Hawaiian Traditions | Page 59 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 8, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

‘Umi in Kona

Pa o ʻUmi is the small point of land in Kailua Bay between Kamakahonu (King Kamehameha Hotel) and Huliheʻe Palace, near the middle of the Kailua Seawall in Kona on the Big Island.

It marks the location of the Royal Center of the ruler ʻUmi-a-Līloa (ʻUmi) (ca. AD 1490-1525) and where famed King ʻUmi landed when he first came to Kailua by canoe from his ancestral court at Waipiʻo.

On this point of rock, King ʻUmi ordered his attendant to dry his treasured feather cloak (ʻahuʻula) (so this promontory is sometimes referred to as Ka Lae o ʻAhuʻula.)

Over the years of widening Aliʻi Drive and adding on to the seawall, this point has been almost completely covered.

ʻUmi from Waipiʻo, son of Līloa, defeated Kona chief Ehunuikaimalino and united the island of Hawai‘i. He then moved his Royal Center from Waipi‘o to Kailua.

ʻUmi’s residence was near the place called Pa-o-ʻUmi.

At about the time of ʻUmi, a significant new form of agriculture was developed in Kona; he is credited with starting this in Kona.

Today, archaeologists call the unique method of farming in this area the “Kona Field System.”

This intensive agricultural activity changed farming and agricultural production on the western side of Hawai’i Island; the Kona field system was quite large, extending from Kailua to south of Honaunau.

In lower elevations all the way to the shore, informal clearings, mounds and terraces were used to plant sweet potatoes; and on the forest fringe above the walled fields there were clearings, mounds and terraces which were primarily planted in bananas.

In the lower reaches of the tillable land, at elevations about 500-feet to 1,000-feet above sea level, a grove of breadfruit half mile wide and 20 miles long grew.

Sweet potatoes grew among the breadfruit. Above the breadfruit grove, at elevations where the rainfall reached 60-70 inches or more, were fields of dry land taro.

The field system took up all the tillable land and cropping cycles were frequent. Agriculture supported the thriving and growing population of Kona.

The Kona Field System (identified as Site: 10-27-6601 and including multiple locations) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 28, 1977.

When it was nominated to the National Register, the Kona Field System was described as “the most monumental work of the ancient Hawaiians.”

The challenge of farming in Kona is to produce a flourishing agricultural economy in an area subject to frequent droughts, with no lakes or streams for irrigation.

The Kona Field System was planted in long, narrow fields that ran across the contours, along the slopes of Mauna Loa and Hualālai.

As rainfall increases rapidly as you go up the side of Hualālai, the long fields allowed farmers to plant different crops according to the rainfall gradients.

This traditional farming system disappeared by the mid-19th century and now coffee farms cover much of the land that once comprised the Kona Field System (we now call this mauka region the “Coffee Belt.”)

The photo shows Pa o ‘Umi, taken in 1928 from the area of the Kailua Pier – Huliheʻe Palace and Mokuaikaua Church in background. The little girl sitting on the left is my mother; the woman sitting in the middle (wearing a hat) is my grandmother.

Pa O ‘Umi was included as a Point of Interest in the Royal Footsteps Along The Kona Coast Scenic Byway. We prepared the Corridor Management Plan for the scenic byway for the Kailua Village BID.

We are honored that the project was awarded the 2011 “Environment / Preservation” award from the American Planning Association – Hawaii Chapter; “Historic Preservation Commendation” from the Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation and the 2011 “Pualu Award for Culture & Heritage” from the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce.

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Pa_o_Umi-LSY

Kailua_Bay-HenryEPKekahuna-SP_201858-Pa_O_Umi_Heiau-noted

Persis_Goodale_Thurston_Taylor_–_Kailua_from_the_Sea,_1836

Kona Field System Walls – Google Earth

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Hawaii_Island-noting_Kona_and_Kohala_Field_Systems-Map

March 5, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamehameha’s Attempts to Conquer Kauai

In 1784 Kamehameha I began a war of conquest, and, by 1795, with his superior use of modern weapons and western advisors, he subdued all other chiefdoms, with the exception of Kauai.

