Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Toilet Paper, Bottled Water …

Folks in Hawai‘i have developed a scarcity mentality – whenever the wind blows, it rains hard or someone gets a hint of a possible dock strike on the West Coast there is a run on toilet paper, bottled water and any number of ‘essentials.’

Maui Mento Braddah helps show this …

“Historically the first modern toilet paper was made in 1391, when it was created for the needs of the Chinese Emperor family. Each sheet of toilet paper was even perfumed. That was toilet paper as we have come to think of it.”

“In the late fifteenth century, paper became widely available. However, mass manufacturing of modern toilet paper began in the late 19th century.”

“Joseph C. Gayetty created the first commercially packaged toilet paper in 1857. His toilet papers were loose, flat, sheets of paper. Joseph founded The Gayetty Firm for toilet paper production in New Jersey and his first factory-made toilet paper was ‘The Therapeutic Paper.’”

“Thomas Seymour, Edward Irvin and Clarence Wood Scott began selling some kind of toilet paper in Philadelphia in 1867. In 1879, Scott brothers founded the Scott Paper Company. The Scott Paper Company’s toilet paper was the first toilet paper sold in rolls. In 1890 the Scott Paper Company made its Waldorf brand toilet paper in rolls.”

“In 1871, Zeth Wheeler patents rolled and perforated toilet paper. In 1877 he founded the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company. In 1897, company began selling and marketing standard perforated toilet paper on a roll.”  (Toilet Paper History)

The average person in the US uses about 100 rolls of toilet paper each year. The US has been mass producing toilet paper since the late 1800s. And while other industries like shoe manufacturing have fled the country, toilet paper manufacturing has not. Today there are almost 150 US companies making this product.  (Zagorsky)

“In Honolulu the issue is tissue. And you don’t ask for the salt and pepper. You ask for salt and paper.”

“Toilet paper and salt have all but vanished from the shelves of Hawaii’s stores as a result of the 100‐day West Coast shipping strike that has largely cut off the fleet of ships that normally brings supplies to Hawaii from San Francisco, 2,400 miles east.” (NY Times Oct 19, 1971)

But we have not been alone; back in 1974, “Johnny Carson told his faithful late-night television audience. ‘But have you heard the latest? I’m not kidding. I saw it in the paper. There’s a shortage of toilet paper.’” (NY Times, Feb 3, 1974)

“The day after Carson read the clipping (and made a few jokes) about the ‘toilet paper shortage’ people didn’t realize the story had been about commercial toilet paper and there was a surge of panic buying of consumer-grade toilet paper.”

“This resulted in the stores selling out of the toilet paper they had on the shelves — which of course reinforced the rumor of a toilet paper shortage.” (Snopes)

Back then (1974) the New York Times was suggesting folks on the continent were getting what folks in Hawai‘i already had … a “‘shortage psychology,’ almost an eagerness among many Americans to anticipate the next shortage. Such an attitude, brought on by shortages of gasoline, electricity and, for a time, even onions, seems to assure no future shortage of shortage rumors.”

But, Hawai‘i is different … Hawai‘i is the most-isolated populated-place.

In 2022, Hawai‘i imported $2.52B, making it the 49th largest importer out of the 53 importers in United States. That year, Hawai‘i exported $703M, making it the 53rd largest exporter out of the 53 exporters in United States. (Observatory of Economic Complexity)

With respect to food, Hawai‘i’s local production is 9.3% of total market requirement, and the state is dependent on imports for the remaining 90.7%, mainly from the continental US.  (Loke and Leung)

And, what comes into Hawai‘i is dependent on an efficiently operating import system.  That invariably involves ships bringing these products to our shores.  And, that is dependent on the functioning docks on the continent and in the Islands.

The longshore industry is the work of loading and unloading ships’ cargoes. In the old days of clipper ships, sailings were frequently unscheduled, and labor was often recruited at the last minute by shoreside criers calling: “Men along the shore!” – giving rise to the term “longshoremen.” (ILWU)

The first longshore unions on the West Coast were founded in the 19th century. By 1902 the longshoremen were loosely affiliated with the American Federation of Labor’s International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA). But their ties to national headquarters were weak, and most returned or lost their charters within a few a years.

