Hawaiian Traditions | Page 70 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 11, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kī

Kī, the Ti plant, was an emblem of high rank and divine power. The kāhili, in its early form, was a kī stalk with its clustered foliage of glossy, green leaves at the top.

The kahuna priests in their ancient religious ceremonial rituals used the leaves as protection. Ki planted around dwellings is thought to ward off evil. (ksbe)

To dispel evil, fresh leaves were worn around the neck, waist, and ankles and hung around dwellings. Masses of plants were planted around homes to ward off evil and bring good fortune. (CTAHR)

It is a canoe crop, brought to the Islands by the early Polynesians. Kī was considered sacred to the Hawaiian god, Lono, and to the goddess of the hula, Laka. (ksbe)

The kī leaf was a most useful article to the Hawaiians in caring for food. The leaf is long and wide (20 in. x 6 in. is an average size,) smooth, shiny, tough, and, except for the midrib, the veins are unobtrusive.

It has no odor and is clean and fresh looking. Small foods were wrapped in a ti leaf laulau piʻao, larger in a flat bundle called laulau lāwalu.

Broiling wrapped food (lāwalu) was used a great deal. Food that had been cut into pieces, or small fish that would be lost in an imu, or burned crisp if broiled, were wrapped in leaves of the ti, occasionally in leaves of the wild ginger, which is said to have added a delicious fragrance to the fish.

The leaf bundle was toasted over the open fire, turning it occasionally and the food was cooked when the juice ceased to drip from the bundle. Mullet was “cooked with such perfection that when the banana leaves in which it had been steamed were taken off, it had received hardly a slight alteration in form and color.” (Titcomb)

Lieut. James Burney and Astronomer William Bayly, while anchored off Kaua‘i in 1779 with the Cook expedition wrote: “… the natives came off with hogs and sweet potatoes in plenty, and a Root that appears like a Rotten Root of a tree, and as large as a man’s thigh. It is very much like brown Sugar in tast but Rather Sweeter – the natives call it Tee (ki or ti.)”

Ti, grown in a favorable location for many years, may have a root weighing 200 to 300 pounds. Roots on the ordinary garden ti may weigh 50 to 60 pounds.

A favorite confection years ago was kī baked in the imu for about 24 hours or until it became a sweet, brown, candy-like food. (Mitchell)

Missionary William Ellis wrote of the ti root in 1823: “The natives bake it in large ovens underground. After baking, it appears like a different substance altogether …”

“… being of a yellowish brown colour, soft, though fibrous and saturated with a highly saccharine juice. It is sweet and pleasant to the taste, and much of it is eaten in this state”.

Foreigners first fermented, and then distilled, the Kī root into an alcoholic beverage. It is said to have started when Captain Nathaniel Portlock, part of Captain Cook’s crew in 1779, baked roots in an imu to convert its starches to sugars, added water and let it ferment with wild yeast into a mild beer.

Lieut. James Burney and Astronomer William Bayly, while anchored off Kauaʻi in 1779 with the Cook expedition wrote: ‘… The Natives eat it sometimes Raw and other times Roasted. We made exceeding good Beer, by boiling it in Water, then let it ferment, so as to purge itself.’

Later, William Stevenson, an escaped convict from Australia, is credited to have taught the native Hawaiians how to distill the beer beverage into a higher alcoholic concoction. (Kepler) Due to the early means of making the drink, it took on the name ʻōkolehao (lit. iron bottom.)

“Since the perverted ingenuity of some early beachcomber first adjusted a twisted gun barrel to an iron pot, and distilled from the root of the ti this liquor to which the French Republic through the Paris Exposition of 1899 gave a blue ribbon. …”

“ʻŌkolehao has been recognized as something in which Hawaiʻi might well have a proprietary pride, because of its surpassing excellence in its class.” (Hawaiian Star, September 20, 1906)

It had its detractors … “If people will drink, let us at least see, if possible, that they drink a fair article of poison. I hold that no man ever killed his wife when under the influence of good, generous liquor. It is the “tarantula juice,” the ʻōkolehao, that does most of the mischief.” (The Friend, October 1, 1879)

Ti is a member of the agave family; botanists had previously placed it in the lily family. Besides green, the foliage of ti plants can be red, orange, purple, or various combinations of these (blue has not yet been found in ti.)

