the big ones. I worked in the Waikiki Theater, Princess Theater, every theater.”

“I was a kid and I had a car that drove me around. I had to be at this place at 8 o’clock, I’d go and play a couple of songs. People would laugh and scream. Then I had to get in the car quickly and the guy would drive me to another theater. We were going like mad!”

During the day, he hung out with beachboys in Waikiki and taught tourists and celebrities to play the uke. He was a traveling musician on ocean liners traveling between Hawai‘i and the mainland.

He taught tourists to play the ukulele and wrote an early instruction manual; among his pupils were movie stars like Shirley Temple and Clark Gable.

At 19 he performed at nightclubs and speakeasies in Hollywood and at parties at the home of Charlie Chaplin. At 21 he sat in with Louis Armstrong’s band at a Los Angeles nightclub. By this time he was playing the banjo and guitar, in addition to the ukulele, and was moving between Hawaii and the mainland.

When the Royal Hawaiian Hotel staged its grand opening in 1927, Mr. Tapia played ukulele in the orchestra. In 1933, the Royal Hawaiian hired him to drive one of its touring cars — a yellow-and-blue seven-passenger Packard — to ferry the wealthy and famous to scenic spots.

He played the ukulele for his passengers and threw in a lesson for anyone interested. His pupils included Jimmy Durante, Shirley Temple and the stars of the Our Gang comedies. He even claimed to have taught a lick or two to Arthur Godfrey.

During World War II, Mr. Tapia organized entertainment for serviceman in Honolulu. But after World War II he switched to the guitar to get jobs playing jazz, his favorite kind of music, and for a half-century had almost nothing to do with the instrument that had defined his youth and middle age.

By 1952, he and his wife had settled in the East Bay. He worked mostly in San Francisco and Oakland, performing in house bands at top nightclubs while augmenting his income teaching guitar, banjo and uke.

His life took a turn in 2001, after both his wife (Barbie) and their daughter (Cleo) died. By then living in Orange County to be closer to relatives, Tapia rediscovered the ukulele on a visit to a music shop to have a guitar restrung.

After playing with local ukulele clubs and taking on students, he began performing ukulele shows all along the West Coast and in Hawai‘i.

Tapia was “discovered” as a ukulele virtuoso at a time when the instrument was having a resurgence of popularity. He became a ukulele star, twice making the Top 10 on the jazz charts, wowing concertgoers by playing the ukulele behind his head à la Jimi Hendrix.

In 2004, when he was 96, he released an album of ukulele music, “Tropical Swing.” A year later he released another, “Duke of Uke.”

He was elected to the Ukulele Hall of Fame. “He is truly an amazing jazz soloist,” Dave Wasser, a director at the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum, told The Times in 2007, three years after Tapia was inducted into the hall.

“He has a very smooth, graceful kind of style with the ukulele. It’s the kind of really soft, light touch that you get from somebody that has been with an instrument for many years.”

Tapia gave private ukulele lessons and continued performing live, including at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, where he celebrated his 100th birthday with a special concert. Bill Tapia died December 2, 2011 at the age of 103. (Lots of information here is from NY Times, LA Times, Star Advertiser, Reuters, Gordon, Spengler, Gilbert and Verlinde.)

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BillTapia-jazztimes-1935

BillTapia-tapia-spengler-1950

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November 29, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Timeline Tuesday … 1820s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1820s – arrival of the missionaries (Protestant & Catholic,) death of Keōpūolani, Liholiho and Kamāmalu. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.)

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November 28, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waiākea Experiment

Toward the end of WWI a unique opportunity presented itself for a major homesteading experiment in Hawai‘i. A number of the long-term, thirty-year leases written during the closing years of King Kalākaua’s reign (1874-1891) were due to expire.

In anticipation of the expiration of these leases, and in keeping with the public land policies of President Wilson’s administration, preparations were undertaken for a large-scale homesteading experiment.

On June 1, 1918, shortly after Governor McCarthy took office, a lease of public land held by the Waiākea Mill Company on 7,261 acres of sugar cane land expired.

The Waiākea plantation had been one of the most profitable sugar corporations in the Islands from its inception until 1918, and there was every promise that homesteading could be successfully undertaken on a portion of the plantation’s land.

In March, 1919, and subsequently in February, 1921, a total of 216 lots in the Waiākea homestead tract were carved out of the plantation’s acreage and were conveyed to individuals under the terms of special homestead agreements.

