General | Page 40 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 12, 2024 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day!

The image shows my mother and grandmother in 1928 (my mother is the little girl sitting to the left, her mother is sitting nearby, wearing a hat.)

The scene is at Kailua-Kona at a site known as Pa O ʻUmi; over the years, most of this outcrop of land has been covered over with Aliʻi Drive – a small remnant remains extending beyond today’s seawall.

Here is where Chief ʻUmi-a-Liloa (who reigned about the same time Christopher Columbus was crossing the Atlantic) landed when he first came to Kailua by canoe, moving the Island’s Royal Center from Waipiʻo to Kailua.

On this point of rock ʻUmi ordered his attendant to dry his precious feather cloak (ʻahuʻula.) (The site is also referred to as Ka Lae O ʻAhuʻula.)

My mother was the great-great grand-daughter of Hiram Bingham, leader of first missionaries to Hawaiʻi who first landed in the Islands, here at Kailua-Kona in 1820. (Mokuʻaikaua Church, built by Bingham’s fellow missionary, Asa Thurston, is in the background, as well as Huliheʻe Palace (to the right.))

Check out the album of my mother’s 1928 trip around the Island of Hawaiʻi.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Pa_o_Umi

May 7, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Fur Desert

By the sixteenth century, dozens of bands of people lived in present-day Oregon, with concentrated populations along the Columbia River, in the western valleys, and around coastal estuaries and inlets. (Robbins)

Captain James Cook’s Third Voyage to the Pacific in the 1770s took him to the Pacific Northwest Coast. After Cook was killed in Hawai‘i, his associate George Vancouver continued to explore and chart the Northwest Coast. Commercial traders soon followed, exchanging copper, weapons, liquor, and varied goods for sea otter pelts. (Barbour)

The fur trade was the earliest and longest-enduring economic enterprise in North America. It had an unbroken chain spanning three centuries. During the 1540s on the St. Lawrence River, Jacques Cartier traded European goods, such as axes, cloth, and glass beads, to Indians.

In 1670, King Charles II of England granted a royal charter to create the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), under the governorship of the king’s cousin Prince Rupert of the Rhine. According to the Charter, the HBC received rights to:

“The sole Trade and Commerce of all those Seas, Streights, Bays, Rivers, Lakes, Creeks, and Sounds, in whatsoever Latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the Streights commonly called Hudson’s Streights …”

“together with all the Lands, Countries and Territories, upon the Coasts and Confines of the Seas, Streights, Bays, Lakes, Rivers, Creeks and Sounds, aforesaid, which are not now actually possessed by any of our Subjects, or by the Subjects of any other Christian Prince or State …”

“and that the said Land be from henceforth reckoned and reputed as one of our Plantations or Colonies in America, called Rupert’s Land.”

The Royal Charter of 1670 granted “the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson Bay” exclusive trading rights over the entire Hudson Bay drainage system. It named the area Rupert’s Land in honor of Prince Rupert, cousin to King Charles II and HBC’s first Governor.

Native people provided furs and hides as well as food, equipment, interpreters, guides and protection in exchange for European, Asian, and American manufactures. A primary object of the terrestrial fur trade was beaver, the soft underfur of which was turned into expensive and sought-after beaver hats.

In quest of “soft gold” (beaver, otter, and other lightweight and highly valuable fine furs), which created fortunes large and small for lucky entrepreneurs, the fur hunters’ rosters included capable explorers who expanded the fur trade’s theater of operations and also shed light on western geography. (Barbour)

Traders drafted many useful maps and wrote reports meant to help their governments secure geopolitical objectives. Similarly, by providing quarters, protection, and aid to scientists and artists at isolated trading posts, fur traders supported the study of Native Nations and natural history. (Barbour)

Later, the North American fur trade became the earliest global economic enterprise. The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were to be mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods to be sold in Europe and the US.

