Prominent People | Page 122 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 4, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

EE Black

He was born Everette Earl Black. His company was called EE Black; folks called him ‘Johnny’.

“My partner that worked in the same stuff with me in the mine – I think we’d been in and had a beer, as I remember, and had come out that here was this good-looking girl and her mother, older woman, standing on the corner.”

“I said, ‘I’ll bet you a buck I can make mother and all.’ So I went up to her and I said, ‘Good evening.’ She had to introduce me to her mother and she called me Johnny Jones and the Johnny stuck.”

Black “was born on a log cabin ten miles from Terre Haute”, Indiana in 1889. His father “was originally a farmer, and then a carpenter, then a railroad car builder – freight cars first and then passenger cars later – for the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

“(W)e were what they called poor honest people. … I started selling papers on the street when I was nine years old, and as I got older I had a paper route and I had a paper route all the way through engineering school till I was twenty-two.” He also sold drawing instruments for Keuffel Instrument Agency.

“I graduated actually in electrical engineering. I was offered a job – I don’t know whether it was Westinghouse or General Electric now – at fourteen cents an hour, ten hours a day, six days a week. I was doing better than that with the rackett I had selling papers and instruments and stuff like that, so I wasn’t interested.”

So I had an uncle in Victor, Colorado on the old (Portland Mining Company) gold mine and I shook him down for a job, so I worked in the gold mine for a year after I graduated and got a little money ahead … I didn’t have the education sufficient to give me a chance to go up … So I left to Salt Lake and got a job at the Garfield Smelter”.

He and George Collins “got seventy- five dollars a month. George Collins married ‘Tillie Neumann from Honolulu here who was related to the Hackfelds who ran the H Hackfeld which is now American Factors, and he had a job on the Waiahole tunnel to develop water for the high cane fields”.

“He wired me that there was a job for $150.00 if I wanted it, because I’d had experience in driving tunnels. So I went back to Victor, Colorado and got my gal (Ruth Aliene Emens) and we came out here and arrived on the old Sonoma on the 10th of June, 1913.”

“Then I got a job with the US Army Engineers in fortification and river and harbor work, and l had to be a civil engineer to get over a hundred dollars, so I passed the civil engineer examination and got raised to $125. 00.”

“I worked there about three years and then I got a job with the City and County as an engineer, mostly project engineer on improvements that they were doing then, and became assistant city engineer at one time.”

“It was during this time that EF Ford had a job of paving Lusitana Street and he had a superintent … that knew less about running a job than he should have and Mr Lord was losing his shirt and he got excited.”

“I said, ‘I can do the engineering work here for the city and county and run your job, too, better that it’s being run now.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘You’re not fooling, huh?’ I said, ‘I’m sure not fooling..”

“So I went to work with the men. l used to work with them, shoveling concrete and that sort of stuff because there was a lot of handwork in those days … it changed from a losing job to a profitable job so he offered me a job working for him as an engineer assistant to him, So I went to work for him for three years.”

Black later left Lord and “got a job with an old contracting company, Hawaiian Contracting Company, and I was in charge of quite a lot of the work on the famous Doheny work tanks and piers and one thing and another down at Pearl Harbor … (I earned) my first five thousand dollar bonus that paid for my house.”

“Then Mr Lord offered me a forty percent interest in the company if I’d come back after some three years and I went back to work with him, and not too long afterwards he wanted to get out, so that he took the money and I took the plant and in 1930 it became EE Black, Limited.”

The company was originally headquartered on O‘ahu, where it maintained its own office building, maintenance/ wood working shops, steel fabricating facilities and heavy equipment storage yard. It is well tooled and financed to serve as general contractor.

In 1958, the Black Group of Companies expanded his Hawai‘i-based operations westward to Guam with the construction of 1,050 concrete single and duplex buildings for the Capehart Military Housing area at Andersen Air Force Base Guam.

In 1962 Robert Black Everett Earl’s son took control of his father’s company and formed EE Black Ltd’s subsidiary on Guam known today as Black Construction Corp.