Initially, the longshore unions grew slowly. Each local was protective of its geographical jurisdiction and limited work opportunities, and none was eager to give up their autonomy to any federation.

“‘Almost all of our domestic cargo arrives via the West Coast ports,’ said Warren Sugimoto, administrative services officer with Hawaii’s harbors division.”

“‘If the [work stoppage] lasts awhile, it will have a major impact. If it’s very short term, the impact would be negligible.’” (Los Angeles Times)

As an example, “The International Longshore and Warehouse Union strike shut down every dock on the West Coast while bosses and union leaders fought over a new contract.”

“Hawaii residents were completely dependent on those shipments for a variety of goods – salt, rice – but none seems to have stuck in the memory like the lack of toilet paper.” (Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2020)

As indicated in the 1974 experience with the remark by Johnny Carson, shortages can develop overnight (for no apparent reason – other than someone (and a growing number of others) feels the need to have ‘enough’).

Think back to 2020, during the COVID days … businesses in Hawai‘i were rationing toilet paper and other commodities because of the ‘run’ on these items.  It seems like anything can trigger the next, at any time.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Roughing It

“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 first impressions of Honolulu – from that series, as well as his other writing.

“This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science.”

“Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes.” …

“On the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond Head”.

“So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich Islands – those islands which to me were Paradise; a Paradise which I had been longing all those years to see again.  Not any other thing in the world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did.” 

“On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in sight, lying low on the lonely sea, and everybody climbed to the upper deck to look.  After two thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a welcome one.”

“As we approached, the imposing promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the ocean its rugged front softened by the hazy distance, and presently the details of the land began to make themselves manifest …”

“… first the line of beach; then the plumed coacoanut trees of the tropics; then cabins of the natives; then the white town of Honolulu, said to contain between twelve and fifteen thousand inhabitants spread over a dead level; with streets from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of them straight as a line and few as crooked as a corkscrew.”

“The further I traveled through the town the better I liked it.”

“Every step revealed a new contrast–disclosed something I was unaccustomed to. In place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of San Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, adobies, and cream-colored pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral, cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement ….”

“… also a great number of neat white cottages, with green window-shutters; in place of front yards like billiard-tables with iron fences around them, I saw these homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad with green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose dense foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate …”

“… in place of the customary geranium, calla lily, etc., languishing in dust and general debility, I saw luxurious banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest dyes …”

“… in place of the dingy horrors of San Francisco’s pleasure grove, the “Willows,” I saw huge-bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange names and stranger appearance –trees that cast a shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand alone without being tied to green poles …”

“… in place of gold fish, wiggling around in glass globes, assuming countless shades and degrees of distortion through the magnifying and diminishing qualities of their transparent prison houses, I saw cats …

“… Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep.”

“I looked on a multitude of people, some white, in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on every morning …”

“… but the majority of the people were almost as dark as negroes–women with comely features, fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the voluptuous, clad in a single bright red or white garment that fell free and unconfined from shoulder to heel …”

“… long black hair falling loose, gypsy hats, encircled with wreaths of natural flowers of a brilliant carmine tint; plenty of dark men in various costumes, and some with nothing on but a battered stove-pipe hat tilted on the nose, and a very scant breech-clout; –certain smoke-dried children were clothed in nothing but sunshine –a very neat fitting and picturesque apparel indeed.”  (Twain)

Like they get to a lot of people, the Islands struck a chord with Clemens.

“I was there for four or five months, and returned to find myself about the best known man on the Pacific Coast.” (Twain)  Popular pieces, some credit the series with turning Twain into a journalistic star.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kilauea Iki Eruption – 1959

Volcanologists knew something was coming.