Kauai and Niʻihau were ruled by King Kaumuali‘i. He was born in 1780 at the sacred royal Birthstone at Holoholokū Heiau in Wailua.

King Kamehameha I launched his first invasion attempt on Kauai in April of 1796, having already conquered the other Hawaiian Islands, and having fought his last major battle at Nu‘uanu on O‘ahu in 1795.

Kauai’s opposing factions (Kaumuali‘i versus Keawe) were extremely vulnerable as they had been weakened by fighting each other (Keawe died and Kaumuali‘i was, ultimately, ruler of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau.)

About one-fourth of the way across the ocean channel between O‘ahu and Kaua‘i, a storm thwarted Kamehameha’s warriors when many of their canoes were swamped in the rough seas and stormy winds, and then were forced to turn back.

Some of the advance troops made it to Kauai and were killed when they reached shore. Kauai remained unconquered by Kamehameha and Kaumuali‘i ruled.

In 1804, King Kamehameha I moved his capital from Lahaina, Maui to Honolulu on O‘ahu, and continued planning an attack on Kaua‘i. Kamehameha’s forces for this second invasion attempt included about 7,000 Hawaiians along with about 50 foreigners (Europeans).

Kamehameha’s troops were armed with muskets, as well as eight cannons, 40 swivel guns, and other Western weaponry. Kamehameha’s massive fleet of double-hulled canoes was accompanied by 21 armed schooners.

Kamehameha’s second attempt was thwarted, again, when an epidemic, thought to be typhoid or dysentery, swept through the population, killing thousands. The sickness delayed for a second time Kamehameha’s goal of conquering Kauai.

In a renewed effort for a large-scale attack on Kauai, Kamehameha began assembling a formidable armada of sailing ships in Waikīkī, using foreigners to construct the vessels.

The invasion never took place. In the face of the threat of a further invasion, in 1810, Kaumuali‘i decided to peacefully unite with Kamehameha and join the rest of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.

Kaumuali‘i still retained his title and responsibilities as the head of Kaua‘i, but ceded Kauaʻi and Ni‘ihau to Kamehameha and the Hawaiian Islands were unified under a single leader.

The agreement with Kaumuali‘i marked the end of war and thoughts of war across the archipelago. Kaumuali’i returned to Kaua’i still serving as the paramount chief.

Although Kaumuali‘i had ceded Kaua‘i to Kamehameha I in 1810, he generally maintained de facto independence and control of the island following his agreement with Kamehameha.

After King Kamehameha I died in 1819, Kaumuali‘i pledged his allegiance to Liholiho, Kamehameha’s son and successor. In 1821, Liholiho (King Kamehameha II) anchored his royal ship Ha‘aheo o Hawai‘i (Pride of Hawai‘i) in Waimea Bay, and invited Kaumuali‘i aboard.

After boarding the ship Kaumuali‘i was effectively taken as a prisoner and the ship sailed for O‘ahu. There, Ka‘ahumanu (Kamehameha’s widow) married him – some suggest it was based on romance, others suggest it was an act of diplomacy.

Kaumuali‘i passed away on O‘ahu in 1824, effectively ceding the island to the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi upon his death.

Hiram Bingham was on a preaching tour of the island of Kauai in 1824, shortly before King Kaumuali‘i died. Kaumuali‘i had been living on Oahu for three years. Bingham spoke to him just before coming to Kauai.

Bingham writes: “We found Kaumuali‘i seated at his desk, writing a letter of business. We were forcible and pleasantly struck with the dignity and gravity, courteousness, freedom and affection …”

“… with which he rose and gave us his hand, his hearty aloha, and friendly parting smile, so much like a cultivated Christian brother.”

When the king died, Bingham said a gloom fell over Kauai.

