Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sarona Road

Mai ka Lani mai nei ka leo kahea,
Pio mai la kona nani i ka lua kupapau.
A o oe la e, e Opukahaia, Hauoli avanei,
ke ike aku oe, O kou aina hanau, ke pua mai nei;
Opuu ae la na rose, aala mai hoi,
Nani loa o Sarona, hiehie moana.

The call came from Heaven,
His glory faded from the grave.
And you, Opukahaia, be happy now,
when you see, Your native land is blooming;
The roses bloomed and smelled,
Sharon is very beautiful, the sea is beautiful.
(Ka Moolelo o Heneri Opukahaia; Chris Cook)

ʻIsaia 65:10, A e lilo nō ʻo Sārona i pā no nā hipa, A ʻo ke kahawai ʻo ʻAkora i wahi moe no nā bipi, No koʻu poʻe kānaka i ʻimi mai ai iaʻu.

Isaiah 65:10, Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me.

Song of Solomon 2:1, “ʻO wau nō ka rose o Sārona, A me ka līlia o nā awāwa.“ “I am the rose of Sharon, And the lily of the valleys.” (Hawaiian Baibala)

“The Rose of Sharon is a flower that grows on mountaintops, and that’s why the Lord referred to Himself as The Rose of Sharon. His mountaintop was Golgotha, and the Lord let me know that people can only find this Rose on Mount Calvary.”

“Roses are noted for their fragrances, and the fragrance from this great Rose travels down from the mount of God and into the valley for us.” (Ernest Angley Ministries)

Sharon is the Mediterranean coastal plain between Joppa and Caesarea. In the time of Solomon, it was a place of great fertility. It is in North Palestine, between Mount Tabor and Lake Tiberias. (Bible-org)

Sarona is the name of a road in Kailua-Kona in the immediate vicinity of Moku‘aikaua Church. As noted in the translations above, Sarona is the Hawaiian word for Sharon.

Moku‘aikaua Church started in 1820 with the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries. With the permission of Liholiho (Kamehameha II), the missionaries built a grass house for worship in 1823.

It soon was found that the church was incapable of holding the growing following of the missionaries. The Kona District had by the mid-1820s, an estimated population of 20,000 and congregations became so large that a considerable number had to be excluded from services.

Governor Kuakini immediately agreed to help in the erection of a new structure. Every male in the district was sent into the mountains to help cut and haul timber. On September 27, 1826, the church was dedicated. (NPS)

It was destroyed by fire in 1835; the present lava rock and coral mortared church, capped with a gable roof, was dedicated on February 4, 1837. It is the oldest intact Western structure on the Island of Hawai‘i.

Moku‘aikaua Church is on a small level lot near the center of Kailua-Kona. Its high steeple stands out conspicuously and has become a landmark from both land and sea.

Some believe Sarona Road was the path people took to/from Mokuaikaua Church that takes an idyllic biblical name (reminiscent of the Rose of Sharon and other Sharon references in the Bible) that was named by Asa Thurston.

Reverend Asa and Lucy Thurston were in the Pioneer company of American Protestant Missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in Kailua-Kona on the Thaddeus in 1820.

The Thurstons made their home in Kailua Village, in a house the Hawaiians named Laniākea. Thurston received Laniākea, a 5.26-acre homestead parcel as a gift from Governor Kuakini.

As noted by Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop, in his book “Reminiscences Of Old Hawaii”: “In the early [1830s,] Kailua was a large native village, of about 4,000 inhabitants rather closely packed along one hundred rods [1650-feet] of shore, and averaging twenty rods [330-feet] inland.”

“It had been the chief residence of King Kamehameha, who in 1819 died there in a rudely built stone house whose walls are probably still standing on the west shore of the little bay. Nearby stood a better stone house occupied by the doughty Governor Kuakini.”

“All other buildings in Kailua were thatched, until Rev. Artemas Bishop built his two-story stone dwelling in 1831 and Rev. Asa Thurston in 1833 built his wooden two-story house at Laniakea, a quarter of a mile inland.”

“Most of the native huts were thatched with the stiff pili grass. The better ones were thatched with lau-hala (pandanus leaf) or with la-i.”

“The second company [of missionaries] consisted of six married couples and two single persons. They sailed from New Haven, Conn., Nov. 19, 1822, and arrived at Honolulu, April 27, 1823, in 158 days. Among the second company was Rey. Artemas Bishop, a native of Pompey, NY …”

“He was married in November, 1822, to Elizabeth Edwards, who was born at Marlborough, Mass., June 17, 1796. Mrs. Bishop had been a girlhood friend of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, who had preceded her to Hawaii as a missionary, some four years earlier.”