Europe’s interest in the North Pacific quickened in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, as Spanish, British, French, Russian, and eventually ships from the United States came into increasing contact with Native people in coastal estuaries. (Robbins)

Following the American Revolution, the new nation needed money and a vital surge in trade. In 1787, a group of Boston merchants decided to send two ships on a desperate mission around Cape Horn and into the Pacific Ocean, to establish new trade with China, settle an outpost on territory claimed by the Spanish and find the legendary Northwest Passage.

By the close of the eighteenth century, the Northwest Coast had become a place with an emerging global economy. (Robbins) Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife, could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China and the Hawaiian Islands to Britain and the United States (especially New England).

The growing competition on the continent became concerning to the Hudson’s Bay Company and it sought to separate its land. The Oregon Country had not become important to the HBC until 1821, when the HBC merged with the rival North West Company.

The HBC accepted the inevitable loss of most of the region to the Americans and focused on retaining the area bounded by the Columbia River on the south and east, the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the forty-ninth parallel on the north, an area encompassing potential Puget Sound ports and the transportation route provided by the Columbia River.

The HBC developed the idea of clearing the Snake River Basin of beaver in order to create a fur desert, or buffer zone, that would discourage the westward flow of American trappers who began to reach the Northern Rockies in substantial numbers in the 1820s.

The fur desert policy began in response to a territorial dispute over the Oregon Country. The Americans sought control of the entire region. The HBC’s experiences across northern North America had taught a painful lesson: competition depleted beaver trapping grounds and, therefore, profits.

During a visit to the Columbia District to determine its usefulness to the HBC, HBC leader George Simpson carried the idea one step further. He wrote in an 1824 journal entry:

“If properly managed no question exists that it would yield handsome profits as we have convincing proof that the country is a rich preserve of Beaver and which for political reasons we should endeavor to destroy as fast as possible.” The fur desert policy had begun.

To protect its interest, between then and 1841, the Hudson’s Bay Company carried out what is known as the fur desert policy – a strategy of clearing the basin of beaver to keep encroaching Americans from coming west of the Continental Divide. (Ott)

The HBC assembled varied groups (brigades) of trappers to go into the Snake Country to trap in the region. Each chief trader who led the Snake Country expeditions during the most important years, from 1823 to 1841, worked under the pressure of the HBC’s expectations of good pelt returns, the exclusion of Americans from the region, and the trapper’s return in time to meet the annual supply ship.

During the critical years when the policy was in place, the HBC took approximately 35,000 beaver out of the region. The 1823 – 1824 brigade alone yielded 4,500 beaver. By 1834, the average annual yield was down to 665 beaver. (Ott)

If there remained any doubt that the trappers intended to “ruin” the rivers and streams, the journals clarify their goal for the area. At the Owhyhee River in 1826, Ogden added this comment to the end of his daily entry: “This day 11 Beaver 1 Otter we have now ruined this quarter we may prepare to Start.”

Two weeks later, at the Burnt River, Ogden wrote George Simpson: “the South side of the South branch of the Columbia [the Snake River] has been examined and now ascertained to be destitute of Beaver.” (Ott)

Through their use of efficient Snake Country trapping brigades, the HBC nearly eradicated beaver in the region and, in the process, redefined the physical space in which people would live.

“From the start, there is a sense that trapping exceeded the resilience of the local beaver population. As time passed, the ransacking done by the trappers produced a widespread effect. The effects of American and Indian trapping also contributed to the success of the fur desert policy.” (Ott)

May 3, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Not A Planned Community”

At the time of Captain Cook’s contact with the Hawaiian Islands the land was divided into several independent Chiefdoms. By succession and right of conquest, each High Chief was owner of all the lands within his jurisdiction.

Although the chiefs controlled the land and extracted food and labor from the makaʻāinana who farmed the soil, “everyone had rights of access and use to the resources of the land and the sea … The people were sustained by a tradition of sharing and common use.”

Kamehameha III divided the lands in a process known as the Great Māhele (1848.) Ultimately, it transformed land tenure from feudal-like/communal trusteeship to private ownership.

Hui Kūʻai ʻĀina O Hāʻena (Hāʻena Cooperative to Purchase Land) was one of many groups formed by people after the Mānele and Kuleana Act. Members held shares in the total land area, and the land was used collectively. That is, unlike the kuleana lands (individual homesteads,) Hui lands were not divided into individual parcels.

