Hawaiian Traditions | Page 71 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 6, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

A Missionary Son’s View of Hawaiian Poetry

“To come near to the life of a people, to touch the ebb and flow of its human tides, we must consider the intangible utterances in which that people voiced its thoughts, its emotions, its aspirations.”

“Definitions of poetry have often suffered from being too narrow, from being based too much on the form and too little on the spirit. To attempt the impossible, we may define poetry as that species of emotional composition which finds expression in rhythmical form and in language warmed arid lighted by the imagination.”

“The study of Hawaiian poetry is surrounded with much difficulty, even when pursued by one who has an extensive knowledge of the Hawaiian language. Even under the lead of a competent guide, the task of digging out the meaning of an old Hawaiian mele is no light undertaking.”

“In the first place, to catch this literary guide, this kaka-olelo, and then to yoke him in to the required task, is an effort that requires all the wisdom and diplomacy at one’s command. Such people in these days are both scarce and unwilling.”

“The causes which make it difficult for us to understand the poetry of the Hawaiians are to be found both in the genius of the Polynesian language and in the stage of intellectual development at which the Polynesian had arrived.”

“The study of a language cannot be separated from the study of the mind and genius of the people for whom it is the organ of expression.”

“The phonic elements of the Hawaiian language are few in number and elementary in character; yet they show the marks of
great age, and the attenuation of long use. It is as if one should find the toys and playthings of children, with but slight modifications, doing duty in the hands of mature men as the instruments for accomplishing the serious tasks of life.”

“In the Hawaiian language every syllable ends in a vowel, and no two consonants are uttered without the interposition of a vowel sound. A slight calculation based on these data shows us that the Hawaiian speech does not contain more than seventy-six syllables.”

“To take another step, if we classify words, and more properly nouns, according to the three different stages of evolution through which they pass …”

“… first as the reflex expression of emotions, second as images, mental pictures, and third as the mere signs of ideas, we shall find that few nouns of the Hawaiian language have gone beyond the second stage, i. e., the word calls up a living picture in the mind.”

“The results that flowed from this condition were many and far-reaching, affecting not only the poetry, but the prose speech of daily life; so that it is often hard to draw the line and say where prose ends and poetry begins. From this, it follows, as might be expected, that Hawaiian poetry is highly figurative.”

“The very fact of its poverty in abstract terms compels a resort to the language of the senses, with the result that the stronger figures of speech, metaphor, hyperbole, and personification, are the ones most often used. It is not abstract beauty that is sung, but the thing beautiful.”

“We find a language full of pictures, a graphic speech, in which things visible and ponderable are brought directly before us for sight and touch. Does a lover wish to celebrate the charms of his mistress, he goes straight to nature and ascribes to the dear one of his heart all the perfections he finds in wildwood, lake and mountain …”

“… hers the blush of morning, the warmth of noonday, the perfume of sweet vine and flower, the gentle voice of the breeze; or rather the very things themselves are hyperbolized as the parts of her being.”

“Hawaiian poetry … is a dialect marked by laconic directness and wonderful power. In this old poetry we see the language in its naked strength”.

“The childlike character of the language has another influence on the poetry; it gives to its utterances a double meaning. This is a feature that causes no little embarrassment, by making it doubtful whether the primary and obvious meaning is the one intended, or some deeper hidden casket of thought is hinted at.”

“One strong and admirable feature of Hawaiian poetry is its direct attack. The poet wastes no time in beating about the bush, but strikes at once into the heart of his subject.”

“The mele, which is the generic designation of all varieties of Hawaiian poetry, was primarily lyric, intended for cantillation, often with instrumental accompaniment to punctuate the time.”

“This fact alone would make it probable that all Hawaiian poetry was constructed on rhythmical principles. It is not always easy to recognize the rhythm of Hawaiian poetry by the mere study of its written form.”

“When recited, that is, cantillated, the mele throbs with a tremulous rhythm of its own, but when reduced to writing, the same words unskilfully uttered seem to have lost the spirit of song, and to have staled like champagne poured over night.”