Between November 1957 and February 1959 measurements from newly installed sensitive tiltmeter bases around the summit indicated that the whole caldera region was tilting outward, apparently because magma was welling up from the mantle and accumulating in the reservoir several miles beneath the caldera.

Between August 14 and 19, 1959, a swarm of deep earthquakes was recorded on the seismographs at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. The earthquakes were located about 35-miles below the volcano.

By October, tilt surveys of the caldera, using the new water-tube tiltmeter network, indicated that the summit reservoir of Kīlauea was beginning to inflate with new magma. Scientists later concluded that magma began its upward journey during the August swarm.

Another series of earthquakes – shallow tiny events beneath the caldera – began in mid-September near Halema‘uma‘u Crater. By November 1, more than 1,000 tiny earthquakes were being recorded per day.

Scientists conducted another caldera tilt survey during the second week of November and discovered it was swelling at least three times faster than during the previous months. Magma was moving into the summit reservoir at a high rate.

During the afternoon of November 14, earthquakes beneath the caldera suddenly increased about tenfold in both number and intensity. For five hours, the entire Kīlauea summit region shook as seismic tremor signaled magma was forcing its way from the summit reservoir toward the surface.

An erupting fissure of small lava fountains broke through the south wall of Kīlauea Iki Crater at 8:08 p.m. In the first 24 hours, activity decreased and then eventually ceased at the outermost fissure vents. By nightfall on November 15, only a single vent on the west side of the fissure remained active.

Over the next five days, lava fountain heights fluctuated between about 650 and 980-feet, with a maximum fountain height of 1,247-feet.

A brand new cinder cone called Puʻupuaʻi (translates to “gushing hill”) was formed. As cinder and spatter rapidly accumulated to form Puʻupua‘i, slabs of congealed spatter occasionally broke loose and slid down the cone into the churning lava lake.

The 1959 summit eruption occurred in Kilauea Iki, a collapse crater adjacent to the main summit caldera of Kilauea. There were 17 eruptive ‘episodes’ (or phase) of the eruption which ranged in duration from 1 week to 1¾-hours..

On December 17, episode 15 produced lava fountains that were approximately 1,900-feet high, the highest recorded in Hawaii during the 20th century.

That’s about three times the size of the Washington Monument. That’s also 124 feet higher than the tallest building in the US now: One World Trade Center. (CNN)

Downwind from high lava fountains, forests suffered tremendous damage. Trees were stripped of leaves and branches – or completely buried – by falling cinder. You can now walk through this area of the National Park; it’s called ‘Devastation Trail.’

A few ōhi‘a trees, dead and bleached, poke up through the pumice and very gradually some ōhi‘a, ōhelo and ferns are beginning to recolonize the dead zone (unfortunately, some blackberry, too.)

Here is a video of the eruption (unfortunately, there is no sound, the sound of an eruption is as impressive as the visual):

The lava lake attained its greatest depth (414 feet) and volume (58 million cubic yards) at the end of the eighth phase on December 11, 1959. The eruption ended December 20, 1959.

When we were kids, living on Kāne‘ohe Bay on O‘ahu, whenever the eruption happened we’d go to the Big Island to see it, including the 1959 eruption of Kīlauea Iki.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Months

Mahina, the moon, was the goddess who kept time for the Hawaiian. Mahina was more important to everyday life than the sun or the stars.

It was the duty of certain priests trained as astronomers to keep the annual calendar and watch the moon to determine just when certain tabu should be placed on the fish or land.

A proper planting season for the farmer depended upon the time as announced by the astronomer. The bird catcher, the canoe builder and many other craftsmen depended upon the astronomer’s announcement of the correct Mahina. (Taylor)

The Kilokilo (observer of the sly for omens) was an important person generally attached to the court of a king or to the temple of the king’s high priest. He was an astronomer priest, versed in the language of the stars.

The rising and the setting of the moon marked a day for the Hawaiian, only he did not call the time a day, he called it a night. The appearance of the new moon and the death of the old moon marked the month for the Hawaiian, which he called Mahina. Twelve such moons made a year for him.