These cooperatives formed, in part, to retain traditional ways of life on the land, which were typically thwarted by the legal system shifting to Western ways. A fundamental precept of the hui was sharing, collectively, on the land. (Andrade)

Over the next century, changes that were affecting the rest of the Hawaiian Islands gradually reached Hāʻena. Among the most important of these were changes that eventually brought about the break-up of the Hui Kūʻai ‘Āina and resulted in the partitioning of the lands that had been held in common.

The path to this break-up was one whereby, over time, shares in the Hui were sold, transferred or auctioned off away from the original members and their families, and into the hands of newcomers from outside. (PacificWorlds)

Later, the Taylor family purchased a parcel of coastal land in the area. “My family sailed over from O‘ahu in August of 1968. That first morning we came down here in an old Valiant station wagon. We looked around and ate our lunch on one of the flat rocks that are still over there by the stream.”

“My parents fell in love with this place, went back to our house on O‘ahu and sold that place. They sold the boat, sold the house, sold everything and moved to Kauaʻi.” (Tommy Taylor)

Howard Taylor (brother to actress Elizabeth Taylor) went to acquire building permits to construct his family home on the property. However, the State would not grant him such a permit, since they were planning to condemn the land.

At the same time, however, they insisted that he still pay full taxes on the land. In disgust, Taylor turned the land over to the “flower power people” – they called it Taylor Camp.

Started in the spring of 1969, “Taylor Camp was not a planned community. The land … had been loaned … to a small group of people who had been squatting at several of the county parks on Kauaʻi during 1968 and 1969.”

“The county police had shooed the group from one park to another and the county was taking legal action against them when Mr Taylor offered them the use of a small parcel of land bordering the beach at Hāʻena point.” (Riley)

By 1970, the original group of thirteen men, women and children of Taylor Camp were gone; soon, waves of hippies, surfers and troubled Vietnam vets found their way to Taylor Camp and built a clothing-optional, pot-friendly village at the end of the road on the island’s north shore.

“The campers wanted to escape the mainland, the political situation, the Vietnam War. There were dropping out, trying to get away and these people found Kauaʻi.” (Taylor; Wehrheim)

Abandoning the tent village, by 1972 there were 21-permanent houses at Taylor Camp. All of them were tree houses, since local authorities would not issue them permits for ground dwellings.

In addition to the houses in the camp there was a communal shower, an open air toilet, a small church and even a cooperative store which operated on and off until the camp’s closing. (Riley)

“We were a Kauaʻi community at the end of the road in the seventies living like some of our local neighbors were living. No electricity, no one had anything. … It was very, very simple, very, very slow.” (Rosenthal; Wehrheim)

“It wasn’t a free for all type of place. A lot of people came through and wanted to build something and stay but they couldn’t. There was sort of a council and general rules to keep the peace and the order. … So everybody had to be approved by the elders”. (Baricchi; Wehrheim)

“The camp also became an informal pool of causal labor. While some of the campers worked legitimate jobs and a few even owned their own businesses, many – living on welfare, food stamps, unemployment and growing marijuana – welcomed causal labor”.

“In the morning builders or farmers in need of strong backs could pull up in their trucks and find a few campers willing to work cheap.” (Wehrheim)

Kauaʻi’s north shore boomed with surfers and hippies to a point where more than 350-people were in and around Taylor Camp.

“It was getting to be a mess. It wasn’t a commune anymore. The communal life just didn’t work. There were too many freeloaders. There were only two or three people that were gathering, buying and cooking the food … but the people eating were not even cleaning up … That’s what started the break-up. (Harder: Wehrheim)

“(I)t was really kind of stressful, when we had so little and there were freeloaders mooching, not contributing anything. Soon it evolved into, ‘We are not doing this communal thing anymore!’ “

“And people started building little shelters and then everybody said, ‘Okay, we will do our individual house and we will do our individual cooking,’ and so the commune ended”.(Harder; Wehrheim)