Missionaries that served at the Kailua-Kona Mission Station, whose principal church was Moku‘aikaua, included, Asa Thurston, Thomas Holman, Artemas Bishop, James Ely, Delia Stone and Seth L Andrews.

Back to the naming of the road … Hawaiian Place Names notes the reference to the Land Commission Award Book and Tax Map, apparently, all references are linked to the Land Commission decisions.

Early references to ‘Sarona’ are found in the Land Commission Awards (LCA) Book 3 related to awards to Leleiōhoku. Leleiōhoku was son of Kalanimōku; Leleiōhoku married Princess Ruth (Keʻelikōlani).

On August 30, 1851, the Land Commission records note LCA 1028 and LCA 9971 Apana 46 and 47 (as well as many other parcels) were in a partial list of lands agreed upon by the Mahele to belong to the more important Aliis and Chiefs and confirmed to Leleiōhoku by Award of the Commission to Quiet Land Titles.

Mapping for LCA 1028 noted ‘Ala Ololi Sarona’ (Narrow Sharon Path) as a boundary and mauka of the parcel the trail/road is noted as ‘Ala Ololi Pii Sarona’ (Narrow Sharon Path going up).

Mapping for the LCA 9971 Apana parcels 46 and 47 note “Alanui Sarona” (Sharon Road/Trail) as a boundary. The ‘Alanui’ reference suggests larger trails/road.

LCA 9971 Apana 47 also notes Alanui Tatina (now spelled Kakina) as a boundary – Tatina was the Hawaiian name for Thurston. Alanui Tatina is likely the trail used by the Thurstons that lead from their home, ‘Laniakea’, down into Kailua-Kona).

Given its location, the early reference of the name (1851), the biblical nature of the name, the religious passion of Asa Thurston, Artemas Bishop and the other missionaries and their families, it is plausible (probable) that Sarona Road was named by the missionaries and was a trail used by the Hawaiians from the surrounding area to get to Moku‘aikaua Church.

By Resolution 288, dated January 19, 1956, the Hawai‘i County Board of Supervisors approved the ‘Naming of Streets in Kailua Keahou [sic] Area, Kona’; the list of ten streets included Sarona Road.

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Kona

“The story of the Polynesians began about 6,000 years ago when a seafaring people traveled from Asia or Melanesia to the islands of Samoa and Tonga. Their descendants eventually sailed east to Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.  Later they sailed south to New Zealand, east to Easter Island, and north to the Hawaiian Islands.”

“By A.D. 1200, the ancient Polynesians voyagers had settled nearly every habitable island over some ten million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.” (Hawaiian Encyclopedia A Comprehensive Guide To The Hawaiian Islands History, Culture, Native Species, Science)

“Polynesian is part of a subgroup of Austronesian called Oceanic which includes all the Austronesian languages of Polynesia, Island Melanesia, coastal New Guinea east of 136 degrees East longitude, and Micronesian languages other than two Western Micronesian languages: Chamorro (Mariana Islands) and Belauan (Belau, formerly Palau).”

“[I]t is clear that Proto Polynesian speech and culture (ca. 1-300 A.D.) was a product of something like 1000 years of development in fair isolation from the outside world. ‘Polynesian’ language and culture did not arrive fully formed in Polynesia.”

“The language and culture of the early Oceanic Austronesian speaking settlers who gave rise to the modern cultures we observe in Polynesia were greatly transformed in Polynesia itself before internal diversification became pronounced.”

“‘Polynesian; language and culture ‘came from’ the west as most people have long imagined, but it wasn’t Polynesian when it arrived. It became Polynesian in situ, differentiating from a linguistic and cultural base originating in Insular Southeast Asia and initially transformed as it spread across Melanesia towards Polynesia over a period of hundreds of years.” (Jeff Marck)

“Sikaiana legends record an invasion from ‘Tona’ about 12-14 generations ago in their genealogies (from the 1980s). They associate Tona with Tonga, although Tona is a common Polynesian word for “south” and many Western Polynesian societies have similar legends of people from the ‘south.’” (Kutztown University)

“The people of Tonga (correctly pronounced tona, as in ‘Kona’, Hawaii) met Captain Cook with such warm greetings that he called the islands of Tonga the ‘Friendly Islands’”. (NOAA)

“’[T]onga’ means ‘south’ in the Tongan language and refers to the country’s geographic position in relation to central Polynesia”. (CIA)

Dictionaries state, “Hawaiian Dictionary – Kona 1. nvs. Leeward sides of the Hawaiian Islands; leeward (PPN [Proto-Polynesian language] Tonga.)