EE Black became one of Hawai‘i’s largest contractors. “I received a tremendous amount of help from people all over this state, and it makes me feel very humble because I’ve been given credit for things that other people have come pretty near doing themselves.”

In 2008, merger of Tutor-Saliba and Perini Corporation took place which made EE Black, Ltd. a Tutor Perini company. The parent company office is located in Sylmar, California. The company eventually withdrew from Hawai‘i to focus on its operations in Guam.

Over the years, Black has developed diversity and flexibility. The increasing number of new clients as well as repeat clients enhanced its reputation, earning the company’s slogan “On Track with Black”. (EE Black) (The bulk of this information is from an oral history interview with EE ‘Johnny’ Black.)

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EE Black Cranes

August 28, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hung Wai Ching

“This is a very interesting story that I have never heard before and I have never heard of this man. He is a great leader who rises above the fear, prejudices and anger to pick up a cause to do the right thing for humanity.”

“One wonders if there was never a Hung Wai Ching, where would the Japanese Americans be today?” (Mae Kimura; Yoshinaga)

Hung Wai Ching was born on August 1, 1905, in Hawai‘i. His parents, Yei and Un Fong Ching, came to Hawaii in 1898 from the Chung Shan district of Guangdong province, China. (Ng)

At an early age, his father was killed in an accident, leaving his mother to bring up the six children under circumstances of extreme financial hardship, forcing Hung Wai to sell papers and do odd jobs to help his way through school.

He lived in the predominantly immigrant neighborhood around the Nuʻuanu YMCA. He attended Royal School and graduated in 1924 with the famous McKinley Class of ‘24, which included Hiram Fong, Chinn Ho, Masaji Marumoto and Elsie Ting (to whom he was married for 60 years.)

He graduated from the University of Hawai‘i in 1928 with a degree in civil engineering, earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1932.

He worked at the Nuʻuanu YMCA as a boys’ secretary and served as secretary of the Atherton YMCA from 1938 to 1941. (Tsukiyama)

In December 1940, he was invited to attend a meeting with the FBI, Army and Navy intelligence, and community leaders present to form the Council on Interracial Unity to prepare the people of Hawaii against the shock of imminent war and to preserve the harmonious race relations among Hawaii’s multiracial population.

When the Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the military governor appointed a Morale Division composed of Charles Loomis, Shigeo Yoshida and Hung Wai to put into effect the plans prepared by the Council of Interracial Unity.

The Morale Division served as bridge between the military government and the civilian community, in particular with the Emergency Service Committee composed of leaders of the Japanese American community.

Ching reported to Col. Kendall J. Fielder of Army Intelligence charged with the internal security of Hawai‘i and also reported to FBI Chief Agent Robert L. Shivers.

There were any number of Japanese in Hawaii who unbeknownst to them were either not detained or were released from internment because of Hung Wai Ching’s intervention on their behalf.

In the first few weeks of the war, the military governor assigned Col. Fielder a quota of Japanese to be picked up each day, but upon consultation with Ching, Fielder refused to make indiscriminate quota arrests, even at the risk of court-martial and his military career.

In January 1942, when all soldiers of Japanese ancestry were discharged from the Hawai‘i Territorial Guard, comprised of UH ROTC students, Ching met, counselled and persuaded these confused, bitter and disillusioned Nisei dischargees to offer themselves to the Military Governor for war time service as a non-combat labor battalion.

The petition of 170 Nisei volunteers was accepted by the Military Governor who assigned this group to the 34 Combat Engineers at Schofield Barracks as a labor and construction corps, popularly to become known as the ‘Varsity Victory Volunteers.’ As Father of the VVVs, Ching showed off the VVVs at every opportunity to military, intelligence and governmental officials.

In late-December 1942, Ching was asked to escort Assistant Secretary of War John J McCloy around military installations on O‘ahu and made certain that McCloy witnessed the VVV volunteers at work in the field.

