Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

National Chronological Era

In Hawaiʻi’s prior subsistence society, the family farming scale was far different from today’s commercial-purpose agriculture. In ancient time, when families farmed for themselves, they observed and adapted; products were produced based on need and season.

Hawaiians divided the year into two seasons – Kau (Summer – when it was dry and hot; beginning in May when Makaliʻi (Pleiades) set at sunrise;) and Hoʻoilo (Winter season when it was rainy and chilly; beginning in October.)

Months were measured not by the number of days but were based on the phases of the moon – each beginning with the appearance of a new moon and lasting until the appearance of the next new moon.

When the stars fade away and disappear it is ao, daylight, and when the sun rises day has come, it is called la; and when the sun becomes warm, morning is past. When the sun is directly overhead it is awakea, noon; and when the sun inclines to the west in the afternoon the expression is ua aui ka la.

After that comes evening, called ahi-ahi (ahi is fire) and then sunset, napoʻo ka lā, and then comes pō, the night, and the stars shine out. (Malo)

“The days are divided … not into hours but into parts: sunrise, noon, sunset; the time between sunrise and noon is split into two, as is the time between noon and sunset.” (Lisiansky; Schmitt)

It wasn’t until the Westerners arrived that clocks and watches were used to measure passage of time during the day.

Another time reference/measurement was the National Chronological Era timeframes that at least Fornander and others call attention to.

One such is the reference used in identifying Abner Paki’s birth year.  First, a bit about Paki, which includes this birth reference.

Abner Paki “appears in the genealogy of the Chiefs of this Nation, from ancient times, and he is a high Chief of this land descended from Haloa, that being the one father of the children living in this world, and the father of our people.”

“Part of his genealogy is taken from the High Chiefs of the land, and he is part of Kamehameha’s, and he is part of Kiwalao’s, and he is a hereditary chief of a single line from ancient times; and he was a father who rescued from trouble his people of this nation from Hawaii to Kauai.”  (Nupepa Kuakoa, Elele E, 6/16/1855, p. 20)

“He was born at Kainalu, Molokai, in the month of Nana.” (Nupepa Kuakoa, Elele E, 6/16/1855, p. 20)  Handy and Pukui tell us that “Nana (March) means ‘getting better,’ referring to the subsiding of the stormy weather characteristic of the preceding month (February).” (Hawaiian Planters)

Paki was “the last of the family of old high chiefs. … His father’s name was Kalanihelemaiiluna, and his mother’s Kahooheiheipahu. He was born on the island Molokai, in the year ‘Ualakaa’”.

“He was an intimate friend of the King [Kamehameha III] and was a person of considerable weight and importance in the affairs of the nation. He held during his life, some high offices of trust and honor; being at different times, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, acting Governor, Privy Councillor, member of the House of Nobles, and Chamberlain to the King.”

“The most prominent feature in his character was firmness; where he took a stand, he was immovable. On the death of Kamehameha III, he prophesied that he should survive his Royal master but a few months, though he was in usual health at the time.”  (Bennett)

Kamehameha III died December 15, 1854; Paki died June 13, 1885.  Paki’s “wife Konia, (also a high chief,) who survived him two years, she dying in 1857.” (Bennett)  Paki and Konia were the parents of Bernice Pauahi Pākī (born December 19, 1831); she later married Charles Reed Bishop. 

So, the exact date of Paki’s birth is apparently not known, except that it was in March, “in the year ‘Ualakaa.’”

Per Fornander, this points to a National Chronological Era that refers to the time frame that Kamehameha I was farming uala (sweet potatoes) at Ualaka‘a (rolling sweet potato – what we now call Round Top at Mānoa Valley).

Several reference the time of Paki’s birth as “about 1808”; Kamehameha left O‘ahu in 1812, so that ends the time he was farming at Ualaka‘a.

Fornander suggests that this was also a time of another National Chronological Era when he says, “That was the time of the sounding reed, that is, a thinned stem of coconut leaf placed on a fat piece of wood which fitted in the mouth; or it may be fibrous lauhala, and so forth.”