“[Parker Dictionary (Hawaiian)] Kona (kō’-na), n. 1. South (opposite of koolau, which is north). 2. The southwest wind; also the south wind. 3. The rain accompanying a south wind: He ua kona, he ua nui loa ia; a kona rain is a very great rain.  4. The south or southwest sides of the Hawaiian islands.”

“In all probability, Tonga and Tona or Kona, the name of a district … of Hawaii, are one and the same word; and, to give an instance of which there can be no doubt, tangata, the Samoan for man, has been softened into the Hawaiian tanata or Kanaka.” (Sir George Simpson, An Overland Journey Round the World (1841-1842))

“Explorers are not new to the Kingdom of Tonga (Pule’anga Fakatu’i ‘o Tonga), an archipelago of 176 islands south of Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean. The Dutch were some of the earliest explorers to arrive on the island in the 17th century, followed by other Europeans, including Captain James Cook of the British Navy.”

“As a word, ‘Kona’ is often translated as ‘leeward’. But the full meaning invites explication.  The word is of ancient origin and exists across the Austronesian language family in other forms.  For example, further south it is spoken as ‘tonga’. And thus the name of the South Pacific island chain and Nation.”

“What kona land areas are leeward of is the direction of the trade winds. Within the Hawaiian island chain, four of the six major islands contain district names Kona by original Hawaiian settlers.”

“The indigenous geographic concept of kona is more than simply a directional relationship. Kona districts have particular environments created by the specific microclimates that exist from being leeward.” (Jolliffe)

“The expressions Tonga, Kona, Toa (Sam., Haw., Tah.), to indicate the quarter of an island or of the wind, between the south and west, and Tokelau, Toerau, Koolau (Sam., Tah., Haw.), to indicate the opposite directions from north to east …”

“… expressions universal throughout Polynesia, and but little modified by subsequent local circumstances point strongly to a former habitat in lands where the regular monsoons prevailed.”

“Etymologically ‘Tonga,’ ‘Kona,’ contracted from ‘To-anga’ or ‘Ko-ana,’ signifies ‘the setting,’ seil. of the sun. ‘Toke-lau,’ of which the other forms are merely dialectical variations, signifies ‘the cold, chilly sea.’” (Fornander I)

“Mr. Hale, in the Ethnological portion of the United States Exploring Expedition under Commodore Wilkes, considers the application of Tonga to the south-western quarter as subsequent to the dispersion of the Polynesians in the Pacific (vid. p. 180).”

“But Mr. Hale, in the very same article, has very lucidly shown that ‘Tonga’ was a term applied to the very first settlement of the Polynesians in the Pacific, on Viti-Iewu, signifying ‘the Western,’ seil. people, in contradistinction from the Viti proper, or ‘Eastern’ people.”

“Hence it is reasonable to infer that the Polynesians brought the term with them as an already existing appellation of the western quarter, as much so as they did the other term of ‘Toke-lau,’ to designate the eastern quarter. (Fornander I)

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Thomas James King

Thomas James King was born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, Nov. 8, 1842, the son of Richard and Elizabeth King. His father was a contractor and builder.  The family moved from New Brunswick, when he was a boy; his father set up a planing mill in San Francisco.

His school days were finished in San Francisco, and when only fourteen years old he went to work, trying his hand at ranching before entering the mill.

On December 13, 1870 in Vallejo, Calif., he married Josephine Wundenberg and they had two sons and three daughters, Thomas V. and L. C. King, Mrs. C. M. V. Forster and Mrs. Clifford Kimball of Honolulu and Mrs. Charles A. Rice of Kauai.

Mr. King’s training for the organization of his own business began upon his arrival in Honolulu in 1883. He immediately went to work for the Union Feed Co. as manager of the hay and grain departments, remaining there until he and his brother-in-law, J. N. Wright, organized the California Feed Co., which was incorporated in 1895 under the same name, California Feed Co., Ltd.