“On hearing the kumu-hula, the hula-master, cantillate a mele, it becomes evident that by an indefinable tone or accent, by a manipulation of his voice, he constantly introduces unwritten elements, garlands the verbal framework of the composition with certain slurring tones, grace-notes, which serve to complete the rhythm.”

“It is as when the mason fills in with rubble and small stones the spaces that remain when the large blocks have been placed in position, or as when the decorator twines about the rough frame the wreaths and wildwood filagree that serve to complete the design and make the structure an artistic appeal to the emotions.”

“The genius of the Polynesian language, and especially its Hawaiian branch, is highly favorable to this end within its own range, for it has a most delicate feeling for accent and for sound values, especially for vowel-values.”

“Terminal rhyme was not a device employed in Hawaiian poetry, and for good reason. In a language like the Hawaiian, with its ever recurring syllable endings in a, e, i, o and u …”

“… it would have been a carrying of coals to Newcastle to have set forth such commonplace wares. But there were other tone-color devices of which they availed themselves.”

“A common device was to repeat a word or part of a word that had occurred in a previous verse – a carrying over, as it were, of the poetical leaven from one verse to another. The object seems to have been to produce a pleasant surprise by reintroducing a word with a change of meaning. The repeated word is sometimes doubled in form, thus enhancing the effect.”

“In some of the meles there is a marked tendency to break up the composition into short parts, distichs, triplets, quatrains, and the like, each part at times forming a whole by itself. The result is a disjointing of the meaning, a loosening of the logical relation of one part with another.”

“No doubt the manner of their composition, and the fact that the authorship of many of the poems was shared by several bards working in conjunction, had its influence in preventing unity of conception and breaking the flow of thought, thus giving to the composition rather the character of a mosaic or string of beads than of a form cast in one mould or forged at one heat.”

“There were many varieties of mele. … The pule, prayer, took generally the poetical form. The prayers of the primitive ones are to be understood only by viewing things from their standpoint.”

“Being altogether a religious people, and not yet having risen above the conception that the universe is ruled by many deities, it followed that religion was compartmented …”

“… so that it can almost be said there was a department for war, for the piping times of peace, for pestilence, for the health of the king, for drought, for the change from one season to another, for birth, for death, for land, for sea, for wind and storm, for earthquakes …”

“… for the canoe-maker, for the bird-catcher and for the hula. This last was a happy cult, in which there were no groaning victims, no human sacrifices, in which fear and the sense of impending doom gave way to joy and light-heartedness; yet shackled with the bonds of tabu, hedged in with the conventional constraints of tradition.

“It had in it the genuine spirit of worship and supplication; it was illumined with the flame of sacrifice and propitiation ; it kept alive the sense of dependence on a higher power. However little it may interest us in and of itself, it cannot fail to command the respect of every earnest and tolerant mind.”

“But of most of the songs it may be said that love, now decorous, now wanton, sometimes outspoken, often concealed from the object of affection, or hidden in a tangle of metaphor; jealousy and intrigue; idyllic peace and content; domestic felicity, or heart-ache …”

“… the mere joy of existence ; delight in the fresh beauty of the physical world – these form the main recurring themes of which the bards of Hawaii ever delighted to treat.”

“There is, of course, a sprinkling of that class of poets and poetasters who delight in ribald jests and buffoonery; but this class forms only a small, though by no means unimportant, part of the whole, and serves the useful function of reminding us that human nature rejoices in the same vagaries of fancy in all ages, and that ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’”

“The hula meant very much to the Hawaiian. It included in itself so large a part of what was to him the best of life’s dole; it was such a unique and significant attempt on his part to realize his dreams and aspirations …”

“… that one cannot wonder that it came to include in itself much of the best and choicest thought and uttered emotion of the Hawaiian people. It stood to them in place of lecture hall, theatre, opera, library.” (All here is from Nathaniel Bright Emerson.)