In a footnote we learn that the ‘sounding reed’ (ka niau kani) was a “mouth-sounding contrivance with a coco leaf which came into vogue at this time and became thereafter a national chronological era, as here noted, according to ancient custom, which reckoned by events, not years.” (Fornander V)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Drifters

“Kamilo has been unaffectionately referred to as ‘Plastic Beach,’ and in some instances as ‘Trash Beach,’ and has even featured in headlines from the last few years as ‘one of the dirtiest places in the world.’” (Case)

A Hawaiian ‘Ōlelo Noeau tells  us, “Ka wahine alualu pu hala o Kamilo.” (The hala-pursuing woman of Kamilo.) It tells us that a current comes to Kamilo in Ka‘u from Halaaniani in Puna; whatever is tossed in the sea at Halaaniani floats into Kamilo.

As the story goes, Papua once left her husband in Puna and went to Ka’ū. He missed her so badly that he decided to send her a pretty loincloth she had made him. This might make her think of him and come back.

He wrapped the malo around a stem of a hala cluster, tied it securely in place with a cord, and tossed it into the sea. A few days later some women went fishing at Kamilo and noticed a hala cluster bobbing in the water.

Eagerly they tried to seize it until one of the women succeeded. Kapua watched as the string was untied and the malo unfolded. She knew that it was her husband’s plea to come home, so she returned to Puna.  (Bishop Museum)

This proverb and the experience at Kamilo are  examples “of what can surface when we take time to pay attention to our oceanic spaces, recognizing them as active places of meaning.”

“The sea, according to Michelle Huang, is ‘always heaving things up and hurling them back … [and] resists its role as the passive repository for all that humans think we have ‘tossed overboard or left behind.’’ … In conventional understandings, waste is what is ‘thrown away’ but Kamilo reminds us that there is no ‘away.’” (Case)

The Puna-Kamilo connection was tested in February 2021.  Andy Baker launched a small batch of custom orange plastic drifters into the outgoing ocean tide from the Puna District on the Big Island of Hawaii.

He wanted to test the story of Kapua and Papua and assembled 22 drifters made of durable plastic shapes collected from Kamilo Beach, with a fresh orange plate affixed stamped in raised letters with a request if found to text him.

After launching, we expected that beach clean-up crews at Kamilo would find them about two weeks later. But none of the drifters were reported found in the next two weeks, or even in the next two months.

However, 72-days later a vacationing beachcomber on Kauai texted that she found Orange Drifter #2 (OD2) among driftwood behind the Pono Kai Resort on the east coast of Kauai Island in Kapa’a.

Is this a unique improbable drift, or is there also a Kamilo-Kauai communication connection?

Whatever it is, it also reminds us of the multitude of other ocean currents that circle in, around and through the Pacific.

We are generally aware of the extensive use and nature of stone tools that the Hawaiians had and used.  But did they also have and use iron tools – if so, how did they get them?

It turns out iron knives were found in the hands of Hawaiians on Kauai on Captain Cook’s first visit in 1778.  Iron, crafted into various shapes, was observed on other islands, as well.

Cook noted that the people he met on Kauai were not “acquainted with our commodities, except iron; which however, it was plain, they had … in some quantity, brought to them at some distant period. … They asked for it by the name of hamaite.”  It is interesting to note that a Spanish word for iron ore is “Hematitas”.

“The only iron tools, or rather bits of iron, seen amongst them, and which they had before our arrival, were a piece of iron hoop about two inches long, fitted into a wooden handle, and another edge tool, which our people guessed to be made of the point of a broadsword.”  (Cook’s Journal)

Captain Clerke’s record (Jan. 23, 1778) notes, “This morning one of the midshipmen purchased of the natives a piece of iron lashed into a handle for a cutting instrument; it seems to me a piece of the blade of a cutlass; it has by no means the appearance of a modern acquisition …”

“… it looks to have been a good deal used and long in its present state; the midshipman … demanded of the man where he got it; the Indian pointed away to the SE ward, where he says there is an island called Tai, from whence it came.”  (Stokes)

Referring back to the midshipman’s information, it may be noted that there is no island named Tai to the south-east of Waimea, Kauai, where the matter was discussed, and since tai (kai) is the term for “sea” and the current sweeps up to Waimea from the south-east, it therefore appears that the implement was floated in, from the sea.