“Messers TJ King and JN Wright have formed a partnership under the name of the ‘California Feed Co.’” (Evening Bulletin, Sep 23, 1890) in a newspaper notice  …

“To Live Stock Owners The California Feed Co has formed for the purpose of selling hay, grain, etc, at a price so low that you will be astonished. …”

“We have had 7 years experience in the business with the Union Feed Co, and we think we know the people’s wants in our line, as well as the prices they ought to pay”

“All we want is the patronage of the consumers, and in a very short time they will find out that we are working in their interest as well as our own.”

“We do not want you to think we are going to do all this for love, such is not the case; but we intend to do a large business, and by strict attention to it, on very close margins make good fair wages.” Signed TJ King and JN Wright (Evening Bulletin, Sept 22, 1890)

Opening his office and warehouse in the old stables of the former monarch,  King Kalākaua, in 1890, Mr. King’s business remained there until growth of the  city brought about its removal to the old Custom House, at the foot of Nuuanu St., and in 1912 a site at Alakea and Queen streets was purchased and a warehouse erected in the center of a grove of coconut palms.

Architect HL Kerr managed bids for construction of “the big concrete warehouse and office building to be erected at Alakea and Queen streets by the California Feed Co, Ltd.” (Evening Bulletin, June 15, 1912) The California Feed Co warehouse and office on Queen and Alakea streets was built for $15,000. (Star Bulletin, Dec 31, 1912)

At first the store dealt only in hay and grain, but gradually poultry food, wholesale groceries, provisions and canned goods were added, and the company, under the direction of Thomas V. and L. C. King, sons of Thomas J. King, handled all these commodities.

Mr. King was always keenly interested in the organization of new lines of endeavor, and aided many struggling new industries and concerns. Throughout his career as a businessman he was constantly called upon to make investments to assist new companies.  Many of these were successful, and at the time of his death Mr. King had extensive business interests.

He was vice-president and director of the Hawaiian Pineapple Co. from its organization until the time of his retirement from business; treasurer of the Oahu Lumber & Building Co., and manager of the People’s Ice Co. He was a Mason, Shriner, Odd Fellow, and an active member of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce.

Thomas James King died in Honolulu, April 6, 1919.  After his death, his son, Lewis Churchill King, succeeded his father and was elected president of California Feed Co (SB, April 22, 1919), a position he held until the California Feed Co was sold to the Honolulu Dairymen’s Association in April, 1925. (Nellist)

King’s son, Thomas Victor King, built a home in 1918 designed by Emory & Webb in Nu‘uanu.  Emory & Webb designed several other local landmarks, Hawaii Theatre, the old Honolulu Advertiser building and the Hongwanji Mission Temple on Pali Highway. (The house was in a scene in ‘The Descendants’ movie.) (Lots here from Nellist)

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Paper Star Lei

“We therefore recommend again and again, to the curious investigators of the stars to whom, when our lives are over, these observations are entrusted, that they, mindful of our advice, apply themselves to the undertaking of these observations vigorously.”

“And for them we desire and pray for all good luck, especially that they be not deprived of this coveted spectacle by the unfortunate obscuration of cloudy heavens, and that the immensities of the celestial spheres, compelled to more precise boundaries, may at last yield to their glory and eternal fame.” (Sir Edmond Halley (1656-1742))

Venus orbits the Sun within Earth’s orbit, so it occasionally happens that as seen from Earth, the disk of Venus passes across the Sun. It appears as a diminutive black spot, barely 1/30th the diameter of the Sun. With the right atmospheric conditions to soften the intense sunlight, an unobstructed horizon, and enough advance warning, a keen eye can spot the transit at sunrise or sunset. (LOC)

There have been fifty-two transits of Venus across the face of the Sun since 2000 B.C., but until 1643 A.D., no human was known to have observed this astronomical rarity. (LOC)

“History says that Jeremiah Horrocks was the first human to ever witness a transit by Venus in 1639, but could other more ancient people have also seen it too?” (Odenwald)

In 1769 Benjamin Franklin published an article in the journal of the Royal Society of London presenting the transit of Venus observations of Messrs. Biddle and Bayley.

Some historians credit this account from pre-revolutionary America as the first occasion on which American science went on display before the international community. (LOC)

Astronomers quickly discovered that by measuring the transit, the distance from the Sun to Earth could be calculated.

In 1761, the exact value of this number was still unknown; estimates ranged from 5 million to over 150 million miles. Without its precise value, astronomers could not deduce the physical size of our solar system, or the dimensions of the universe beyond the solar system’s outer reaches. The size, mass, and radiant power of our Sun were also left ill-defined. (LOC)

In May 1768 James Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and given command of the bark Endeavour. He was instructed to sail to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus and also to ascertain whether a continent existed in the southern latitudes of the Pacific Ocean. (National Library of Australia)

On June 3, 1769, Cook, naturalist Joseph Banks, astronomer Charles Green and naturalist Daniel Solander recorded the transit of Venus from the island of Tahiti.