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Mahiole_of_Kaumualii,_1899- Kaumualiʻi (c. 1778 – May 26, 1824) was the last independent Aliʻi Aimoku (King of the islands) of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau

King Kaumuali‘i, the last king of Kauai, from a portrait by Laka Morton (Kauai Museum)

Maui-Lahaina-Waiola_Cemetery-Kaumualii

February 16, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Letting A Stream Be A Stream

The State Water Code provides for the Commission on Water Resource Management (Water Commission) to establish and administer a statewide instream use protection program.

Duties under this program include:
• Establishing instream flow standards on a stream-by-stream basis whenever necessary to protect the public interest in waters of the State
• Establishing interim instream flow standards
• Protecting stream channels from alteration whenever practicable to provide for fishery, wildlife, recreational, aesthetic, scenic, and other beneficial instream uses
• Establishing an instream flow program to protect, enhance and reestablish, where practicable, beneficial instream uses of water

Instream Flow Standard (IFS) is “a quantity or flow of water or depth of water which is required to be present at a specific location in a stream system at certain specified times of the year to protect fishery, wildlife, recreational, aesthetic, scenic, and other beneficial instream uses.”

The technical language of the law is complicated; I simplify this to say that the instream flow standard allows a stream to be a stream.

Unfortunately, for the most part, Hawai‘i does not have permanent IFS; our streams are monitored under Interim Instream Flow Standards (IIFS.)

Essentially this means that, years ago, the Water Commission allowed existing diversions to continue and whatever remained in the stream was the IIFS.

Lack of Instream Flow Standards has caused a number of litigations, Waiāhole being the most prominent. The Waiāhole water case and others have taught us that we need to do things differently.

The Hawai‘i Supreme Court emphasized in the Waiāhole case that instream flow standards serve as the primary mechanism by which the Water Commission is to discharge its duty to protect and promote the entire range of public trust purposes dependent upon instream flows.

Under the Constitution, the State has an obligation to protect, control and regulate the use of Hawaii’s water resources for the benefit of its people. In the Waiāhole case, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the public trust doctrine applies to all water resources of the State.

The Court also identified three purposes or uses under the public trust doctrine: Maintenance of waters in their natural state (letting a steam be a stream;) Domestic water use (drinking water for you and me;) and Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights.

Rather than react to the next litigation or crisis, we need to take proactive, comprehensive and collaborative approaches in developing instream flow standards for Hawai‘i’s stream systems.

While at DLNR, I Chaired the State Commission on Water Resource Management (the Water Commission.) We worked on several programs to develop a better understanding of Hawai‘i’s 376 perennial streams.

These programs included: Statewide Watershed Coding System – providing a framework for inventorying of surface water resource information; Stream Diversion Database – providing information for all diversions statewide …

Surface Water Information Management System – providing the informational foundation for instream flow standards; and Hawaii Stream Assessment through DLNR’s division on Aquatic Resources – the stream coding system.

The goal is to establish permanent instream flow standards for all streams across the state that are consistent and, to the extent practicable, based on scientific or measurable data, all in a manner that is understandable and transparent. It is anticipated that this methodology will avoid future, lengthy litigation, as experienced in the past.

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Stream-CWRM

February 15, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Honolulu, 1810

This reconstructed map (from Bishop Museum Press,) reportedly a reasonably accurate depiction of Honolulu in 1810, is based on three documents:

John Papa ʻĪʻī recorded the location of trails and various sites in Honolulu between 1810 and 1812 in his “Fragments of Hawaiian History;” a sketch map made by lieutenant Charles Malden of HBMS Blonde in 1825; and a government road map of 1870.

The map notes locations of uses in 1810 with subsequent road alignments as of 1870 – the present day street alignments are generally similar to the 1870 road alignments.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. For me, maps and pictures capture moments in time and, in doing so, tell us stories. I love maps, especially old ones, because of the stories they tell.

This map tells lots of stories. Here are highlights on some.

The first thing that jumps out at you is the timeframe and location of the map – 1810 in Honolulu.