These lots incorporated an area of 7,261 acres, of which approximately 6,300 acres, or 88 per cent, consisted of cane land. The balance of the acreage was a mixture of various kinds of land, some of which was suitable for other agricultural pursuits. The total appraised value of the land was more than half a million dollars. (LRB)

Applications for homestead lots in the Waiākea tract numbered over 2,000, far more than the number of lots available. To meet this problem, it was determined the homesteads would be awarded by a lottery …”

However, “without reference to whether the prospective homesteaders had any experience in farming, or any of the other qualifications that might have contributed to successful homesteading.”

“Nor did the territorial government plan to assist the homesteaders by providing trained agricultural agents, such as the county extension agents found on the mainland United States; neither did it assist the homesteaders with adequate roads or marketing facilities.”

“In short, virtually nothing was done to create conditions that would contribute to the success of this unique experiment in homesteading.”

“The inevitable outcome, of course, was that the Waiākea homesteading project was an immediate and overwhelming failure.”

“The majority of the Waiākea homesteaders’, unlike its pioneer American prototype, had no intention of tilling the soil. The recollection still lingers in many minds of “Waiākea No.1.” His intentions have been of the best but his agricultural background and qualifications were woefully lacking.”

“Forty percent of these homesteaders forfeited their land through failure to make their payments when due or for other breach of covenant.”

“Sixty percent, either directly or through their successors in interest, were strong enough, many as a result of legislative relief measures, to hold their lots and secure patents.”

“But forfeited or not, we find today nearly ninety percent of the original cane land again in the hands of Waiākea Mill Co. (5537 acres) for the production of sugar, partly as a result of direct leases with the Territory of forfeited lots and partly by direct lease agreements with the owners of the patented lots or lots still held for patent.” (LRB)

“What is considered by the territorial government and the Waiākea Mill Co. to be the only logical solution, under existing conditions, of the acute Waiākea homestead problem, was reached at a conference with Governor Wallace R. Farrington …”

“The Waiākea Mill Co. has agreed to take over the cultivation of the entire area of the Second Series Homesteads of the Waiākea tract, and to cancel all existing contracts with those homesteaders who desire to enter into the new agreement as now proposed.”

“Taking over of the homestead lands by the mill company will relieve the homesteaders of all responsibility with regard to cultivation, fertilization, harvesting, hauling, milling and care of stools.” (Louisiana Planter, 1922)

“The short-term results of the Waiākea experiment, then, were the ruin of many homesteaders, temporary disruption of the efficient functioning of a great and prosperous plantation, which suffered continued, substantial, financial losses until it was able to recapture most of its lost land, and a permanent loss of tax revenue to the territorial government.”

“In an effort to persuade him to resign as governor before the end of his term, some business leaders offered McCarthy an attractive position as general manager of the Hawaiian Dredging Company, even as others fulminated against his policies. He accepted the position, and Wallace Rider Farrington, a Republican, was appointed to succeed him as governor in 1921.” (LRB)

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Waiakea Experiment

November 21, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Bonin

‘Mu nin to’ or ‘Bu nin to’ are the Japanese sounds for three Chinese ideographs which would be translated ‘no man island.’ A group of Islands later took the name Bonin Islands.

A Spanish explorer, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, was reported to have discovered the islands in 1543; he had given the name Arzobispo to the islands.

Villalobos commanded an exploring expedition that sailed from Mexico some time in 1542 or 1543. After reaching the Philippines on August 26, 1543, he sent off a small ship, the San Juan, having a crew of eighteen or twenty men, to explore in a northerly direction.

Somewhere about the beginning of October they sighted some islands, which from the description were almost certainly some of the Bonin group. They did not land and shortly afterwards steered back for the Philippines, and the chief reason given is that their stock of water was not sufficient for them to proceed.

In about the year 1675 a Japanese vessel was driven by a storm to these islands which, though uninhabited, they found to be pleasant and fruitful and, in default of other name, described as Buninto.

But this is not the name by which they are commonly known in Japan, nor is the year 1675 the first in which there is record of them, for these same islands are claimed to have been discovered in 1592 by a certain Ogasawara Sadayori, a Japanese warrior under Hideyoshi.

The Islands were granted to him as a fief, so that they became known as the Islands of Ogasawara (the name the group keeps today.)

“This small but interesting, and from its situation, valuable group of islands, lies in latitude 27° north, longitude 146° east, within five hundred miles distance from the city of Yedo in Japan.”

“It appertains to Great Britain, having been discovered by an English whaling vessel in 1825, and formally taken possession of by Captain Beechey of HMS Blossom in 1827. There were no aboriginal inhabitants found on the islands nor any trace that such had existed.”