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Ti Leaves

Ti_plant_(Cordyline_fruticosa)

Ti-red-green

Ti leaf and heiau

Ki Skirt

Hookupu

Ti Root

Okolehao_label (thewhiskyunderground)

January 21, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lawaiʻa Manu

When Cook anchored off Waimea, Kauai, in 1778, he and his officers at once noticed the feather robes and helmets. The account is as follows:

“Amongst the articles which they brought to barter this day (January 21, 1778) we could not help taking notice of a particular sort of cloak and cap, which, even in countries where dress is more particularly attended to, might be reckoned elegant.”

“The first are nearly of the size and shape of the short cloaks worn by the women in England, and by the men of Spain, reaching to the middle of the back and tied loosely before.”

“The ground of them is a net-work, upon which the most beautiful red and yellow feathers are so closely fixed, that the surface might be compared to the thickest and richest velvet, which they resemble, both as to feel and glossy appearance.”

“The manner of varying the mixture is very different, some having triangular spaces of red and yellow alternately; others a kind of crescent, and some that were entirely red, had a yellow border which made them appear, at some distance, exactly like a scarlet cloak edged with gold lace.”

“The brilliant colours of the feathers, in those that happened to be new, added not a little to their fine appearance, and we found that they were in high estimation with their owners, for they would not, at first part with one of them for anything we offered, asking no less a price than a musket.”

“However some were afterward purchased for very large nails. Some of them as were of the best sort, were scarce, and it would seem that they are only used on the occasion of some particular ceremony or diversion, for the people who had them always made some gesticulations which we had seen used before by those who sung.”

“We were at a loss to guess from whence they could get such a quantity of these beautiful feathers; but were soon informed as to one sort for they afterward brought great numbers of skins of small red birds (i‘iwi) for sale, which were often tied up in bunches of twenty or more, or had a small wooden skewer run through their nostrils.” (Cook, 1778; Brigham)

“The birds which supplied the feathers, at least the choicer yellow, red and green, were inhabitants of the mountain regions into which as the abode of evil spirits the Hawaiian did not like to go.” (Brigham)

“‘When you take a bird do not strangle it, but having plucked the few feathers for which it was sought, set it free that others may grow in their place.’ They inquired, ‘Who will possess the bird set free? You are an old man.’ He added, ‘My sons will possess the birds hereafter.’” (Brigham)

A “company of twenty-five athletic men, trained to bird-catching on the beetling crags of these mountains …. Their toe and finger nails, never cut, grow like claws.”

“Their sole business is to catch the little black birds called the o‘o, each producing a few yellow feathers under the wings ….” (Judd; Handy)

Feathers for these amazing works were procured by bird catchers, who often lived deep in the wao kele (upland forest) habitat of the birds that they sought.

“The old Hawaiian was a close observer of nature. Having neither books nor the modern curse of newspapers, his memory was strengthened and his eye sharpened.”

“He had a name for every tree and plant and not less for every bird. It is true that he did not always conjoin the two sexes when they, as is not infrequently the case, differ greatly in coloration ; but ornithologists of education have failed in the same way.”

“The hunters knew well enough the haunts of the birds they sought and the seasons when the plumage was at its best. They knew the habits of the birds, their food and other matters that might facilitate their quest.”

“For example, they recognized the curiosity of the birds and planted strange trees in the open places in the forests, and in these new trees placed the sticks smeared with bird-lime which would entangle the prying birds.”

“Bows and arrows would have been of no avail, if they had possessed them, for the rarer birds were seldom killed but captured alive and when the few feathers desired were plucked, released to renew their plumage at the next moulting.” (Brigham)

When bird-lime made of the viscid juice of the ‘papala’ could be obtained it was preferred, although other kinds were known and snares and throwing nets were frequently used. (Brigham)

Another technique called kahekahe, involved pruning branches of the ‘ōhi‘a tree of most of its flowers and gumming the branch near the remaining flowers with the sticky sap of the ‘ulu (breadfruit).

When the bird, attracted by the nectar of the ‘ōhi‘a blossom, alighted on the branch it became stuck and easy to catch. Care was often taken in removing the feathers from the bird, and salve applied to help the bird heal. (Hawaii Alive)

Another approach was to take a stone with a hole though it to form a snare; “A loop of fine cord is passed through the central hole and covered with bait, while the snarer leads the cord to some cover near by. A pull at the right time may catch the leg of the bird in the loop and the weight of the stone prevents flight.” (Brigham)

The common sorts were often killed and eaten. Rare birds especially were seen as a sacred resource.