Folks on the outside added to the pressures. “There was a lot of tension between the locals and the hippies … We were the devil – evil incarnate.… The locals who knew us didn’t think that, but the politicians, the elected officials, they needed a bad guy”. (Rosenthal; Wehrheim)

“People did not like Taylor Camp, because it was different. Like you have homeless in Honolulu living on the beach – that was Taylor Camp. … People just did not like hippies. They weren’t wearing clothes and they were planting marijuana all over the place.” (Malapit; Wehrheim)

Then, the headlines told the future, “Condemnation for Park;” “All the land on the North side of Kauaʻi between Limahuli Stream and the end of the road at Hāʻena is about to be taken over by the State through condemnation proceedings. A State Park is planned for the area.” (Garden Island, May 17, 1971)

In 1974, after five years of bureaucratic government maneuvers, the State government finally formally condemned and acquired Howard Taylor’s land. But some of the residents didn’t leave and they made claims back upon the State.

The dragged-out eviction proceedings and other legal challenges wore on the campers and they finally dropped all claims against the State and left voluntarily. Many moved to the Big Island.

In 1977, government officials torched the camp – leaving little but ashes and memories of “the best days of our lives.” (Wehrheim) (Much of the information and images here are from John Wehrheim’s Taylor Camp book – that was an unanticipated, but much appreciated arrival at my door one day.)

The original 13: Victor Schaub, Sondra Schaub (with 4-year old daughter Heidi Schaub,) Webb Ford, Carol Ford, John Becker, George Berg, Jr, Thomas Carver, Teri Ann Rush, John Rush, Kirby Nunn, Wendy Nunn, Jackie Nixon and Gail Pickolz. (Wehrheim)

May 1, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

May Day is Lei Day

May 1 is a special day in many cultures. The Celts and Saxons and others in pre-Christian Europe celebrated the first planting and the beauty of spring. These agrarian celebrations continued down through the centuries and remain today. In much of Europe, May 1 is also a labor holiday, honoring the labor workers. (Akaka)

The first of May, however, has a unique and very special significance to the people of Hawaiʻi. May Day is Lei Day in Hawaiʻi. (Akaka)

Lei making in Hawaiʻi begins with the arrival of the Polynesians. Polynesians, across the South Pacific, adorned their bodies with strings of flowers and vines.

When they arrived in Hawai`i, in addition to the useful plants they brought for food, medicine and building, they also brought plants with flowers used for decoration and adornment.

Lei throughout Polynesia were generally similar. Types included temporary fragrant lei such as maile and hala, as well as non-perishable lei like lei niho palaoa (whale or walrus bone), lei pupu (shell) and lei hulu manu (feather.)

“The leis of Old Hawaii were made of both semi-permanent materials – hair, bone, ivory, seeds, teeth, feathers, and shells; and the traditional flower and leaf leis – twined vines, seaweed and leaf stems, woven and twisted leaves, strung and bound flowers of every description.”

“Leis were symbols of love, of a spiritual meaning or connection, of healing, and of respect. There are many references to leis, or as the circle of a lei, being symbolic of the circle of a family, embracing, or love itself: “Like a living first-born child is love, A lei constantly desired and worn.” (Na Mele Welo, Songs of Our Heritage, (translated by Mary Kawena Pukui,) Gecko Farms)

Robert Elwes, an artist who visited the Hawaiian islands in 1849, wrote that Hawaiian women “delight in flowers, and wear wreaths on their heads in the most beautiful way.”

“A lei is a garland of flowers joined together in a manner which can be worn. There are many different styles of lei made of numerous types of flowers. The type of flower used determines the manner in which the lei is woven.” (Akaka)

Reportedly, Don Blanding, writing in his book ‘Hula Moons,’ explained the origins of Lei Day: “Along in the latter part of 1927 I had an idea; not that that gave me a headache, but it seemed such a good one that I had to tell some one about it, so I told the editors of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the paper on which I worked.”

“They agreed that it was a good idea and that we ought to present it to the public, which we proceeded to do. It took hold at once and resulted in something decidedly beautiful.”