It was the reference that “people guessed to be made of the point of a broadsword” that caught the attention of Stokes (former Curator of Polynesian Ethnology and Curator-in-charge of the Bernice P Bishop Museum,) who speculated that rather than the end of a broadsword, the Hawaiians may have had a deba bocho (a Japanese fish-knife.)

Stokes noted that swords generally break straight across, making it difficult (impossible) to be “lashed into a handle.”  Rather, the deba bocho has a tang that is driven into a wooden handle.

The tang would have been concealed from view by Cook’s crew and “These men, ‘accustomed to the sword,’ would naturally think first in terms of weapons. It is certain they were unfamiliar with Japanese domestic utensils because Japan had then been isolated from foreigners for more than a century.” (Stokes)

Whether it actually was a knife and whether it drifted in on wreckage or was brought by a Japanese fisherman (before Cook’s arrival in the Islands) is not clear.

Japanese junks have been blown to sea, and finally stranded with their occupants upon distant islands, and have reached even the continent of America, in the 46th degree of north latitude.  (Jarves)

In 1806, the ‘Inawaka Maru,’ a small Japanese cargo ship, was shipwrecked off Japan and remained adrift in the Pacific for more than seventy days.  An American trading vessel, the Tabour, sailing eastward in the northern Pacific on her return voyage from China, rescued the emaciated crew of the Inawaka-maru and brought them to O‘ahu on May 5, 1806.  (Kona & Sinoto)

“On the second day after their arrival, the building of a house for the Japanese was started, probably on orders of the chief. More than fifty persons were engaged in cutting trees from the mountains and building a house with a thatched roof. Only four days after their arrival, the house was completed, and the eight Japanese moved in.”

The Japanese remained in Hawai’i for more than three months until an American ship offered to take them home; on August 17, 1806, all eight Japanese left O‘ahu aboard the Perseverance.  (Kona & Sinoto)

This was not the only early contact Japanese had with the Islands; in December, 1832, a Japanese junk was wrecked on O‘ahu, after having been tossed upon the ocean for eleven months.  But four, out of a crew of nine, survived.  Similar accidents, no doubt, happened centuries since.  (Jarves)

Today, we still find glass balls (fishing floats used by fishers in the Western Pacific).  By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean. (By the 1940s, glass had replaced wood or cork throughout much of Europe, Russia, North America and Japan.)

Today most of the glass floats remaining in the ocean are stuck in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific Gyre.

Off the east coast of Taiwan, the Kuroshio Current starts as a northern branch of the western-flowing North Equatorial Current.  It flows past Japan and meets the arctic waters of the Oyashio Current.

At this junction, the North Pacific Current (or Drift) is formed which travels east across the Pacific before slowing down in the Gulf of Alaska.

As it turns south, the California Current pushes the water into the North Equatorial Current once again, and the cycle continues.

Although the number of glass floats is decreasing steadily, many floats are still drifting on these ocean currents. Occasionally, storms or certain tidal conditions will break some floats from this circular pattern and bring them to ashore.

They most often end up on the beaches of Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Washington or Oregon in the United States, Taiwan or Canada.

Today, most of the remaining glass floats originated in Japan because it had a large deep-sea fishing industry which made extensive use of the floats; some were made by Taiwan, Korea and China.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

George Herman Huddy

William Henry Harrison Huddy immigrated from Rhode Island and became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i in 1850; he married Kahea, a Hawaiian from the island of Kauai.  Their son, George Herman Huddy – the youngest of a large family, was born in Honolulu in 1869; as a young man he lived on Kauai and was educated in Honolulu.

After distinguishing himself as a student in high school, he sought more education and professional training and moved to San Francisco and apprenticed himself to a dentist in that city.

After little more than a year, he qualified for entrance to the College of Dentistry at the University of California Medical School. After three years of study and internship, he became the first Hawaiian to earn a full Degree in Dental Surgery from a Dental School in the US.