Then, “Early in 1869, one hundred years after British transit of Venus observations were made by James Cook and Charles Green from Tahiti George B. Airy, the seventh astronomer royal at Greenwich, wrote to the secretary of the Admiralty: ‘It appears from the calculations of Astronomers that there will occur, on 1874 December 8 and 1882 December 6, Transits of the planet Venus over the Sun’s Disk.’” (Chauvin)

“Eight American expeditions were fitted out in 1874, organized by the Transit of Venus Commission, with Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) as the official Secretary of the Commission. The US Congress appropriated funds totaling an astounding $177,000 for the expeditions.” (Harbster, LOC)

On September 9, 1874, fewer than seven months after the ascension to the throne of Hawai‘i King David Kalakaua, a ship from England, H.M.S. Scout, arrived in Honolulu carrying an expedition of seven astronomers.

“They came, as Captain Cook had come almost 100 years earlier, as the beneficiaries and instruments of a rich astronomical heritage that had found its visible embodiment in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich …”

“… and it was from Greenwich that Western astronomy had reached out to touch Hawai‘i in 1778, and was to do so again in 1874.”

“The mission of the 1874 expedition was to observe a rare transit of the planet Venus across the sun for the purpose of better determining the true value of the Astronomical Unit”.  (Chauvin)

“King Kalakaua manifested a personal interest in the transit of Venus operations in his kingdom. And although he was absent from the islands when the much-awaited event occurred, he visited the transit of Venus observatory, as did other members of Honolulu’s society, both before and after ‘Transit Day.’”  (Chauvin)

The King allowed the British Royal Society’s expedition a suitable piece of open land for their viewing area; it was not far from Honolulu’s waterfront in a district called Apua (mauka of today’s Waterfront Plaza.)

They built a wooden fence enclosure and soon a well-equipped nineteenth-century astronomical observatory took shape, including a transit instrument, a photoheliograph, a number of telescopes and several temporary structures including wooden observatories.

Subsequently, auxiliary stations – though not so elaborate as the main station in Honolulu – were established in two other island locations: one at Kailua-Kona and the other at Waimea, Kauai.

In addition, Hawai‘i was not the only site to observe the transit; under the British program, observations were also made in Egypt, Island of Rodriquez, Kerguelen Island and New Zealand.  (Other countries also conducted Transit observations.)

On Dec. 8, 1874, the transit was observed by the British scientists; however, the observation at Kailua-Kona was marred by clouds.  But the Honolulu and Waimea sites were considered perfect throughout the event, which lasted a little over half a day.

After the Transit of Venus observations, Kalākaua showed continued interest in astronomy, and in a letter to Captain RS Floyd on November 22, 1880, he expressed a desire to see an observatory established in Hawai‘i.  He later visited Lick Observatory in San Jose.

An outcome of the Transit event in Hawai‘i was the ‘Transit of Venus lei’ … “Old residents may recall the white paper star lei that was in vogue here in the ’70s, commemorating the Transit of Venus of 1874.”

“They were appropriately called Hoku (star), and were made of stiff, white paper, forming many points, to convey the idea of scintillation. They were fashionable for some time, for hair or hat decoration, and were known to foreigners as Venus leis.” (Thrum HAA, 1922)

They came under other names, as well … “We have seen men, women, and children greatly engrossed in decorating their hats with this kind of lei. These are the names we have heard, “the hooulu lahui lei of Kalakaua,” “the Astronomer lei,” and “paper star lei.” (Ka Lahui Hawaii, Buke I, Helu 1, Aoao 1. Ianuari 1, 1875)

(International expeditions and observers soon refined this astronomical unit (an “astronomical unit” is the scientific term for a unit of measure equal to the average distance from Earth to the Sun) to 95 million miles by 1769, and then to 92.79 million miles by 1891.)

(During the twentieth century, the same radar technology that astronomers use to map the face of Mercury, or study the rings of Saturn, has yielded a precise value for the distance between the Sun and Earth of 92.9558203 million miles, with a margin of error of less than a few miles.) (LOC)

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Tanomoshi

“The establishment of a cash economy and community of foreigners in Hawai‘i during the early years of the Pacific whaling industry also led to the development of commercial fisheries in the waters around the islands.”  (Schug)

Then came sugar … A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge.  The only answer was imported labor. 