The importance of knowing the passing of a year was to know when to celebrate the Makahiki, the great harvest festival. It was important to know just when the festival should be celebrated because it coincided with the coming of the god Lono on a visit to each district in the Islands. (Taylor)

The Hawaiian divided his calendar into the space of a year composed of 12 months or moons. He did not control the division of time known as a year by the sun, as we do, but by a small group of stars which we call the Pleiades and he called Makalii (small eyes).

There are many bright and beautiful stars with whom the Hawaiian was familiar and by which he might have regulated his calendar. Instead, he chose to regulate it by the rising and setting of this small constellation of seven stars. As a result, he considered the Pleiades the most important stars in the heavens.

Just why the Pleiades were selected as the regulator of the year is lost in antiquity. Most Asiatic, all the Pacific Island peoples and some Indian tribes use the rising and setting of the Pleiades as the regulator of the year.

The “Small Eyes” are to be seen on the eastern horizon about the middle of November each year. They travel across the sky for six months on the Black Shining Road of Kane and set about the middle of June in a pit located in the western sky. (Taylor)

In attempting to keep an ancient moon calendar, it is essential to know when to correct the moon calendar so that the seasons will correspond with the sun. That is the secret of the ancient astronomer which we do not know.

King Kalakaua said the astronomer corrected his calendar by adding five bonus days at the end of the Makahiki each year. Other old Hawaiians say that the astronomer simply knew when to add extra days or an extra month. (Taylor)

It is evident from the various accounts of the naming of the months of the year that the same names occurred in the various islands but that they were not applied to the same months. (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

Traditional month names are Ka‘elo, Kaulua, Nana, Welo, Ikiiki, Ka‘aona, Hina‘ia‘ele‘ele, Mahoe Mua, Mahoe Hope, Ikua, Welehu and Makali‘i.

The names of the months varied on each Island and within moku (districts) on each island, a result of the different methods the astronomer priest used to calculate days and months.

Apparently, astronomers on the different Islands and in the different districts had various methods of adjusting the calendar because we know that the names of the months varied on each Island. (Taylor)

The months of the pre-contact Hawaiian were lunar months, each beginning with the appearance of a new moon and lasting 29 or 30 nights until the appearance of the next new moon. Each night of the month had its individual name.

All authorities seem to agree that there were 12 named months. However, there is considerable disagreement as to their names, some disagreement as to their sequence, and evidence that the nomenclature both varied from island to island and was subject to change with time. (Schmitt & Cox)

Hawaiians divided the year into two seasons: Ka‘u, or Summer, when it was dry and hot (beginning in May when the Pleiades set at sunrise).  The other part of the year was Ho‘oilo (beginning in October), when it was rainy and chilly. (Handy, Hany & Pukui)  There were six months in Ka‘u and six in Ho‘oilo.

While most authorities agree that the months were grouped into two seasons, there is considerable disagreement as to the names of the seasons and the details of the grouping. Some, moreover, report three or four seasons. (Schmitt & Cox)

The lunar cycle was reconciled with the sidereal year (of or relating to stars or constellations) by the insertion of an extra month about once in three years.

The passage of sidereal was noted by the date on which the Pleiades were seen to rise just after sunset. However, the exact rule governing the insertion of the extra month, the point of its insertion in the sequence of the 12 named months, and the name given to the extra month have, apparently, all been forgotten. (Schmitt & Cox)

(Check out the attached images that further explain the names, what actions happen during certain months and some of the differences in names assigned to the calendar names we are used to (January through December).

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lewalewa Settlement

“[Gilbert] Islanders were brought [to Hawai‘i] in different ships under contracts for labor work during the years 1880 and 1882. In the contract was a clause agreeing to ship the Gilbert Islanders back to their homes after conclusion of the contracts.”