“Their aggregate extent does not exceed two hundred and fifty square miles; but their geographical position — so near Japan, that mysterious empire, of which the trade will one day be of immense value —“

“… gives them a peculiar importance and interest. The climate is excellent, the soil rich and productive, and there is an admirable harbour well fitted for the port of a commercial city.” (Alex Simpson, Acting Britich Consul for the Sandwich Island)

HMS Blossom, under command of Captain Beechey, was a sloop carrying fifteen guns and a complement all told of 122 men. She had been dispatched from England on May 19, 1825, with instructions to co-operate with Franklin and Parry’s Arctic Expeditions.

The Blossom anchored in a harbor on June 9, 1827, having first attempted to fetch the southernmost group; but finding wind and current against the ship and discovering in the nearest land an opening which appeared to give promise of a good harbor, Captain Beechey made for this and anchored in Port Lloyd, to which he gave this name out of regard to the then Bishop of Oxford.

Captain Beechey was much surprised to find here two Europeans who turned out to have been two of the crew of the English whaler William, which vessel had been wrecked in Port Lloyd some eight months previous to the Blossom’s arrival. The name of one of the men was Wittrein; that of the other is not given.

It appears that after the wreck of the vessel the crew set to work to build a small schooner in order to find their way to Manila, as the chances of their being picked off from Port Lloyd were somewhat remote.

To their surprise, however, a whale ship, the Timor, appeared, and took off the crew of the wrecked vessel with the exception of these two men.

Word of the Bonin Islands had reached Hawaii, and there were already one or two of the chance residents in Oahu who were entertaining the idea of going to these newly-discovered islands and trying their fortune there as colonists. Savory, on his recovery, threw himself warmly into the project.

Shortly after (1830,) colonists from Hawaiʻi made their way to Bonin. Nathaniel Savory, an American citizen – but none the less under English auspices – was one of the founders of the first colony, of which he subsequently became chief, on the Bonin Islands.

Savory had served in some capacity on an English merchantman which in the year 1829 put in at Honolulu. He lost a finger in his right hand during the firing of a cannon salute. Having to undergo surgical treatment, his vessel left him behind at the port of Oahu.

“They sailed accordingly in 1830, took with them some Sandwich Island natives as labourers, some live stock and seeds, and landing at Port Lloyd, hoisted an English flag which had been given them by Mr. Charlton.”

Savory had many acquaintances among the storekeepers in Honolulu, and many friends among the captains of whalers and small trading vessels to the South Seas. From all accounts, the islands were fruitful; fish and turtle abounded; the climate was warm and genial; and the prospects of opening out some lucrative trade seemed altogether promising.

Plans took shape, the scheme being furthered in every way by Mr. Richard Charlton, at that time British Consul in Honolulu; and a schooner was fitted out which eventually set sail in the month of May, 1830, with Savory, Aldin Chapin, John Millinchamp, Charles Johnson, and Matteo Mazarro; they arrived on June 26, 1830. (Cholmondeley, Tokyo Metropolitan University)

Owing to the circumstances under which the first colony had been established on the Bonins, the early settlers, whether British subjects or not, had always regarded themselves as coming ultimately under the jurisdiction of the British Consulate in Hawaii.

“The cliffs in many places round the harbour came so close to the beach as to leave no cultivatable ground between them and the sea; but where valleys occur they have all been turned to account, with the exception of one on the west side of the inner harbour, which has probably been left vacant as a careening and repairing place for vessels.” (Captain Collinson; Cholmondeley)

Materially, the colony was prospering, and opportunities of sale and barter were furnished when, not unfrequently, whalers and other vessels came to visit it.

After Savory established himself on the Bonin Islands, captains of whalers and trading vessels came along to see him; take news of him back to his family; become bearers of their letters to him; and it is with him that Savory’s store-keeper friends want to transact business.

“The little settlement has been visited by several whaling vessels since that period, and also by a vessel from the British China Squadron.”

“(Mazarro,) anxious to get additional settlers or labourers to join the infant colony, the whole population of which only numbers about twenty, came to the Sandwich Islands in the autumn of 1842 in an English whaling vessel.”

“He described the little settlement as flourishing, stated that he had hogs and goats in abundance, and a few cattle; that he grew Indian corn and many vegetables, and had all kinds of tropical fruits; that, in fact, he could supply fresh provisions and vegetables to forty vessels annually.” (Alex Simpson, Acting British Consul for the Sandwich Islands)

“The island was greatly developed by grains which Savory had sent from the United States, and everything was so blooming and prosperous …” (Boston Transcript, August 30, 1887; Daily Bulletin, October 31, 1887)

Commodore Perry re-opened the long closed doors of Japan in 1861. That year, Japan made the first attempt is made to recover her long lost hold on the islands.