A few weeks later in January 1943, the War Department announced its decision to form a volunteer all Nisei combat team. This is exactly what the VVV had been working for, so its members disbanded so that they could volunteer for the newly conceived 442nd.

Ching then adopted the 442nd in place of the disbanded VVV and thereafter dedicated himself to seeing that the Nisei got every fair opportunity to prove their loyalty.

“Who knows if we would’ve had a 442nd if it wasn’t for all the things Hung Wai did.” (Tsukiyama)

Through his Morale Division job, Ching met with some very high and influential people, including President Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt, but he never used these contacts to benefit himself.

During a 1943 visit to the White House, Ching used the occasion to brief the president on the wartime situation in Hawaii, how well Sen. Emmons and the FBI were handling the “Japanese situation” and assuring him that there was no necessity for a mass evacuation of Japanese from Hawai‘i.

Ching had no question about the loyalty of Japanese he had known all of his life, but he knew that the general American public would never be convinced of the loyalty of Japanese Americans until they could shed their 4-C (enemy alien) status, get back into military service and fight and even die for their country.

The greatest contributions made by Hung Wai Ching were his outspoken affirmation of the loyalty of Japanese Americans and the direct part he played in the long struggle of Japanese Americans to regain that opportunity to bear arms and to prove their ultimate loyalty to America. (Tsukiyama)

After the war Ching became a real estate broker and land developer, as well as continuing to be a leader in the community, serving on several community and company boards. He, along with his brother Hung Wo Ching, helped found Aloha Airlines. (Ng) (Lots of information here from Tsukiyama, Yoshinaga, Gee and Ng.)

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Hung Wai Ching

August 26, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mānoa – Home of Hawai‘i’s Commercial Agricultural Ventures

Mānoa translates as “wide or vast” and is descriptive of the wide valley that makes up the inland portion of the ahupuaʻa of Waikiki. The existence of heiau and trails leading to/from Honolulu indicate it was an important and frequently traversed land.

Mānoa Valley was a favored spot of the Ali‘i, including Kamehameha I, Chief Boki (Governor of O‘ahu), Ka‘ahumanu, Ha‘alilio (an advisor to King Kamehameha III), Princess Victoria, Kana‘ina (father of King Lunalilo), Lunalilo, Ke‘elikōlani (half-sister of Kamehameha IV) and Queen Lili‘uokalani.

In early times Mānoa Valley was socially divided into “Mānoa-Aliʻi” or “royal Mānoa” on the west, and “Mānoa-Kanaka” or “commoners’ (makaʻāinana) Mānoa” on the east. The Ali‘i lived on the high, cooler western (left) slopes; the commoners lived on the warmer eastern (right) slopes and on the valley floor where they farmed.

Mānoa is watered by five streams that merge into the lower Mānoa Stream: ‘Aihualama (lit. eat the fruit of the lama tree), Waihī (lit. trickling water), Nāniu‘apo (lit. the grasped coconuts), Lua‘alaea (lit. pit [of] red earth) and Waiakeakua (lit. water provided by a god). (Cultural Surveys)

In 1792, Captain George Vancouver described Mānoa Valley on a hike from Waikīkī in search of drinking water: “We found the land in a high state of cultivation, mostly under immediate crops of taro; and abounding with a variety of wild fowl chiefly of the duck kind … “

“The sides of the hills, which were in some distance, seemed rocky and barren; the intermediate vallies, which were all inhabited, produced some large trees and made a pleasing appearance. The plains, however, if we may judge from the labour bestowed on their cultivation, seem to afford the principal proportion of the different vegetable productions …” (Edinburgh Gazetteer)

The well-watered, fertile and relatively level lands of Mānoa Valley supported extensive wet taro cultivation well into the twentieth century. Handy and Handy estimated that in 1931 “there were still about 100 terraces in which wet taro was planted, although these represented less than a tenth of the area that was once planted by Hawaiians.” (Cultural Surveys)