As you will recall, 1810 marks the ultimate unification of the Hawaiian Islands.

It was here, in 1810, at Pākākā (the point jutting into the harbor,) where negotiations between King Kaumuali‘i of Kaua‘i and Kamehameha I took place – Kaumuali‘i ceded Kauaʻi and Ni‘ihau to Kamehameha and the Hawaiian Islands were unified under a single leader.

This time and place marks the beginning of the unified islands. This location continues to be the center of commerce, government, finance, etc in the State.

A bit more history: Kamehameha I, who had been living at Waikiki since 1804, moved his Royal Center there in 1809. His immediate court consisted of high-ranking chiefs and their retainers.

Those who contributed to the welfare and enjoyment of court members also lived here, from fishermen and warriors to foreigners and chiefs of lesser rank. (Kamehameha’s home and surrounding support uses are noted with his name (adjoining Pākākā.))

In those days, this area was not called Honolulu. Instead, each land section had its own name (as noted on the map.)

There are reports that the old name for Honolulu was said to be Kou, a district roughly encompassing the present day area from Nuʻuanu to Alakea Streets and from Hotel to Queen Streets, which is the heart of the present downtown district.

Honolulu Harbor, also known as Kuloloia, was entered by the first foreigner, Captain William Brown of the English ship Butterworth, in 1794. He named the harbor “Fair Haven.”

The name Honolulu (meaning “sheltered bay” – with numerous variations in spelling) soon came into use.

As you can tell by the overlaying 1870 road map, it is obvious that following this timeframe, the fringe reefs noted on the map were filled in and land added to the water front. (In 1810, the waterfront was along the present Queen Street.)

Between 1857 and 1870 a combination of fill and dredging formed the “Esplanade” (not labeled on this map (because it’s over the reef) between Fort and Merchant Streets, creating the area where Aloha Tower is now located.)

In 1907, the reefs fronting the Kakaʻako area (on the right of the map) were filled in to make Fort Armstrong.

Fort Street, one of the oldest streets in Honolulu, was not named for Fort Armstrong; it was named after Fort Kekuanohu (aka Fort Honolulu,) constructed in 1816 by Kamehameha.

Today, the site of the fort is generally at the open space now called Walker Park, a small park at the corner of Queen and Fort streets (there is a canon from the old fort there) – (Ewa side of the former Amfac Center, now the Topa Financial Plaza, with the fountain.)

The left section of the map (where Nuʻuanu Stream empties into the harbor) identifies the area known as Kapuukolo; this is “where white men and such dwelt.”

Of the approximate sixty foreign residents on O‘ahu at the time, nearly all lived in the village, and many were in the service of the king.

Among those who lived here were Don Francisco de Paula Marin, the Spaniard who greatly expanded horticulture in Hawaiʻi, and Isaac Davis (Welsh,) friend and co-advisor with (John Young (British)) to Kamehameha. (The Marin and Davis homesites are noted on the map.)

The large yam field (what is now much of the core of downtown Honolulu) was planted to provide visiting ships with an easily-stored food supply for their voyages (supplying ships with food and water was a growing part of the Islands’ economy.)

This map, and the stories it tells, gives us a glimpse into Hawai‘i’s past.

Campbell-Honolulu-1810_map_over_GoogleEarth

Downtown_Honolulu-sites-uses_noted-1870_roads_in_red-Map-1810

January 26, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hula … A view by a Missionary’s Son

“The Hawaiians, it is true, were many removes from being primitives; their dreams, however, harked back to a period that was close to the world’s infancy.”

“Their remote ancestry was, perhaps, akin to ours – Aryan, at least Asiatic – but the orbit of their evolution seems to have led them away from the strenuous discipline that has whipped the Anglo-Saxon branch into fighting shape with fortune.”

“If one comes to the study of the hula and its songs in the spirit of a censorious moralist he will find nothing for him; if as a pure ethnologist, he will take pleasure in pointing out the physical resemblances of the Hawaiian dance to the languorous grace of the Nautch girls, of the geisha, and other oriental dancers.”