After graduation he returned to Hawai‘i and went into practice for himself as a dental surgeon.  In February 1903, Dr George Huddy was appointed by the Governor as a Representative to the Hawai‘i Territorial Legislature from Kauai. (Dr Huddy, continued to be elected as a Territorial Representative, first from Kauai and later from Hilo, until his retirement from that office in 1917.)

On April 25, 1903, the legislature of the territory of Hawaii, at the instigation of the dental society, enacted a law to regulate the practice of dental surgery.  This statute gives the dental society a recognized standing, as the members of the state dental board are appointed by the governor upon recommendation of this society.  Huddy was an initial member.  (History of Dental Surgery, Koch)

On May 13, 1903, Huddy and his good friend, Prince Kūhio, helped reestablish the Order of Kamehameha I (originally organized in 1867 by Kamehameha V).

Kūhiō chose Huddy to preside at this initial session as a charter member where a constitution was written and adopted, and officers elected; Kūhiō was elected as the President.

“Credit for the founding of this order, which dates from May, 1903, or a little more than ten years after the close of the monarchy and a little less than five years after annexation to the United States, belongs to Dr George H Huddy, who has served the territory faithfully and well as a representative in the legislature, first from Kauai and then from Hawaiʻi”

“Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, delegate to congress, was the first aliʻi ʻaimoku, or sovereign head of the revived order.” (Star-Bulletin; June 10, 1913)

In 1905, the Order of Kamehameha brought solemnity to the holiday (Kamehameha Day) by draping a lei on the statue of Kamehameha in front of Aliʻiolani Hale and standing watch throughout the day.  (Stillman)

On July 16, 1907, they petitioned for a Charter for the Hawaiʻi Chapter No. 1, Order of Kamehameha.  “… the object for which the same is organized is as follows, 1. To inculcate the cardinal principles of Friendship, Charity and Benevolence; to provide for Sick and Funeral Benefits …”

“… to aid the widows and orphans; and to improve the social and moral conditions of its members.”  (Hawaii Chapter No. 1, Order of Kamehameha; Petition for Charter, July 16, 1907) (An announcement in the Hawaiian Star, shortly after, noted similar language for the Māmalahoa Chapter. No. 2)

In March 1915, “Mrs. Henrietta E Sullivan of Honolulu nei [the daughter of John Hassinger, the long time and well-known Chief Clerk for the Interior Ministry, during the Monarchy and into the Territorial times] and Representative George H Huddy of Hilo became one in the bond of marriage”.

“For the first time in the history of the legislature of Hawaii nei, wed were the Honorable Dr George H. Huddy in the covenant of marriage with Mrs. Henrietta E Sullivan, in the throne room [of Iolani Palace].”

“The one who bound the couple tightly together in the three-stranded cord of matrimony was Father Steven of the Catholic faith, and while the newlyweds were surrounded by their many friends, the priest spoke the words which made the two one, and it is only death that will part them.”

“After the marriage took place, hands were shook with aloha with congratulations from their friends, with prayers that they live their lives in happiness.” (Kuokoa, 03-12-1915)  Theirs is the only wedding ever to take place in the Throne Room of the Palace.

Dr Huddy continued in his dental surgery practice in Honolulu until in 1922 (at the untimely death of his wife, June 20, 1922).  On September 1, 1922, Huddy signed on with the Territorial Board of Health as the Resident Dentist at Kalaupapa, serving alongside Dr Goodhue.

“In December, 1922, Dr George Huddy, a dentist employed by the board of health, began work at the [Kalihi] hospital and spent five months attending to the dental needs of the patients.”

“The employment of this officer meets a very pressing need of the patients, as the teeth of many of the inmates were in bad condition and required the services of a competent dentist. Already a beneficial effect from this work can be noted.”

“I wish to record my unqualified approval of the inauguration of dental service for the patients and to acknowledge the full and free cooperation of the dental officer with the medical officers at Kalihi Hospital.”

“The dentist [Huddy] employed by the board of health for Kalihi Hospital and Kalaupapa settlement has given a great amount of relief to the patients.”  (Report of the Governor to Dept of Interior, 1923)

For the next 8 years, Huddy worked full time for the Board of Health. During these years he rotated between living at Kalaupapa for 2 – 3 months at a time and then back to Honolulu where he served as Dentist at the Old Prison and at the Leper Intake Hospital in Kalihi.