“(T)he valley is under almost complete cultivation of taro”. “(T)he whole valley opens out to view, the extensive flat area set out in taro, looking like a huge checker-board, with its symetrical emerald squares in the middle ground.” (Thrum, 1892)

In 1825 an English agriculturist named John Wilkinson, who in his younger years had been a planter in the West Indies, arrived at Honolulu on the frigate Blonde. He had made some arrangement with Governor Boki, while the latter was in England, to go out and engage in cultivating sugar cane … and, probably, rum. (Kuykendall)

Although sugar cane had grown in Hawaiʻi for many centuries, its commercial cultivation for the production of sugar did not occur until 1825. In that year, Wilkinson and Boki started a plantation in Mānoa Valley. Within six months they had seven acres of cane growing and processing. The sugar mill was later converted into a distillery for rum. (Schmitt)

Over the years, sugar‐cane farming soon proved to be the only available crop that could be grown profitably under the severe conditions imposed upon plants grown on the lands which were available for cultivation. (HSPA 1947)

At the industry’s peak a little over a century later (1930s,) Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the globe. And remember, commercial-scale sugar production started in Mānoa.

That was not the only plantation-scale agriculture started in Mānoa. In 1885, John Kidwell started a pineapple farm with locally available plants, but their fruit was of poor quality. That prompted him to search for better cultivars; he later imported 12 ‘Smooth Cayenne’ plants.

An additional 1,000 plants were obtained from Jamaica in 1886, and an additional 31 cultivars, including ‘Smooth Cayenne’, were imported from various locations around the world. ‘Smooth Cayenne’ was reported to be the best of the introductions.

Kidwell is credited with starting Hawai‘i’s pineapple industry; after his initial planting, others soon realized the potential of growing pineapples in Hawaii and consequently, started their own pineapple plantations.

The “development of the (Hawaiian) pineapple industry is founded on his selection of the Smooth Cayenne variety and on his conviction that the future lay in the canned product, rather than in shipping the fruit in the green state.” (Canning Trade; Hawkins)

The commercial Hawaiian pineapple canning industry began in 1889 when Kidwell’s business associate, John Emmeluth, a Honolulu hardware merchant and plumber, produced commercial quantities of canned pineapple.

Emmeluth refined his pineapple canning process between 1889 and 1891, and around 1891 packed and shipped 50 dozen cans of pineapple to Boston, 80 dozen to New York, and 250 dozen to San Francisco.

By 1930 Hawai‘i led the world in the production of canned pineapple and had the world’s largest canneries. And remember, the first commercial cultivation of pineapple and subsequent canning of pineapple started in Mānoa.

Other smaller scale agriculture activities across the Islands also started in Mānoa. Wilkinson, noted for starting commercial sugar in Mānoa, also started commercial coffee in the Islands in Mānoa Valley.

Coffee was planted in Mānoa Valley in the vicinity of the present UH-Mānoa campus; from a small field, trees were introduced to other areas of O‘ahu and neighbor islands.

In 1828, American missionary Samuel Ruggles took cuttings of the same kind of coffee from Hilo and brought them to Kona. Henry Nicholas Greenwell grew and marketed coffee and is recognized for putting “Kona Coffee” on the world markets.

At Weltausstellung 1873 Wien (World Exhibition in Vienna, Austria (1873,)) Greenwell was awarded a “Recognition Diploma” for his Kona Coffee. (Greenwell Farms)

Writer Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) seemed to concur with this when he noted in his Letters from Hawaiʻi, “The ride through the district of Kona to Kealakekua Bay took us through the famous coffee and orange section. I think the Kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it what you please.”

By the 1930s there were more than 1,000 farms and, as late as the 1950s, there were 6,000-acres of coffee in Kona. The only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaiʻi. And remember, ‘Kona Coffee’ was the same as that in Mānoa Valley.