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April 30, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Early Doctors in Hawai‘i

Hawaiian culture had a well-established class of expert priestly physicians known as kāhuna. There were specialists among the kāhuna.

Diagnosticians, kāhuna hāhā, were able to arrive at diagnoses through palpation, observation and communication with the gods.

The kāhuna lā‘au lapa‘au were knowledgeable about botanical medicines. The kāhuna pā‘ao‘ao cared for children, and the kāhuna ho‘ohānau keiki cared for expectant mothers. (Young)

The first Western physicians to arrive in Hawai‘i were ships’ surgeons. On board Captain James Cooks’ HMS Resolution and Discovery in 1778 were 8. On board the HMS Resolution were surgeon Dr. William Anderson and surgeon’s mate Dr. David Samwell. On board the HMS Discovery were surgeon Dr. John Law and surgeon’s mate Dr. William Ellis.

Dr. Anderson, along with the captain of the HMS Discovery, Lt. Charles Clerke, and some of the sailors, already had advanced tuberculosis (and they likely introduced that disease at Waimea and 10 months later at Kealakekua).

Anderson died on August 3, 1779, from tuberculosis after the expedition departed from Kealakekua. He was buried at sea, and Dr. David Samwell was appointed to the position of surgeon on the HMS Resolution.

Later, a Spaniard, Francisco de Paula Marín, settled in the islands sometime around 1793 and effectively became the first resident Western Physician. However, there is some doubt as to whether or not he was a trained doctor.

Another early physician in Hawai‘i was Juan Elliott de Castro, described as surgeon to King Kamehameha. He may have settled in the islands as early as 1811 and had a family here. De Castro was the attending physician at the time of Kamehameha’s death in 1819.

Dr. Meredith Gairdner, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, was with the Hudson’s Bay Company and was stationed on the Columbia River. Dr. Gairdner came to the islands in about 1834, but his health failed, and he died on March 26, 1837, in
Honolulu.

Almost 30 years after Marín settled in Hawai‘i, other Western physicians arrived under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).

Dr. Thomas Holman, Hawai‘i’s first missionary doctor, and his wife Lucia arrived with the Pioneer Company of missionaries in Hawai‘i on April 4, 1820. (Young)

On April 11, King Kamehameha II gave the missionaries permission to stay. However, “The King gives orders that Dr. H(olman) and our teacher must land at Kiarooah – the village where he now resides, and the rest of the family may go to Oahhoo, or Wahhoo.”

“(H)e wanted the Dr. to stay with them, as they had no Physician and appeared much pleased that one had come; as to pulla-pulla (learning), they knew nothing about it. Consequently it was agreed that Dr. H. & Mr. Thurston should stay with the King and the rest of the family go to Oahhoo.” (Lucia Ruggles Holman) The Holman’s left in 1821.

The second missionary physician to come to Hawai‘i was Dr. Abraham Blatchley, with the Second Company, in 1823. Dr. Blatchley’s services were in great demand, and urgent requests came from every island in Hawai‘i.

His “usual” practice territory covered an area of 200 miles on Hawai‘i Island. Often his wife would accompany him on service calls. He was the attending physician when Queen Keōpūolani passed away in Lāhaina, Maui.

Within three years, he was so overworked that he submitted a request to be released from his duties as a missionary physician. This request was rejected, but due to his deteriorating health, he left Hawai‘i in November of 1826.

The third missionary physician to come to Hawai‘i, Dr. Gerritt P. Judd. He arrived in Hawai‘i with the Third Company of missionaries in 1828 and served the ABCFM for 14 years until 1842, when he resigned to enter the service of King Kamehameha III.

Judd had published the first medical textbook in 1838, Anatomia, the only medical textbook written in the Hawaiian language and taught basic anatomy to Hawaiians enrolled at the Mission Seminary (Lahainaluna.)

Later, Judd formed the Islands’ first modern medical school. “On the 9th of November, 1870, he opened a school with ten pupils.” (The Friend, July 1, 1871) The school ended on October 2, 1872, when Laura Fish Judd (Dr Judd’s wife) died.