Huddy remarried in 1926 to a resident of Hawai‘i with German origins.  On June 30, 1929, Dr Huddy retired from the Board of Health, having worked himself into ill health and left for Europe for a two year ‘cure’ in Germany.

Returning in early 1932 in somewhat restored health, he reopened his dental surgeon offices in the Boston Building on Fort Street and practiced there until leaving for Germany again in late-1935.

This latter trip turned fatal, and Huddy died in Bremen, Germany. (His ashes were brought back to Hawai‘i and interred in Hilo at Homelani Cemetery.)  (Lots of information here is from Tatibouet.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Spice Trade

By many accounts, Britain was a quiet agricultural outpost in the Roman empire. The native inhabitants had a well-established growing system that prioritized crops such as broad beans, barley, oats, and wheat. Needless to say, Britons ate a lot of bread and drank a lot of beer.

Their livestock consisted of the usual range of domesticated animals: cattle, sheep, chicken, and pigs. Foraged foods included mushrooms, wild onions, and herbs such as mustard. Those who lived near the coast enjoyed seaweed, fish, and oysters. Rural life and food looked much the same as it does today, with a key exception — lack of spices.

The Romans brought a wealth of spices from all over their empire. The trade along the Spice Road had been good to them, and they introduced pepper, rosemary, thyme, coriander, mint, and garlic to Britons. Some of these herbs were dried and some were in plant form. Those plants that grew well in the Isles still remain a part of British cuisine.  (Cowen)

Many tall tales developed as to the origins of spices, but by the 13th century, travelers like Marco Polo (1254-1324 CE) and missionaries were beginning to improve Europe’s geographical knowledge of the wider world.

India seemed awash with black pepper. Sri Lanka was rich in cinnamon. Sandalwood came from Timor. China and Japan were getting spices like cloves, nutmeg, and mace from India, South East Asia, and the Maluku Islands or the Moluccas in what is today Indonesia – not for nothing were they nicknamed the Spice Islands.

Then, in 1453 came the fall of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, and so one of the principal land routes for spices into Europe was lost. (Cartwright)

One of the major motivating factors in the European Age of Exploration was the search for direct access to the highly lucrative Eastern spice trade. In the 15th century, spices came to Europe via the Middle East land and sea routes, and spices were in huge demand both for food dishes and for use in medicines.

The problem was how to access this market by sea.

Accordingly, explorers like Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and Vasco da Gama (c. 1469-1524) were sent to find a maritime route from Europe to Asia.

Columbus (who was looking for a new route to India, China, Japan and the ‘Spice Islands’ of Indonesia to bring back cargoes of silk and spices (ginger turmeric and cinnamon)) never saw the mainland United States, but the first explorations of the continental United States were launched from the Spanish possessions that he helped establish.

To the south, da Gama did round the Cape of Good Hope, sail up the coast of East Africa, and cross the Indian Ocean to reach India.

From 1500 onwards, first Portugal, and then other European powers, attempted to control the spice trade, the ports which marketed spices, and eventually the territories which grew them.  (Cartwright)

On November 28 1520, Ferdinand Magellan entered the “Sea of the South” (which he later named the Pacific) and thereby open up to Spain the possibility of an alternative route between Europe and the spices of the Orient.”  (Lloyd)

Then, almost 50 years after the death of Christopher Columbus, Manila galleons finally fulfilled their dream of sailing west to Asia to benefit from the rich Indian Ocean trade.

“The Spanish Galleons were square rigged ships with high superstructures on their sterns. They were obviously designed for running before the wind or at best sailing on a very ‘broad reach.’”

“Because of their apparently limited ability to ‘beat their way to windward’ (sail against the wind), they had to find trade routes where the prevailing winds and sea currents were favorable.”  (Lloyd)

Starting in 1565, with the Spanish sailor and friar Andrés de Urdaneta, after discovering the Tornaviaje or return route to Mexico through the Pacific Ocean, Spanish galleons sailed the Pacific Ocean between Acapulco in New Spain (now Mexico) and Manila in the Philippine islands.