Another commercial crop, macadamia nuts, also has its Island roots in Mānoa. Macadamia seeds were first imported into Hawaiʻi in 1882 by William Purvis; he planted them in Kapulena on the Hāmākua Coast. A second introduction into Hawaii was made in 1892 by Robert and Edward Jordan who planted the trees at the former’s home in Nuʻuanu Honolulu. (Storey)

“Brought in ‘solely as an addition to the natural beauty of Paradise’ (Hawaiian Annual, 1940,) it was not until ES (Ernest Sheldon) Van Tassel started some plantings at Nutridge in 1921 that the commercial growing of the plant began. On June 1, 1922, the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company Ltd. was formed.” (NPS)

The Van Tassel plantings were at ʻUalakaʻa on a grassy hillside of former pasture land (what we call Round Top on the western slopes of Mānoa Valley.)

Mo‘olelo (Hawaiian stories) indicate that Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a was a favored locality for sweet potato cultivation and King Kamehameha I established his personal sweet potato plantation here. ‘Pu‘u translates as “hill” and ‘ualaka‘a means “rolling sweet potato”, so named for the steepness of the terrain.

In order to stimulate interest in macadamia culture, beginning January 1, 1927, a Territorial law exempted properties in the Territory, used solely for the culture or production of macadamia nuts, from taxation for a period of 5 years.

In just over 10-years (1933,) “the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company has about 7,000 trees in its groves at Keauhou, Kona District, Hawaii, which are now coming into profitable bearing. The company has also approximately 2,000 trees growing and producing in the Nutridge grove on Round Top, Honolulu, or a total of 9,000 trees.” (Mid-Pacific, October 1933)

Macadamia nut candies became commercially available a few years later. Two well-known confectioners, Ellen Dye Candies and the Alexander Young Hotel candy shop, began making and selling chocolate-covered macadamia nuts in the middle or late 1930s. Another early maker was Hawaiian Candies & Nuts Ltd., established in 1939 and originators of the Menehune Mac brand. (Schmitt)

In 1962, MacFarms established one of the world’s largest single macadamia nut orchards with approximately 3,900-acres on the South Kona coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.

Today, about 570 growers farm 17,000 acres of macadamia trees, producing 40 million pounds of in-shell nuts, valued at over $30 million. Additionally, nuts are imported from South Africa and Australia, who currently lead the world market, with Hawai‘i at #3. (hawnnut) And remember, commercial cultivation of macadamia nut’s started at Mānoa.

One last thing, Mānoa was home to the Islands’ first dairy; William Harrison Rice started it at what was then O‘ahu College (now Punahou School.) Later, Woodlawn Dairy was the Islands’ largest dairy (1879.)

As you can see, what became significant commercial-scale agricultural ventures in the Islands – Sugar, Pineapple, Coffee and Macadamia Nuts – all had their start in the Islands, in Mānoa.

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Manoa_Valley_from_Waikiki,_oil_on_canvas_by_Enoch_Wood_Perry_Jr.-1860s

Taro Lo’i Agriculture in Mānoa Valley-(UH_Heritage)-ca_1890

Manoa_valley-BM

Manoa-back of valley

Manoa-Lantana and Kiawe-PP-59-6-006

Buggies on Mt. Tantalus, Honolulu, 1900s.

Old Manoa Valley-1924

Manoa-PP-59-6-001-00001

Manoa-PP-1-4-024

Workers loading sugar cane-1905-BM

Chinese_contract_laborers_on_a_sugar_plantation_in_19th_century_Hawaii

Pineapple_1900

Hawaiian Pineapple Company Canning Lines, Honolulu, O‘ahu, 1958

Coffee

Nutridge-Van_Tassel_Tantalus Home-HonoluluMagazine

August 16, 2017 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Carl Frederick Reppun

Born in Nice, France, March 29, 1883, Carl (in early years ‘Karl’) Frederick Reppun was the son of Frederick William and Fredericka (Koene) Reppun.

Carl’s father was of Swedish descent and his mother Dutch, but both subjects of Russia in the Baltic province of Riga, Latvia, where the two families had lived for 200 years.