David Malo wrote in the Hawaiian–language newspaper Ka Hae Hawaii that Kamehameha himself had forbidden bird-catchers from taking the life of the birds so as to allow his children in the future to experience the beauty of these wonderful birds. (Hawaii Alive)

Rain capes, worn by the bird-catchers (lawai‘a manu (those people who ‘fished for birds’) or kia manu) in the rain forest, were made by tying dried ti leaves singly, and overlapping, onto a net made of olona, fiber.

These men also thatched their upland shelters with dried ti leaves (sometimes with tree bark), and such temporary shelters were called hale la‘i (ti-leaf house). (Handy)

“(W)here there were no trails paved with smooth waterworn stones as in most areas in olden times, sandals made of dried ti leaves were a great help in crossing rough lava beds, even some that were only partly cooled.”

“‘A person accustomed to going to and fro on foot knew just how many pairs he would need for his journey and he carried them along with him. As one pair wore out it was thrown away and another put on.’ These sandals were called kama‘a la‘I (literally ‘the-bound-ti-Ieaf,’ from ma‘a ‘to bind’).”

“A fairly strong rope could be made by braiding dried ti leaves together along with their very stout stems. ‘When my grandmother needed a rope for a temporary purpose, this was what she did – a relic of old-time wisdom.’” (Pukui; Handy)

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Apapane in Ohia lehua

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Aha_Ula-Brook Parker

January 19, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Third Voyage

In 1768, when Captain James Cook set sail on the first of three voyages to the South Seas, he carried with him secret orders from the British Admiralty to seek ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’ and to take possession of that country ‘in the Name of the King of Great Britain’.

While each of his three journeys had its own aim and yielded its own discoveries, it was this confidential agenda that would transform the way Europeans viewed the Pacific Ocean and its lands. (State Library, New South Wales)

James Cook’s first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on May 27, 1768. It had three aims; establish an observatory at Tahiti to record the transit of Venus (when Venus passes between the earth and the sun – June 3, 1769;) record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks; and continue the search for the Great South Land.

Cook’s second Pacific voyage (1772-1775) aboard Resolution and Adventure aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent, and make astronomical observations.

Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. (State Library, New South Wales)

The British Navy Board purchased the Marquis of Granby, a ship-rigged sloops-of-war that was built by Thomas Fishburn in 1770 at Whitby. Lord Rockford, Secretary of State, thought the name might offend the Spanish and consulted both the King and the Earl of Sandwich. The Earl advised him she be renamed the Resolution.

The Resolution impressed Cook greatly and he called her “the ship of my choice and as I thought the fittest for service she was going upon of any I have seen.” (Hough) She was 14 months old and her tonnage was 462. She had the same flat-floored, apple-cheeked hull.

Resolution’s lower deck length was 110 feet 8 inches, maximum beam was just over 35 feet. Her crew included 6 midshipmen, a cook and a cook’s mate, 6 quartermasters, 10 marines including a lieutenant, and 45 seamen.

She was fitted out at Deptford with the most advanced navigational aids of the day, including a Gregory Azimuth Compass, ice anchors and the latest apparatus for distilling fresh water from sea water.

Twelve carriage guns and twelve swivel guns were carried. At his own expense Cook had brass door-hinges installed in the great cabin.

The support vessel was the Discovery built by G&N Langborn for Mr. William Herbert from whom she was bought by the Admiralty.

She was 299 tons, the smallest of Cook’s ships. Her dimensions were: lower deck 91’5″, extreme breadth 27’5″, depth of hold 11’5″, height between decks 5’7″ to 6’1″. She cost £2,415 including alterations. Her complement was 70: 3 officers, 55 crew, 11 marines and one civilian.

Cook’s crew first sighted the Hawaiian Islands in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778. His two ships, the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, were kept at bay by the weather until the next day when they approached Kaua‘i’s southeast coast.

On the afternoon of January 19, native Hawaiians in canoes paddled out to meet Cook’s ships, and so began Hawai‘i’s contact with Westerners. The first Hawaiians to greet Cook were from the Kōloa south shore.

The Hawaiians traded fish and sweet potatoes for pieces of iron and brass that were lowered down from Cook’s ships to the Hawaiians’ canoes.