Once a year, gold and silver were transported west to Manila in exchange spices (pepper, clove and cinnamon), porcelain, ivory, lacquer and elaborate fabrics (silk, velvet, satin), collected from both the Spice Islands (Moluccas, Indonesia) and the Asian Pacific coast, in European markets.

They also carried Chinese handicrafts, Japanese screens, fans, Japanese swords, Persian carpets, Ming dynasties and a myriad of other products. East Asia traded primarily with a silver standard, and the goods were bought mainly with Mexican silver. (Pascual)

The galleons leaving Manila would make their way back to Acapulco in a four-month long journey.  The goods were off-loaded and transported across land to ships on the other Mexican coast at Veracruz, and eventually, sent to European markets and customers eager for these exotic wares.  (GuamPedia)

In 1668 a royal decree required the galleons to stop in Guam in the Mariana Islands on their westward voyage from Acapulco to Manila. This allowed ships to replenish supplies and was the only means for communication between Spain and the Marianas colony.

The Manila Galleon Trade lasted for 250 years and ended in 1815 with Mexico’s war of independence.  More than 40-Spanish galleons were lost during this 250-year period. (Lloyd)

“‘The voyage from the Philippine islands to America may be call’d the longest, and most dreadful of any in the world; as well because of the vast ocean to be cross’d, being almost the one-half of the terraquous globe, with the wind always a-head; as for the terrible tempests that happen there, one upon the back of the other …”

“… and for the desperate diseases that seize people, in seven or eight months living at sea, sometimes near the line, sometimes cold, sometimes temperate, sometimes hot, which is enough to destroy a man of steel, much more flesh and blood, which at sea had but indifferent food.’” (Dr. Gemilli, Popular Science, 1901)

“The Spanish captains normally made their eastbound Pacific crossings between 31o N and 44o N latitude to insure that they would remain in the zone of the westerly winds. They would want to avoid the ‘horse latitudes’ (around 30o  N) and they would certainly want to remain well north of the northeast trade winds that would  drive their square rigged ships back to the Philippines.”

“This northerly route back to Acapulco would normally keep the galleons at least 1,000 miles north of Hawaii and it would not be surprising if little or no contact with the Hawaiian Island occurred during these difficult eastbound crossings of the North Pacific.”

“The westbound route from Acapulco offers an entirely different set of navigational considerations.  Friar Urdaneta’s route involved sailing down to 13° N latitude (or 14° N) and following that parallel all the way to Guam and on to the San Bernardino Strait in the Philippines.”

“Unknown to the Spanish navigators, the very favorable ocean currents mentioned above would position their ships much further along their westbound course than indicated by using their ship’s mechanical ‘log’ to measure their ship’s speed through the water.”  (Lloyd)

Some suggest the Spaniards came to the Hawaiian Islands a couple of centuries before Cook saw them.

“Old Spanish charts and a 1613 AD Dutch globe suggest that explorers from Spain had sighted Hawaiʻi long before Captain Cook.  When Cook arrived in 1778, galleons laden with silver from the mines of Mexico and South America had been passing south of Hawaiʻi for two centuries on annual round trip voyages of 17,000 miles between Acapulco and Manila.”  (Kane)

“It seems to be almost certain that one Juan Gaetano, a Spanish navigator, saw Hawaii in 1555 AD. A group of islands, the largest of which was called La Mesa, was laid down in the old Spanish charts in the same latitude as the Hawaiian Islands, but 10 degrees too far east.”  (Hawaiʻi Department of Foreign Affairs, 1896)

“There are undoubted proof of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands by the Spaniard, Juan Gaetano. This is the first known record of the islands among the civilized nations. There are evident references to this group in the legends of the Polynesians in other Pacific islands.”  (Westervelt 1923)

La Perouse noted, when he briefly visited the Islands (1786,) “In the charts, at the foot of this archipelago, might be written: ‘Sandwich Islands, surveyed in 1778 by Captain Cook, who named them, anciently discovered by the Spanish navigators.’”  (La Perouse, Fornander)