He was well traveled in Europe and appeared to enjoy an outdoor life with many activities such as riding, skiing, hiking and sailing.

Reppun was educated in the schools of Nice, France, and Cassel, Germany, before entering and graduating with a medical degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Medizinische Facultat, Munich, Bavaria, in 1910.

In 1911, he married Emily Jane Lewis of Llein, Wales, in London, England. Carl and Emily honeymooned in Norway by taking a hike through the wilderness.

He took a further degree in 1912 from the University of Moscow Faculty of Medicine, and did post-graduate work in Vienna. He became a medical doctor.

In 1913, he had several career options: he could have become an apprentice to a Moscow surgeon or he could have chosen offers to set up a practice of medicine in Archangel (within the Arctic Circle), or in Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in far-eastern Siberia.

He chose to be the only physician in the mining or steel mill town of Tirljian which is on the Siberian side of the Southern Urals between European and Asiatic Russia.

The town of Tirljian was located approximately 50 +/- miles from Byeloretsk, to the southwest on the Byelaya (about 30-35 miles as the crow flies). With a population at that time of around 20-30,000, it was large enough to warrant its own hospital. There was no railway through Tirljian and all the roads were dirt.

The hospital complex was located at the edge of a forest whereas the town itself was about a mile away (twenty minutes by horse) to the east “down a gentle hill”.

The town was visible from the hospital/house. The hospital was a one-story log building with a capacity of around 50 beds. The house had an enclosed courtyard.

There were additionally servants quarters, a storehouse, stables with a covered portion for the carriages, and housing for farm animals. “Our house faced away to a fenced-in garden, beyond which was the forest on one side, fields and a grassy slope downhill to the village.” (Fred Reppun; Cupertino)

At the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Reppun was practicing medicine as a mining company doctor in the village of Tirljian, in the Ural Mountains between European and Asiatic Russia. He was the only doctor in a radius of 50 miles.

Being a Russian subject, he was mobilized into the Czar’s army, but remained in Tirljian as the head of the hospital, converted into a military one for the care of the wounded shipped back from the front.

When the Russian Revolution came in 1917, Dr. Reppun was chief of the hospital; he then had occasion to treat both the royalist Cossack wounded and the Bolshevik wounded, depending upon which side happened to be in local control.

The Reppuns escaped eastward in one carriage with one horse, the baggage being in another cart driven by a peasant and his family, they traveled a thousand miles over the Siberian steppes, going along the least frequented byways to Omsk.

At Omsk, the Reppuns met the advance point of the American Red Cross, which had come there to set up a large hospital under the direction of Dr. Arthur F. Jackson of Honolulu.

Reppun was immediately commandeered to assist the Red Cross doctors in their tremendous task. As the Red Cross and the American Expeditionary Forces withdrew toward Vladivostok 3,000 miles away, the Reppun family went along. Mrs. Reppun became a matron in charge of one of the Red Cross nursing homes in Vladivostok.

While in Vladivostok, the family reviewed options as to where to re-locate. They considered Japan, China and the Philippines, along with Hawaii

Due to, but due to the influence of Dr Jackson and Riley Allen of Honolulu, they opted to try Hawai‘i. In mid-1920, the Reppun family finally evacuated Russia aboard the last ship taking American personnel to Tsurugu, Japan.

They traveled across Japan, stopping for a short stay in Kyoto, then on to Nagasaki and thence to Honolulu aboard the Army transport S.S. Sheridan. Two weeks later on July 4, 1920, they sailed on the Army Transport “Sheridan” for Honolulu, and stayed there.

Dr. Reppun first started practice in Honolulu with the late Dr. Bert Mobbs on Beretania Street. In 1923, he went to Kaneohe as Government Physician of the Ko‘olaupoko-Waimanalo District, and as physician for Libby, McNeill & Libby at Kahalu‘u.