On the afternoon of January 20, 1778, Cook anchored his ships near the mouth of the Waimea River on Kaua‘i’s southwestern shore.

As they stepped ashore for the first time, Cook and his men were greeted by hundreds of Hawaiians who offered gifts of pua‘a (pigs), and mai‘a (bananas) and kapa (tapa) barkcloth.

Cook went ashore at Waimea three times the next day, walking inland to where he saw Hawaiian hale (houses), heiau (places of worship) and agricultural sites.

At the time, the region was thriving with many thatched homes as well as lo‘i kalo (taro patches) and various other food crops such as niu (coconuts) and ‘ulu (breadfruit).

After trading for provisions, gathering water and readying for sail, Cook left the island and continued his search of the “Northwest Passage,” an elusive (because it was non-existent) route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

“It is worthy of observation, that the islands in the Pacific Ocean, which our late voyages have added to the geography of the globe, have been generally found lying in groups or clusters …”

“… the single intermediate islands, as yet discovered, being few in proportion to the others; though, probably, there are many more of them still unknown, which serve as steps between the several clusters.”

“Of what number this newly-discovered Archipelago consists, must be left for future investigation. We saw five of them, whose names, as given to us by the natives, are Woahoo (O‘ahu,) Atooi (Kauai,) Oneeheow (Ni‘ihau,) Oreehoua (Lehua) and Tahoora (Kaula.)” (The Voyages of Captain James Cook)

On January 17, 1779, Cook returned to the Hawaiian Islands, sailing into Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawai‘i. Less than one month later, on February 14, 1779, Cook and several of his men were killed in an encounter with the Hawaiians on the shoreline of Kealakekua Bay.

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January 13, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ka Wai Ola a Kāne

‘Water of Life of Kāne’ (Lāna‘i Cultural & Heritage Center)

Wai (fresh water) is the most important resource for life. As such, wai must be considered a top priority in every aspect of land use and planning.

The kānaka maoli word for water is wai and the Hawaiian word for wealth is waiwai, indicating that water is the source of well-being and wealth.

The importance of the forest is that it plays a significant role in the water cycle, gathering moisture that is stored in the earth that ultimately finds its way to shore or the ocean, evaporated back into the sky to return as rain once again.

As such, the relationship between the wai and the forest is an infinite cycle.

“Fresh water as a life-giver was not to the Hawaiians merely a physical element; it had a spiritual connotation.”

“In prayers of thanks and invocations used in offering fruits of the land, and in prayers chanted when planting, and in prayers for rain, the ‘Water of Life of Kāne’ is referred to over and over again.”

“Kāne – the word means ‘male’ and ‘husband’ – was the embodiment of male procreative energy in fresh water, flowing on or under the earth in springs, in streams and rivers, and falling as rain (and also as sunshine,) which gives life to plants.”

“There are many prayers (referring to) ‘the Water of Life of Kāne” … We also hear occasionally of the “Water of Life” of Kanaloa, of Lono, and of Kū, and even of Hiʻiaka, sister of Pele, a healer”

“Lono was the god of rain and storms, and as such the “father of waters” (Lono-wai-makua).”

“The old priests were inclined to include in their prayers for rain and for fertility the names of the four major deities, Kāne, Kū, Lono, and Kanaloa, whose roles, while on the whole distinct, overlapped in many areas of ritualistic and mythological conceptions.”

The religion of the folk-planters and fishers – was sectarian to some extent; some worshiped Kāne, some Kū, some Lono, and some Kanaloa. Regardless of all such distinctions, life-giving waters were sacred. (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

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January 7, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

The Gods Who Brought the Plants

“In view of the myth that relates the origin and descent of taro, which was identified with the god Kāne, to that of the ali‘i, or chiefs, of Hawaii, it is surprising that in the pageantry of the Makahiki, or harvest festival, the reigning aIi‘i plays the role of Lono rather than of Kāne.”

“Lono does not have any part in the creation myths of the Hawaiian Islands. This would seem to imply that Lono, with whom were identified the sweet potato, the gourd, and the hog, was a chief who came to these islands after they were already settled.”

“Had Lono come first, we should expect him to appear as a mythological character, and to find Kāne remembered, or recorded genealogically, as subsequent and subsidiary.”