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.)  The sugar industry grew, so did the Chinese population in Hawaiʻi.  Concerned that the Chinese were taking too strong a representation in the labor market, the government passed laws reducing Chinese immigration.  Further government regulations, introduced 1886-1892, virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration.

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government and an economic depression in Japan served as motivation for agricultural workers to move from their homeland.  (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company City of Tokio on February 8, 1885.  Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885.

With the Japanese government satisfied with treatment of the immigrants, a formal immigration treaty was concluded between Hawaiʻi and Japan on January 28, 1886.

“Japanese social conventions compelled established residents in Hawai’i to offer guidance and support to new arrivals, who could expect assistance especially from ken-jin, fellow immigrants from the same region of Japan.”

“The transition to American society was eased for Japanese immigrants by the establishment of tightly knit communities. … These cohesive communities were important sources of financial and social capital for budding entrepreneurs.” (Schug)

“Plantation workers had no credit and minimal income, so banks were quick to deny them loans.” (CUInsights)

“Families … banded together in times of hardship and celebration. Families not only shared their harvests, but also helped others out financially through a feudal Japanese system known as ‘tanomoshi.’  Families regularly invested to create a large sum of money to provide financial assistance.” (Nancy Iwasaki Saiki; Zentoku Foundation)

“In the Tanomoshi the Japanese have put a unique concept of co-operation into effect. Tanomoshiko as used in Western Japan comes from ‘tanomui’ which means “dependable.’”

“The procedure seems to have originated in pooling contributions to a given fund and drawing lots to see who might go on pilgrimages to the shrines and temples. During the early part of the Tokugawa Period  [1603–1867],Tanomoshi took on a definite economic meaning.” (Bogardus)

“If a man needs money to pay debts, to build a house, or to bear the expenses of marrying off his daughter, he invites a group of friends, usually on payday, to drink tea.”

“There is no limit to the uses of the tanomoshi. One group of women held a five dollar one until they all had wrist watches. Among men a suit tanomoshi is favored.” (Bradford Smith)

Tanomoshi required mutual trust among its members because these loans did not have collateral. Families trusted one another that loans would be paid back and acted in the best interest of the community.  (Kanase, Zentoku Foundation)

Tanomoshi is an informal collaborative funding pool that participants can draw on.  Call it venture capital.  The system is somewhat intricate and was used to fund hundreds of businesses and other ventures. (HPR)

“The tanomoshi-ko is normally promoted by a person who is in urgent need of money. Suppose, for instance, he needs $100 and decides to organize a tanomoshi.”

“He asks nine friends to subscribe $10 a month each to his tanomoshi. They meet and each deposits the $10, making the total of $100.”

“The first month’s receipts always go to the promoter, who gets the entire amount, interest free.”

“Because the promoter is not required to pay interest to the other members, who must thereafter pay interest besides their $10 when they want to use the capital, the tanomoshi is often described as ‘aid for a friend in need,’ insofar as the promoter is concerned.”

“Each month thereafter for nine months, all the members contribute their regular $10 shares and, depending upon their immediate needs, bid for the use of the capital.”

“At all subsequent meetings, the members who wish to draw the principal submit bids of the interest they are willing to pay for the use of the money.”

“At times there is considerable competition for the use of the capital. The member making the highest bid gets the principal for the month, but he must also pay each shareholder the amount of interest he bids.”

“If the highest bid in the second month is $2, the bidder has to pay this amount to each member what has not received his share. Thus, he would have to pay out a total of $16 to the eight members whose shares have not been drawn, leaving him with $84.”

“After a person draws his share, he does not benefit thereafter from interest payments, although he continues to make his monthly payments until the tanomoshi has run its course.” [“When everyone has had the pot, the ko ends.” (Bradford Smith)]

“Each member before receiving his share must have two persons stand witnesses for him. These witnesses must be members of the ko.”

“If a borrower can not finish his payments after drawing his share, the witnesses are obliged to meet his payments thereafter. If tanomoshi they cannot pay, their share is withheld from them.”   (SB Nov 4, 1939)

“Private money clubs or mutual financial aid and saving associations are commonly identified as one of the contributing factors to high small business ownership rates among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean immigrants in the United States.” (Yoon)

“While the first tanomoshi groups were bound by a shared ethnicity or culture, they soon evolved into circles of individuals that had common jobs or interests. From those groups, credit unions were born.” (CUInsights)

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