In 1927, he gave up the Kaneohe practice completely. Following his one and only visit to the mainland, in 1937, Dr. Reppun suffered serious injuries in a car accident from which he never fully recovered. He died on June 7, 1940, at The Queen’s Hospital, at the age of 57. (Reppun; Hawaii Medical Journal, 1966)

The Reppuns had three sons: ‘Frederick’ and Eric, born in Russia, and Arthur, born in Hawaii in 1921.) Eric was manager of the Kona operation of Robert Hind, Ltd. on the Big Island and Arthur was with Pan-American World Airways in Tokyo.

John Iorwerth Frederick (‘Frederick’) Reppun also became a doctor. In 1968 the Honolulu County Medical Society named him Medical Father of the year. In 1974, he was honored by the Hawaii Medical Association at the Association as Physician of the Year. Dr Frederick Reppun was my doctor when I was a kid growing up on Kāne‘ohe Bay Drive.

Carl Frederick Reppun-HawaiiMedJournal

August 14, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kahuna to Christian

“The tradition of the ships with white wings may have been the progenitor of the Hawaiians’ symbol for Lono during the Makahiki. … With so many ships with white sails coming to Hawaii at that time, how would he know which ship would bring the knowledge of the true God of Peace?”

“He could not have known that, although the missionaries set sail on October 23rd, one day before the Makahiki began, they would take six months to arrive. Therefore, it was quite prophetic that, when he saw the missionaries’ ship off in the distance, he announced ‘The new God is coming.’ One must wonder how Hewahewa knew that this was the ship.” (Kikawa)

“Hewahewa knew the prophesy given by Kalaikuahulu a generation before. This prophesy said that a communication would be made from heaven (the residence of Ke Akua Maoli, the God of the Hawaiians) by the real God. This communication would be entirely different from anything they had known. The prophecy also said that the kapus of the country would be overthrown.”

“Hewahewa also knew the prophesy of the prophet Kapihe, who announced near the end of Kamehameha’s conquests, ‘The islands will be united, the kapu of the gods will be brought low, and those of the earth (the common people) will be raised up.’”

“Kamehameha had already unified the islands, therefore, when the kapus were overthrown, Hewahewa knew a communication from God was imminent.” (Kikawa)

After the overthrow of the kapu system, Hewahewa retired to Kawaihae, to wait confidently for the coming of a “new and greater God.” (Kikawa)

“Kailua Harbor, April 5, 1820. In the dawn of the day, as we passed near shore, several chiefs were spending their idle hours in gambling, we were favored with an interview with Hewahewa, the late High Priest.”

“He received us kindly and on his introduction to Brother Bingham he expressed much satisfaction in meeting with a brother priest from America, still pleasantly claiming that distinction for himself.”

“He assures us that he will be our friend.”

“Who could have expected that such would have been our first interview with the man whose influence we had been accustomed to dread more than any other in the islands; whom we had regarded and could now hardly help regarding as a deceiver of his fellow men. But he seemed much pleased in speaking of the destruction of the heiau and idols.”

“About five months ago the young king consulted him with respect to the expediency of breaking taboo and asked him to tell him frankly and plainly whether it would be good or bad, assuring him at the same time that he would be guided by his view.”

“Hewahewa speedily replied, maikai it would be good, adding that he knew there is but one “Akoohah” (Akua) who is in heaven, and that their wooden gods could not save them nor do them any good.”

“He publicly renounced idolatry and with his own hand set fire to the heiau. The king no more observed their superstitious taboos.”

“Thus the heads of the civil and religious departments of the nation agreed in demolishing that forbidding and tottering taboo system which had been founded in ignorance, cemented with blood, and supported for ages by the basest of human passion.”

“They had, indeed, heard of the Christian’s God, but gave little evidence that they understood His laws, or loved His character, or feared His Holy Name. Whether they conceived him as worthy of their homage or not, they were convinced of the vanity of idols and the folly of idol worship.” (Extracts from a journal supposed to have been written By Mr Loomis; Gulick)

“Hewahewa … expressed most unexpectedly his gratification on meeting us … On our being introduced to (Liholiho,) he, with a smile, gave us the customary ‘Aloha.’”