“On the contrary, Kāne is primordial in the creation lore describing the origination of gods and men out of the marriage of Sky and Earth.”

“The sweet potato and gourd were suitable for cultivation in the drier areas of the islands. The cult of Lono was important in those areas, particularly in Kona on Hawaii and ‘Ulupalakua on Maui. At both of these places there were temples dedicated to Lono. The sweet potato was particularly the food of the common people.”

“The festival in honor of Lono, preceding and during the rainy season, was essentially a festival for the whole people, in contrast to the war rite in honor of Kū which was a ritual identified with Kū as god of battle.”

“It seems likely that the four chief gods of Hawaii, with each of whom particular plants and animals that were introduced were identified, represent distinct eras of colonization.”

“Because of Kāne’s place in the religion, his primordial role in the creation mythology, his pantheistic character, and his role as life-giver, it is logical to say that the first colonizers were worshipers of Kāne. With Kāne are identified the taro, sugar cane, and bamboo.”

“Our inference is, therefore, that these were introduced by the first settlers, and that it was these colonizers who established systematic agriculture in those areas that were capable of systematic development by means of irrigation …”

“… in other words, primarily the windward coasts and the valley areas on leeward sides of Kauai, Oahu, and West Maui, where stream systems coming down out of rain-drenched highlands made irrigation feasible.”

“This would have been an era of relative quiet, one of fairly isolated tribalism, before dynastic patterns and aristocratic traditions of ambitious warrior chieftains had become established.”

“Kanaloa perhaps came next after Kāne. The banana is identified with Kanaloa, as it is also in Tahiti. In Tahiti, and in Samoa and Tonga, Tangaloa (or Ta’aroa as the name is there pronounced) was the supreme god, the creator, and the ancestor of the ali‘i.”

“There is no reminiscence of this in Hawaii.”

“In all the southern islands, and as far as New Zealand, this deity is god of the ocean; and this is true also in Hawaii.”

“Here there is an interesting traditional association of Kāne and Kanaloa, in connection with the opening up of springs. Also in the mythological account of the creation of man, Kanaloa is associated with Kāne, although he does not appear at the dawn of creation as does Kāne.”

“It is because of the close association of Kanaloa with Kāne that we infer that Kanaloa and the banana came into the islands next after Kāne.”

“In New Zealand and tropical Polynesia, marine life and reptiles are identified with Tangaroa. In Hawaii this is true of marine life, but not of reptiles.”

“In Hawaii there is more lore relating to reptiles (mo‘o) than in any other island, yet there is no recollection of the relationship of reptiles to Kanaloa.”

“With the god Kū are identified the coconut tree and the breadfruit. Neither of these was planted or utilized, within historic times in Hawaii, nearly as extensively as would probably have been the case had they been in the islands for a long time.”

“It is for this reason that we have concluded that the Kū people were late comers. Kū, although not here regarded as lord of the ocean or particularly identified with it in any other way, was the patron of fishing.”

“Fishing as an organized enterprise was a prerogative of the ali’i, and everywhere in the Pacific the ali’i pre-empted the best fishing localities.”

“On the other hand, they did not by any means pre-empt the best farming localities; instead they depended upon the common people for their vegetable provender.”

“War rituals, in Hawaii as also in New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Marquesas, seem to have been derived from fishing rituals, and Kū was god of war as well as of fishing.”

“What probably happened was that as the worshipers of Kū became numerous, and rivalry over the best fishing localities such as Kona and Ka‘u brought about predatory wars, the chieftains came to realize that power depended upon population, and that population was a matter of food supply.”

“The epithet for Kū as a war god was Kū-the-Iand-snatcher, and this epithet became the symbol of conquest and the means of reduction of the farmers to the status of serfs.”

“The only one of the four major deities in Hawaii who was traditionally a human being is Lono. His apparent historical existence lends credence to the idea that he was the last of the four to come to Hawaii.”

“With Lono, as we have said, are identified the sweet potato, the gourd, and the hog. The sweet potato was taken to New Zealand by the Maori in the 14th century, and there likewise is identified with Rongo (Lono).”

“The hog was not taken to New Zealand, nor was the gourd; or at least if they were, neither survived.”

“The fact that the sweet potato went to New Zealand in the 14th century does not imply that it may not have been in Hawaii at an earlier date. It is possible that it was transported from Hawaii to New Zealand.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

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