“By all the documents that have been examined, it is demonstrated that the discovery dates from the year 1555 and that the discoverer was Juan Gaetano or Gaytan. The principal proof is an old manuscript chart, registered in these archives as anonymous, and in which the Sandwich Islands are laid down under that name, but which also contains a note declaring that he called them Islas de Mesa”.  (Spanish Colonial Office letter to the Governor of the Philippines, The Friend May 1927)

“It is true that no document has been found in which Gaytan himself certifies to this fact, but there exist data which collectively form a series of proofs sufficient for believing it to be so. The principal one is an old manuscript chart … in which the Sandwich Islands are laid down under that name…” (The Friend May 1927)

Gaetano passed through the northern part of the Pacific and discovered large islands which he marked upon a chart as ‘Los Majos.’ The great mountains upon these islands did not rise in sharp peaks, but spread out like a high tableland in the clouds, hence he also called the islands “Isles de Mesa,” the Mesa Islands or the Table Lands. One of the islands was named “The Unfortunate.” Three other smaller islands were called “The Monks.”  (Westervelt 1923)

Fortunately, however, the Spanish made no use of this discovery, thus permitting the Hawaiians to escape the sad fate of the natives of the Ladrones and Carolines under Spanish dominion.  (White 1898)

Juan Gaetano may not have been the first Spaniard, here.  Stories suggest an earlier arrival of shipwrecked Spaniards at Keʻei, Kona Moku (district,) Island of Hawaiʻi.

There is fairly complete evidence that a Spanish vessel was driven ashore on the island of Hawai‘i in 1527, it being one of a squadron of three which sailed from the Mexican coast for the East Indies.  (White 1898)

“A well known Hawaiian tradition relates that in the reign of Keliiokaloa, son of Umi, a foreign vessel was wrecked at Keei, South Kona, Hawaii. According to the tradition, only the captain and his sister reached the shore in safety. From their kneeling on the beach and remaining a long time in that posture, the place was called Kulou (to stoop, to bow,) as it is unto this day.”  (Alexander 1892)

“The natives received them kindly and placed food before them. These strangers intermarried with the Hawaiians, and were the progenitors of certain well known families of chiefs, as for instance, that of Kaikioewa, former Governor of Kauai.“  (Alexander 1892)

Jarves expanded on the story, “In the reign of Kealiiokaloa, son of Umi, thirteen generations of kings before Cook’s arrival, which, according to the previous calculation, would bring it near the year 1620, a vessel, called by the natives Konaliloha, arrived at Pale, Keei, on the south side of Kealakeakua bay, Hawaii.”

“Here, by some accident, she was drawn into the surf, and totally wrecked; the captain, Kukanaloa, and a white woman, said to be his sister, were the only persons who reached the land. As soon as they trod upon the beach, either from fear of the inhabitants, or to return thanks for their safety, they prostrated themselves, and remained in that position for a long time.”

“The spot where this took place, is known at the present day, by the appellation of Kulou, to bow down. The shipwrecked strangers were hospitably received, invited to the dwellings of the natives, and food placed before them.”  (Jarves 1843)

One more thing, the first Hawaiian word written is ‘Hamaite’ – it was spoken to Captain Cook at the time he made contact with the Islands and he wrote it in his journal.

It was made in reference to iron.  Some suggest it refers to Hematite (ferric oxide – a mineral form of iron oxide – that is Hematita in Spanish.)  However, others suggest ‘Hamaite’ is actually a Hawaiian expression of He maita’i – good.  (Schutz)

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Hualalai

When the American Protestant missionaries arrived in the Islands (1820), they sailed from Kawaihae to Kailua-Kona; Bingham wrote, “As we coasted slowly along southward, we had a grand view of Hualalai, the volcanic mountain that rises some eight or nine thousand feet, near the western side of Hawaii, with its terminal crater, its forests, and apparently recent streams of lava.”

In Kona, the “village of thatched huts, though in a dry and sterile spot, is ornamented with cocoanut and Kou trees, which to the eye form a relief. A few miles inland, trees and plantations are numerous; then, still further back, rises the forest-covered Mauna Hualalai, with its lofty terminal crater, now extinct. . .”