“As ambassadors of the King of Heaven … we made to him the offer of the Gospel of eternal life, and proposed to teach him and his people the written, life-giving Word of the God of Heaven. … and asked permission to settle in his country, for the purpose of teaching the nation Christianity, literature and the arts.” (Bingham)

Hewahewa later retired to Oʻahu and became one of the first members of the church established there. This church is located in Haleiwa and is called the Liliʻuokalani Protestant Church. (Kikawa) “He lived in the valley of Waimea, a faithful, consistent follower of the new light.” (The Friend, March 1, 1914)

“In the days of Kamehameha I, Hewahewa was the highest priest in the land. A direct descendant of Pā‘ao, the priest who came from Tahiti and established the kapu system in Hawaiʻi, he performed his religious duties at the famous Puʻukoholā heiau at Kawaihae, a heiau built by Kamehameha I for the worship of the war god, Kukaʻilimoku.”

“But in the days between Kamehameha’s wars of conquest and the time of the Conqueror’s death in May, 1919, Hewahewa developed doubts about Hawaiʻi’s pagan system and the gods – Kane, Ku, Lono, and Kanaloa – who ruled over it.”

“He observed foreign traders who ignored or even scoffed at the sacred kapus yet suffered no ill. As the death of Kamehameha approached, he heard the great king forbid the human sacrifices that many loyal followers thought would save his life, saying that the men should be spared to serve the next generation.”

“Thus it was not strange that when Liholiho (Kamehameha II) asked Hewahewa’s advice about breaking the eating-kapu, the priest in a few words indicated that he would not oppose such a move.”

“Well aware of the young king’s intentions in November 1819, when a feast was prepared at Kailua, Kona, Hewahewa had his torch ready; and as soon as Liholiho sat down with the aliʻi women and began to eat, the priest went to a nearby heiau and set fire to its contents, destroying everything but the stone platform.”

“These flames spread – if not literally, at least figuratively – the change had been defeated in battle at Kuamoʻo, Hewahewa retired to Kawaihae to await confidently the coming of a new and greater god.”

“In about five months occurred the event he expected. At the end of March, 1820, a foreign ship brought visitors who could tell Hawaiʻi about the One Great God, who ruled the universe.”

“Apparently Hewahewa did not meet the newcomers until they reached Kailua, Kona, but he doubtless heard that they had called at the presence of the prime minister at Kawaihae, and that Kalanimoku had taken his whole household on board the foreign brig to sail to Kailua, where the king was.”

“Hewahewa hastened southward overland and told those at the king’s court, ‘The new god is coming. He is going to land right here.’”

“And, sure enough, on the morning of April 4, two of the missionaries came ashore, seeking permission from Liholiho to settle in Hawaiʻi and teach about their God. At the first opportunity Hewahewa went out to the Thaddeus to welcome the missionaries. (Loomis; Kawaiaha‘o)

Hewahewa is noted as saying, “I knew the wooden images of deities, carved by our own hands, could not supply our wants, but worshiped them because it was a custom of our fathers. My thoughts have always been, there is only one great God, dwelling in the heavens.” (Ohana Church)

On July 27 1830, Hewahewa wrote a letter to Levi Chamberlain, the superintendent of secular affairs for the mission and a missionary teacher. At the time of this letter, Hewahewa had converted to Christianity and was living in Lahaina, Maui.

“Greetings to you, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mrs. Chamberlain, This is my short message to you. I again testify to you about the grace God bestows upon me as I go on.”

“I walk in fear and awe of God for the wrongs of my heart, for he is the one who knows me. The love of the son of God is true indeed. It is of my own volition that I tell this to you. Regards to all the church members there.” (Hewahewa to Chamberlain, July 27, 1830; Ali‘i Letters Collection, Mission Houses)

Click HERE for a link to the original letter, its transcription, translation and annotation.

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