Judd recommended to the Board of Health that all 10 students be certified and licensed medical physicians. The licenses were issued on October 14, 1872. (Mission Houses)

Dwight Baldwin arrived with the Fourth Company of missionaries in 1831. However, his lack of credentials led the Hawai‘i Medical Society to refuse him a license even though he practiced for 27 years as capably as any of his peers.

Dartmouth Medical College later awarded him an honorary degree in medicine, and he was eventually granted a license to practice in Hawai‘i.

Alonzo Chapin, MD, arrived with the Fifth Company of missionaries in 1832. He assisted Dr. G. P. Judd in providing medical services throughout the islands, mainly on Kauai and Maui. His wife suffered declining health, and they both returned to America in 1835.

Thomas Lafon, MD, arrived with the Eighth Company of missionaries in 1837 and was assigned to Kauai. He was stationed at Kōloa and became the first resident physician for that island.

Dr. Lafon was the first of the sugar plantation doctors, arrangements having been made with the Kōloa Sugar Plantation to care for plantation workers. Dr. Lafon was a staunch abolitionist and opposed the church’s receiving any contributions from slaveowners. He returned to America in 1842.

Seth Lathrop Andrews, MD, in the eighth company of missionaries, arrived with his wife in 1837. In 1852, Dr. Andrews requested
release as a medical missionary and returned to America.

James William Smith, MD, was a member of the Tenth Company of missionaries, arriving in Hawai‘i in 1842. He was assigned to the island of Kauai. In July 1854, Dr. Smith was ordained to the ministry. He served as pastor until 1860, when the ABCFM decided to place the churches under the charge of native ministers and Dr. Smith resigned.

Charles Hinkley Wetmore, MD, arrived with the Twelfth Company of missionaries in 1848. His main responsibility was to care for the families of missionaries. The relatively few deaths from the smallpox epidemic of 1853 in Hilo was due to his diligent immunization work.

He opened the first drugstore in Hilo. His daughter, Frances Matilda, studied medicine at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and was the first female physician in Hawai‘i.

Sarah Eliza Pierce Emerson was another early female physician who practiced in the islands. She was born in Massachusetts in 1855, came to Hawai‘i as a young child, and married the renowned missionary descendant, Civil War veteran, and physician Nathaniel Bright Emerson. She was trained as a homeopathic physician. (Young) (Most information here is from Young.)

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April 19, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Asian Influence?

“The influence exerted on ocean currents by the Earth’s rotation was not generally appreciated until 1835, when G. de Coriolis, while studying equations of motion in a rotating frame of reference, discovered what is now called Coriolis force.”

“Coriolis showed how the effects of the Earth’s rotation could be incorporated into the Newtonian equations of motion by adding two additional terms. One, the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation and the coriolis force that modifies direction.”

“Asia’s seamen have known the Kuroshio (current) since ancient times. They named it Kuro-shio (which means ‘black stream’ in the Japanese language) because of the deep ultramarine colour of the warm, high salinity water which is found flowing north”.

“The first European chart to show the Kuroshio was Varenius’ “Geographia Generalis” of 1650. Later, expeditions headed by Captains James Cook (1776-80) and Krusenstern (1804) added to western knowledge about the Kuroshio.” (Barkley)

“Between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Kuroshio’s treacherous waters swept numerous Japanese ship and their frightened passengers out across the Pacific, depositing them rudely on the coral reefs of the Hawaiian archipelago.” (Ogawa & Grant)

“Inadvertently, the Kuroshio became a rough-hewn bridge between the civilizations of feudal Japan and the stone-age world of the Hawaiian culture.”

“Across this bridge came not only castaways but the artifacts of Japanese culture, several of which became incorporated into the indigenous lifestyle of the tolerant, friendly native.”