Missionary wife, Lucy Thurston noted, “On the mountain Hualalai, just back of Kailua, is a large crater. It is now extinct. But our old people tell us of the time in their childhood, when they were aroused from their midnight slumbers, to see red hot balls hurled into the air from out the crater on this mountain.”

“Torrents of molten lava flowed from crater to coast, extended the shore farther out into the sea, and encrusted the surface of the earth, besides leaving an abundance of large loose scoriae, tossed about in every direction.”

Hualalai (“obstructing the flow” (Parker Dictionary for a crater on the mountain)) is the third youngest and third-most historically active volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i.

Six different vents erupted lava between the late 1700s and 1801, two of which generated lava flows that poured into the sea on the west coast of the island. The Keāhole Airport is built atop the larger flow.  (USGS)

The 1801 flow covered Pā‘aiea pond; “Pā‘aiea was a great pond almost like the ponds of Wainanalii and Kiholo. In the olden days, when the great ruling chiefs were living, and when these fish ponds were full of the riches of Awa, Anae, and Ahole, along with all sorts of fish which swam within.”

“During that time, Konohiki were stationed, and he was the guard of the pond that watched over the pond and all things, as here we are talking about Pā‘aiea Pond which was destroyed by lava and became pahoehoe lava which remains today”.

“In the correct and trues story of this pond, its boundaries began from Kaelehuluhulu on the north and on the south was at the place called Wawaloli, and the distance from one end to the other was 3 miles or more, and that was the length of this pond …”

“… and today within these boundaries, there are a number of pools [lua wai loko] remaining during this time that the writer is speaking before the readers of the Hoku.”  (Hoku o Hawaii, 2/5/1914)

The lava came and destroyed the great fishpond of Pā‘aiea, dried its water and filled and covered it with black rocks.  However, two places were spared.

There remained only that very small portion of the fishpond, close to Ho‘ona (within the Natural Energy Laboratory property at Keāhole Point.)  Also, the area below the old headquarters at Hu‘ehu‘e Ranch was left untouched, and this open space bears the name of Pahinahina to this day.

It is said that because of this event that the lands of Manuahi came to be called Ka-ulu-pulehu (the roasted breadfruit (‘ū is short for ‘ulu,)) and this has been shortened to Ka‘ūpūlehu.

Though Hualalai is not nearly as active as Mauna Loa or Kilauea, recent geologic mapping of the volcano shows that 80 percent of Hualalai’s surface has been covered by lava flows in the past 5,000 years.  (USGS)

In the past few decades, when most of the resorts, homes and commercial buildings were built on the flanks of Hualalai, earthquake activity beneath the volcano has been low.

In 1929, however, an intense swarm of earthquakes lasting more than a month was most likely caused by magma rising to near the surface. For these reasons, Hualalai is considered a potentially dangerous volcano that is likely to erupt again in the next 100 years.  (USGS)

A Pālama Nui kāua
Wai māpuna kau i ka maka ka ‘ōpua
Hualalai huewai kuahiwi

You and I stand together on the Foundation of Profound Enlightenment
Where the spring water is borne upon the clouds
Mount Hualalai, a mountain water-gourd

(from Nā‘ū Pālama Nui – ”Hualalai, huewai kuahiwi” is a traditional saying honoring Hualalai’s role in sponging the atmosphere of moisture to fill the aquifers.) (Tangarō, UH-HCC)

With respect to groundwater, an interesting conclusion, based on isotopic data for the high level water, shows that most of the groundwater recharge under Hualalai is coming from recharge at significantly higher elevations than the local rainfall in the mid-elevations of Hualalai (at nearly 3,000 year average age of the water in the high level aquifer).

In other words, not much of the “local” rainfall in the vicinity of the high level wells is actually getting into the high level aquifer. (as noted by Don Thomas, research faculty of the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH and Director of the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes at the UH‐Hilo campus.)

The only alternative that can explain the isotopic and age data for the high level aquifer, with significant amounts of local recharge entering it, is that substantially larger amounts of much older recharge to the high level aquifers is coming into the Hualalai water system from the adjacent regions in the Saddle and from Mauna Loa.  (Don Thomas)

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