“But if he comes as a student and lover of human nature, back of the sensuous posturings, in the emotional language of the songs he will find himself entering the playground of the human race.”

“The hula was a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s minds.”

“Its view of life was idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.”

“As to subject-matter, its warp was spun largely from the bowels of the old-time mythology into cords through which the race maintained vital connection with its mysterious past.”

“Interwoven with these, forming the woof, were threads of a thousand hues and of many fabrics, representing the imaginations of the poet, the speculations of the philosopher, the aspirations of many a thirsty soul, as well as the ravings and flame-colored pictures of the sensualist …”

“… the mutterings and incantations of the kahuna, the mysteries and paraphernalia of Polynesian mythology, the annals of the nation’s history – the material, in fact, which in another nation and under different circumstances would have gone to the making of its poetry, its drama, its opera, its literature.”

“The people were superstitiously religious; one finds their drama saturated with religious feeling; hedged about with tabu, loaded down with prayer and sacrifice. “

“They were poetical; nature was full of voices for their ears; their thoughts came to them as images; nature was to them an allegory; all this found expression in their dramatic art.”

“They were musical; their drama must needs be cast in forms to suit their ideas of rhythm, of melody, and of poetic harmony.”

“They were; moreover, the children of passion, sensuous, worshipful of whatever lends itself to pleasure. How, then, could the dramatic efforts of this primitive people, still in the bonds of animalism, escape the note of passion?”

“The songs and other poetic pieces which have come down to us from the remotest antiquity are generally inspired with a purer sentiment and a loftier purpose than the modem; and it may be said of them all that when they do step into the mud it is not to tarry and wallow in it; it is rather with the unconscious naivete of a child thinking no evil.”

“If one mistakes not the temper and mind of this generation, we are living in an age that is not content to let perish one seed of thought or one single phase of life that can be rescued from the drift of time.”

“We mourn the extinction of the buffalo of the plains and of the birds of the islands, rightly thinking that life is somewhat less rich and full without them.”

“What of the people of the plains and of the islands of the sea? Is their contribution so nothingless that one can affirm that the orbit of man’s mind is complete without it?”

“Comparison is unavoidable between the place held by the dance in ancient Hawaii and that occupied by the dance in our modern society.”

“The ancient Hawaiians did not personally and informally indulge in the dance for their own amusement, as does pleasure loving society at the present time.”

“Like the Shah of Persia, but for very different reasons, Hawaiians of the old time left it to be done for them by a body of trained and paid performers. “

“This was not because the art and practice of the hula were held in disrepute – quite the reverse – but because the hula was an accomplishment requiring special education and arduous training in both song and dance, and more especially because it was a religious matter, to be guarded against profanation by the observance of tabus and the performance of priestly rites.”

“This fact, which we find paralleled in every form of communal amusement, sport, and entertainment in ancient Hawaii, sheds a strong light on the genius of the Hawaiian.”

“We are wont to think of the old-time Hawaiians as light-hearted children of nature, given to spontaneous outbursts of song and dance as the mood seized them …”

“… quite as the rustics of ‘merrie England’ joined hands and tripped ‘the light fantastic toe’ in the joyous month of May or shouted the harvest home at a later season. “

“The genius of the Hawaiian was different.”

“With him the dance was an affair of premeditation, an organized effort, guarded by the traditions of a somber religion. And this characteristic, with qualifications, will be found to belong to popular Hawaiian sport and amusement of every variety.”

“Exception must be made, of course, of the unorganized sports of childhood. One is almost inclined to generalize and to say that those children of nature, as we are wont to call them, in this regard were less free and spontaneous than the more advanced race to which we are proud to belong.”

“But if the approaches to the temple of Terpsichore with them were more guarded, we may confidently assert that their enjoyment therein was deeper and more abandoned.” (All here is from Nathaniel Bright Emerson.)

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