“… The custom of weaving and wearing flower leis originated with the Hawaiians so long ago that they have no record of its beginning. … When tourists discovered Hawaii, they loved the charming gesture and they spread the word of it until the lei became known around the world.”

“… Hawai`i observed all of the mainland holidays as well as those of a number of the immigrant nationalities in the Islands. But there was no day that was peculiarly and completely Hawaii’s own; that is none that included all of the polyglot population there.”

“So, the bright idea that I presented was, “Why not have a Lei Day?” Let everyone wear a lei and give a lei. Let it be a day of general rejoicing over the fact that one lived in a Paradise. Let it be a day for remembering old friends, renewing neglected contacts, with the slogan “Aloha,” allowing that flexible word to mean friendliness on that day.”

In 1929, Governor Farrington signed a Lei Day proclamation urging the citizens of Hawaiʻi to “observe the day and honor the traditions of Hawaii-nei by wearing and displaying lei.”‘ (Akaka) Lei Day celebrations continue today, marking May 1st with lei-making competitions, concerts, and the giving and receiving of lei among friends and family.

Reportedly, the “tradition” of giving a kiss with a lei dates back to World War II, when a USO entertainer, seeking a kiss from a handsome officer, claimed it was a Hawaiian custom.

In 2001, Hawaiʻi Senator, Dan Akaka, during a May 1 address, said, “’May Day is Lei Day’ in Hawaiʻi. Lei Day is a nonpolitical and nonpartisan celebration. Indeed, its sole purpose is to engage in random acts of kindness and sharing, and to celebrate the Aloha spirit, that intangible, but palpable, essence which is best exemplified by the hospitality and inclusiveness exhibited by the Native Hawaiians — Hawaii’s indigenous peoples — to all people of goodwill.”

April 28, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Twain and the Volcano

“Early in 1866, George Barnes invited [Mark Twain] to resign [his] reportership on his paper, the San Francisco Morning Call, and for some months thereafter, [he] was without money or work; then [he] had a pleasant turn of fortune.”

“The proprietors of the Sacramento Union, a great and influential daily journal, sent [Twain] to the Sandwich Islands to write four letters a month at twenty dollars a piece.”

He also wrote books about some of his travels (that included a visit to Hawai‘i) … one such, Roughing It. Here are some of his comments about a visit to Kilauea Volcano – from that series, as well as his other writing.

“Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. Two of its high mountains were in view – Mauna Loa and Hualaiai. The latter is an imposing peak, but being only ten thousand feet high is seldom mentioned or heard of.”

“The rays of glittering snow and ice, that clasped [Maua Loa’s] summit like a claw, looked refreshing when viewed from the blistering climate we were in.”

“One could stand on that mountain (wrapped up in blankets and furs to keep warm), and while he nibbled a snowball or an icicle to quench his thirst he could look down the long sweep of its sides and see spots where plants are growing that grow only where the bitter cold of Winter prevails …”

“… lower down he could see sections devoted to production that thrive in the temperate zone alone; and at the bottom of the mountain he could see the home of the tufted cocoa-palms and other species of vegetation that grow only in the sultry atmosphere of eternal Summer.”

“He could see all the climes of the world at a single glance of the eye, and that glance would only pass over a distance of four or five miles as the bird flies!”

We “sailed down to Kau, where we disembarked and took final leave of the vessel. Next day we bought horses and bent our way over the summer-clad mountain-terraces, toward the great volcano of Kilauea (Ke-low-way-ah).”

“We made nearly a two days’ journey of it, but that was on account of laziness. Toward sunset on the second day, we reached an elevation of some four thousand feet above sea level, and as we picked our careful way through billowy wastes of lava long generations ago stricken dead and cold in the climax of its tossing fury …”

“… we began to come upon signs of the near presence of the volcano – signs in the nature of ragged fissures that discharged jets of sulphurous vapor into the air, hot from the molten ocean down in the bowels of the mountain.”

“I was disappointed when I saw the great volcano of Kilauea to‐day for the first time. It is a comfort to me to know that I fully expected to be disappointed, however, and so, in one sense at least, I was not disappointed.”