Towards the end of the year 1861, a Japanese steamer was despatched to Port Lloyd from Yedo, as the city of Tokyo was originally called, having on board a commissioner, subordinate officers, and about a hundred Japanese colonists.

On Sunday, November 21, 1875, the Meiji Maru, a Japanese ship, captained by an Englishman or American of the name of Peters, left Yokohama at noon with four Commissioners on board — Tanabe Yaichi, Hayashi Masaki, Obana Sakusuke, and Nezu Seikichi. Her destination was the Bonin Islands – Japan took control of the Bonin Islands.

From the year 1876 until 1904 when, under the Revised Treaties foreigners secured the right of travel and residence in any part of the Japanese Empire, no new settlers other than Japanese could make their home on the Bonin Islands.

The two chief islands are no longer ‘Peel’ Island and ‘Bailey’ Island. As newer maps and charts supersede the old ones, the names given by Captain Beechey will gradually disappear and be forgotten. ‘Peel’ Island is now Chichijima, Father Island; its harbor Futami ; ‘Bailey’ Island is Hahajima, or Mother Island. (Lots of information here is from Cholmondeley.)

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Native’s House

Crushing the Sugar Cane

Lohala Palm

Chichijima – the Landing

Bonin Islands-view of the Coast

A Sugar Mill Shed

Chichijima – the Jetty

Japanese Men-of-War in Bonin Harbor

Map Showing Position of the Bonin Islands

November 19, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Not Completely Settled

At the time of discovery by Captain James Cook, the Hawaiian Islands were not completely settled. Only the best of the arable land, capable of cultivation by the gardening methods practiced, was actually utilized.

This was probably because the Hawaiians had been in these islands since between approximately AD 1000 and 1200 (Kirch,) and their agricultural development and the expansion of population were constantly interfered with by the feuding of the ali‘i.

Had it not been for European intrusion in the late 18th century and the consequent decline of the subsistence economy and rapid dwindling of the number of Hawaiians, it is reasonable to assume that there would gradually have come about, over a period of centuries, a considerable expansion of land utilization and of population.

If the same ingenuity shown in building aqueducts in Waimea Valley and Kalalau on Kauai had been applied to many other stream systems throughout the islands, a great deal more wet taro could have been cultivated by terracing more land on the lower slopes of the hills bordering the valleys.

For example, there is much relatively level land in Wailua on Kauai to which water could have been brought by means of aqueducts tapping the ample flow of the Wailua River … the same is true of a number of other localities on the leeward side of this island, which is more plentifully supplied with abundant water than any of the other islands.

On Oahu, if aqueducts and hillside terracing comparable to that in Kalalau on Kauai had been employed, the interior and slopes of most of the larger taro valleys could have been converted into lo‘i.

In Mānoa and Nu‘uanu, for example, it was only the relatively level areas that were terraced. This was true equally of the stream systems of the windward coast of Oahu and of West Maui.

It becomes apparent that for the most part loci were built only where water was easily accessible, where the main stream could be tapped without recourse to anything other than simple ditching.

A little more ingenuity and labor, instigated by pressure of population such as existed in the isolated valleys of Kalalau on Kauai and Wailua Nui on East Maui, would have induced or compelled the people to develop considerably more land for irrigated taro.

Most of the extensive systems of lo‘i must have been planned with a view to developing an overall system rather than allowing the system to grow piecemeal, because the ditching had to be so patterned as to bring fresh water direct to every lo’i so planned.

It is not improbable that there was an era following colonization of Hawaii when the lo’i systems, ditches, aqueducts, and fishponds were developed, after which the utilization and maintenance of these became a matter of routine under surveillance of konohiki, or supervisors for the aliʻi landlords.

After the early epoch of massive enterprise and the terracing of the best lands for irrigation, the constant strife between rival aliʻi and the system of transferring title to lands at the accession of every new high chief would certainly have served as a deterrent to further pioneering.

There seems to have been more initiative in the creation of irrigation systems on Kauai than on any other island. This was probably because of the large stream systems there and the depth of the valleys, and probably also because of the island’s relative isolation which discouraged invasion by chieftains from neighboring islands.

If ingenuity and technology of Hawaiians on Kauai enabled them to build aqueducts, such as those described at Waimea and on the Koaie stream, and to terrace the steep sides of Kalalau Valley, the people of the other islands must have been capable of similar achievements.

But there are no elevated stone aqueducts, and no terraced valley sides on Oahu, on Maui, on Molokai, or on Hawaii. Waialua on Oahu has a river whose waters could have been used to develop very large areas of lo’i, but there were here no such developed areas.