“[Many] of them were employed on Koloa plantation, Kauai, and a large proportion were taken back according to agreement. Others remained. It is stated, voluntarily. Many it is claimed were not offered passages.  During their stay here the Islanders have kept themselves in colonies.” (Hawaiian Gazette, Oct 16, 1903)

“An outcome of the scattering of poor South Sea Islanders after the destruction of Chinatown in January of last year, was the building of a mushroom village of shacks within the breakwater on the Waikiki side of the channel [into Honolulu Harbor]”. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Sep 9, 1901)

By that time, residential construction began with the filling of fishponds, marshes and mudflats starting with the area closest to downtown Honolulu; Kakaʻako flourished as a residential settlement where immigrant workers joined the Hawaiian community to form areas such as Squattersville, a shantytown which sprang up along the district’s makai border.  (KSBE)

“Within this rock wall enclosure several sand spits have been formed by the action of the tides, and upon these the homeless and destitute people from the South Seas built their squalid homes”.

“That these people are poverty stricken is evidenced by the makeshift affairs which they call their homes. Driftwood, boards secured from any chance place, pieces of tin, boxes, crates and general debris are the component parts of these odd, misshapen structures, which they have erected to shelter them.”

“Picturesque as the village may seem to the stranger who visits it, the Board of Health has determined that cleanliness shall be the first rule of the place”.  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Sep 9, 1901)

“For some time many [of the Gilbert Islanders] lived in a settlement of huts on sand enclosed by the stone wall built, into the sea at Kakaako, back of the Quarantine wharf.”

“There they supported themselves by fishing, the women assisting by braiding hats and mats. … The Gilbert Islands being a British protectorate the colonies here are under the control of that country and British Consul Hoare has taken a strong interest in the matter of sending them home.” (Hawaiian Gazette, Oct 16, 1903)

“The Lewalewa settlement, or the South Sea Island settlement, as it is more commonly known, which has existed on the breakwater enclosure beyond the boathouses, for several months, is doomed.”

“The Board of Health says that too many deaths from tuberculosis have occurred there, and with the co-operation of Captain Merry, who has charge of the Naval Station here, it is hoped that the settlement may be removed.”

“Since the plague of last year this sand spit, protected by the stone breakwater, has been a refuge for the poverty-stricken South Sea Islanders. They built small shacks of driftwood, and almost anything that would keep out wind and rain, and have eked out a miserable existence”.

“Yesterday the question of the health of the inhabitants of that interesting village was brought up and the statement made that there was at present too much tuberculosis in the place. Deaths have been numerous from this cause, and it was declared that a change of conditions must take place there.” (PCA, June 6, 1901) They later moved to Kalihi. (PCA, Oct 16, 1903)

Later, “Acting Governor Atkinson and Superintendent of Public Works Holloway had a meeting this morning with the representatives of seventeen families of Hawaiians who have ‘squatted’ on land in Kakaako and who were served with notices of eviction at the instance of Mrs. Ward, owner of the property.”

“It appears that the Hawaiians were living principally by fishing in the private fishing right adjoining the land. As a result, it was impossible to lease the fishery.”

“The Hawaiians are all poor people and arrangements are being made to find them homes elsewhere. ‘We hope to place them on lands In Kalihi where they will be all right,’ said the Acting Governor, ‘and thus all parties will be satisfied.’”

“Aside from the fishery proposition complaints were made that the colony of squatters was a somewhat noisy one.” (Hawaiian Star, May 25, 1906)

Even later, a much larger settlement on the ‘Ewa side of Kewalo at Kaʻākaukukui, near the former location of Incinerator Number One at Kaka‘ako, was referred to as “Squattersville” because the residents lived without authorization on land belonging to the Territory of Hawai‘i.

The dwellings that lined the shoreline, where the present Olomehani Street now runs, were protected from the ocean by a low seawall about three feet high.

The community of about 700 Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians was evicted in May 1926 and their homes were razed. The City and County of Honolulu constructed two incinerators and an ash dump at Kewalo (what we now call Kakaʻako Makai).

Despite its use as a refuse dump, the Kaʻākaukukui area continued to be heavily utilized as a fishing and swimming area. (HABS Report)

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