“I said to myself ‘Only a considerable hole in the ground ‐ nothing to Haleakala ‐ a wide, level, black plain in the bottom of it, and a few little sputtering jets of fire occupying a place about as large as an ordinary potato‐patch, up in one corner ‐ no smoke to amount to anything.’”

“I reflected that night was the proper time to view a volcano … I turned my eyes upon the volcano again (now, at night.)”

“Perched upon the edge of the crater, at the opposite end from where we stood, was a small look-out house – say three miles away. It assisted us, by comparison, to comprehend and appreciate the great depth of the basin – it looked like a tiny martin-box clinging at the eaves of a cathedral.”

“Arrived at the little thatched look out house, we rested our elbows on the railing in front and looked abroad over the wide crater and down over the sheer precipice at the seething fires beneath us.”

“The view was a startling improvement on my daylight experience. I turned to see the effect on the balance of the company and found the reddest-faced set of men I almost ever saw.”

“In the strong light every countenance glowed like red-hot iron, every shoulder was suffused with crimson and shaded rearward into dingy, shapeless obscurity! The place below looked like the infernal regions and these men like half-cooled devils just come up on a furlough.

“I turned my eyes upon the volcano again. The ‘cellar’ was tolerably well lighted up. For a mile and a half in front of us and half a mile on either side, the floor of the abyss was magnificently illuminated …”

“You could imagine those lights the width of a continent away – and that hidden under the intervening darkness were hills, and winding rivers, and weary wastes of plain and desert – and even then the tremendous vista stretched on, and on, and on!–to the fires and far beyond!”

“You could not compass it – it was the idea of eternity made tangible – and the longest end of it made visible to the naked eye!”

“The greater part of the vast floor of the desert under us was as black as ink, and apparently smooth and level; but over a mile square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire!”

“It looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it–imagine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled net-work of angry fire!”

“Here and there were gleaming holes a hundred feet in diameter, broken in the dark crust, and in them the melted lava–the color a dazzling white just tinged with yellow–was boiling and surging furiously …”

“… and from these holes branched numberless bright torrents in many directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and kept a tolerably straight course for a while and then swept round in huge rainbow curves, or made a long succession of sharp worm-fence angles, which looked precisely like the fiercest jagged lightning.”

“These streams met other streams, and they mingled with and crossed and recrossed each other in every conceivable direction, like skate tracks on a popular skating ground.”

“Sometimes streams twenty or thirty feet wide flowed from the holes to some distance without dividing –and through the opera-glasses we could see that they ran down small, steep hills and were genuine cataracts of fire, white at their source, but soon cooling and turning to the richest red, grained with alternate lines of black and gold.”

“Some of the streams preferred to mingle together in a tangle of fantastic circles, and then they looked something like the confusion of ropes one sees on a ship’s deck when she has just taken in sail and dropped anchor–provided one can imagine those ropes on fire.”

“Through the glasses, the little fountains scattered about looked very beautiful. They boiled, and coughed, and spluttered, and discharged sprays of stringy red fire–of about the consistency of mush, for instance–from ten to fifteen feet into the air, along with a shower of brilliant white sparks–a quaint and unnatural mingling of gouts of blood and snow-flakes!”

“We had circles and serpents and streaks of lightning all twined and wreathed and tied together, without a break throughout an area more than a mile square (that amount of ground was covered, though it was not strictly “square”) …”

“… and it was with a feeling of placid exultation that we reflected that many years had elapsed since any visitor had seen such a splendid display …”

“I forgot to say that the noise made by the bubbling lava is not great, heard as we heard it from our lofty perch. It makes three distinct sounds–a rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or puffing sound …”

“… and if you stand on the brink and close your eyes it is no trick at all to imagine that you are sweeping down a river on a large low-pressure steamer, and that you hear the hissing of the steam about her boilers, the puffing from her escape-pipes and the churning rush of the water abaft her wheels. The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner.”

“We left the lookout house at ten o’clock in a half cooked condition, because of the heat from Pele’s furnaces, and wrapping up in blankets, for the night was cold, we returned to our Hotel.”