In many valleys with large streams (Waimea, Kāne’ohe, Nuʻuanu, Kalihi) there might well have been much greater utilization of available water and land on Oahu. The same is true of both West and East Maui, of Molokai, and of windward Hawai‘i.

One factor of prime importance affecting the development of plantation areas was propinquity to good fishing grounds. Such land areas as were intensively developed were always in localities where good fishing grounds were easily accessible.

It may be said therefore that as a general principle Hawaiians developed their land resources only where they lay not too far distant from good fishing grounds which would give them their needed protein food. Hogs and dogs were luxuries enjoyed by the aliʻi, rarely by country folk.

It was only in Kāʻu and Kona on the island of Hawaii that upland plantations were systematically developed to a great degree. The reason may have been that the shores and offshore waters offered such rich opportunity for fishing that plantations were extended far into the upland.

The Puna, Hilo, Hāmākua and Kohala Districts might well have developed more extensive areas of mulched taro, but the fishing grounds were not as rich; and hence, perhaps, there were fewer families to farm the uplands.

On Kauai and O‘ahu sweet potatoes were planted only as a supplement to taro, along the coastal zone where there was sandy or rather dry soil not suitable for taro. Yet there were very extensive areas which, it would seem, might have been utilized for sweet potatoes if there had been sufficient pressure of population to demand it.

This applies to much of the kula land which has since been planted in pineapple and sugar cane, from Kalihi to Hanapepe on Kauai. On Oahu, it applies particularly to the hills between the mountains and the sea in the Kāne’ohe area, and to the level lands now planted in pineapples and sugar cane between the Koʻolau and Waiʻanae ranges.

On Maui the same is true of much of the kula land now or recently utilized for pineapples or cane on the east, north, and south slopes of West Mau, and from Makawao to Waipi‘o on the west and northern slopes of Haleakala on East Maui. On Molokai, homesteaders at Ho‘olehua, on land not planted in ancient times, were growing sweet potatoes with great success.

On the island of Hawai‘i the population was quite sparse in many areas of the Hāmākua coast, Waimea, and Kohala, which were ideally suited to sweet-potato cultivation. In the vicinity of Honokaʻa and Kalaupapa on the Hāmākua coast, flourishing sweet-potato patches have been seen in localities where forest formerly stood.

Most of the land that was planted in sugar cane (in modern times) could have been used for mulched taro or sweet potatoes, but that would have involved the clearing of the ancient candlenut forest, a type of operation which Hawaiians rarely undertook with their stone adzes. This type of forest cannot be cleared by burning over.

Breadfruit was extensively planted only in upper Wailua on Kauai and in Kona and Puna on Hawai‘i. Yet on every island this food, could have been grown in quantity. Lack of pressure of population and a preference for taro, and next to that for sweet potato, were doubtless responsible for the neglect of breadfruit.

Modern plantations of banana on areas of O‘ahu formerly neglected by Hawaiians show how this food could have been grown in quantity. For Hawaiians it was a subsidiary item, like sugar cane, which was casually planted on the banks between lo‘i and the rocky borders of upland plantations.

The neglect of the banana as a perennial food producer is one of the indications that the islands were by no means completely settled.

Coconut trees flourished in many isolated localities on Kauai, O‘ahu, Maui and Hawai‘i. Yet the coconut was not systematically planted, and there were only two varieties in contrast to the great number of varieties in the southern islands. The nut, which in three stages of growth is a valuable food, was eaten hardly at all.

Candlenut oil was preferred to that of the coconut as a condiment. The leaves were little used for thatch or baskets. The shells were rarely used for cups. Possibly the coconut was a late comer in the island economy. (All of the information above is from Handy.)

The Nature Conservancy and Office of Hawaiian Affairs collaborated on a mapping project that identified ecological regions and the pre- and post-contact ‘Hawaiian Footprint.’ (Footprint notes the geospatial areas that were chronically occupied, directly manipulated and significantly changed from pre-existing Hawaiian ecosystem types into traditional Hawaiian uses.)

In ecological terms, a ‘footprint’ can be defined as a measure of human demand on ecosystems of any given area. It represents the estimated geographic area required to both supply the resources that are consumed by a population as well as assimilate the associated wastes that are produced by the production and consumption of those resources. (ESRI)

The map here, as well as those in the attached album, shows the estimated pre-contact settlement and use by the native Hawaiians.

The Native Hawaiian Footprint of the main Hawaiian Islands is estimated to be approximately 382,000 acres or about 9.3-percent of the main Hawaiian Islands. The pre-contact footprint is remarkably smaller than the present-day footprint of approximately 2.1-million acres or over 52-percent of the main Hawaiian Islands.

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