“For example, the Hawaiian game of konane perhaps evolved from the Japanese game of go. The plumbed standard of state which Hawaiian royalty retained, the kahili, was possibly derivative of the Japanese keyari”. (Ogawa & Grant)

“The name ‘Keyari’ is a derivative of the Japanese name for the feathered or haired pike carried in feudal Japan as a symbol of rank (毛槍).” (Schmid)

“Hawaiian native culture, whilst basically Polynesian, included many features not found elsewhere in Polynesia. Such cannot be explained satisfactorily by local evolution, nor extra-Polynesian immigration.”

“Some features appear to be European, but since most suggest an origin in the North Pacific coastal regions, their presence in Hawaii may be due to involuntary or drift voyages”. (Stokes; Journal of the Polynesian Society))

“From a study of many authorities writing of drift-voyages – Stokes quotes from forty-seven – he concludes that the most definite recorded drifts have been from Japan, and of these drifts he gives a list of fifty-three Japanese ships which have drifted, disabled, into the northern Pacific.”

“On most of them survivors were found – in one instance after a drift of seventeen months. At least one ship reached Hawaii, after a drift of ten or eleven months, four people out of nine surviving.”

“These drifts were in historic times, all but eight in the eighteen-hundreds; the eight date between the years 1617 and 1794; and (Stokes) writes: …”

“‘With the definite record of one drift to Hawaii from Japan, and none from other Pacific regions in historic times, it is obvious that many of the castaways mentioned in Hawaiian traditions were Japanese, traces of whose culture should be found’”.

“‘The dates when foreign influence apparently was manifest centre around A.D. 1600. Such may be arrived at by a comparative study of the Aukele legend and the accounts of Liloa, Umi, Keawenui, and Lono – kings reigning between 1550 and 1630, as estimated from the genealogies – a period standing out as replete with stories having the appearance of historical narrative.’”

“‘It also indicates an era of many innovations. If the items then mentioned for the first time were not introductions, the period must at least mark the introduction of some new intellectual element which left its record in contemporary unwritten literature.’”.

“The artifact to which (Stokes) devotes most attention is the kahili of Hawaii, which compares with the keyari of Japan, which two present striking similarities in appearance and function.”

“‘One description will apply to both: a staff or standard with feathers arranged in cylindrical form on the upper part; insignium of rank, preceding the ruler or high noble on the road on ceremonial visits, and requiring the obeissance due to its owner …’”

“‘… feathered portion, unicoloured or banded; shaft generally banded – the colours being brown, black, and white … In Hawaii also was a smaller feathered kahili, used in the house to brush flies from royal personages and high or low chiefs.’”

“‘In form, size, and method of feather attachment, it is similar to the Chinese feather-duster of commerce (unchanged for at least fifty years) of which the present-day Japanese feather-duster is a shortened model.’”

“‘The term kahili is the Polynesian tahiri, ‘to wave, fan,’ etc., and has nothing to do with the shape or material of the implement. The same term is applied to the simple bundle of crude leaf-midribs comprising the native broom.’”

“‘Probably a feather-duster reached Hawaii in a Japanese boat and was used as a fly-brush, and the larger type was evolved and highly dignified through the Japanese recollection of the keyari …’” (Stokes; Journal of the Polynesian Society))

“In his exhaustive comparison, among others, of the tall Hawaiian kahili and Japanese keyari for example, Stokes notes that the tall kahili is first mentioned in published Hawaiian traditions in the generation of King Lonoikamakahiki (c. 1630 A.D.) with no known prototype …”

“… whereas the keyari in Japan is traceable as far back as 1190 A.D. and was in use extending to the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867). In short, Stokes suggests that the arrival of intermittent Japanese drifts to Hawaii and the resulting diffusion of ideas may provide the best explanation for some of these uniquely Hawaiian ‘elaborations’.” (Braden)

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April 17, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Pahua Heiau

“The ships were very light, having such a quantity of water expended, and our rigging fore and aft stood much in need of repairing and overhauling …”

“… so that we thought it prudent to quit our present situation and proceed for King George’s Bay (Maunalua Bay,) Woahoo, where we could lie well sheltered from the prevailing winds, and do every thing necessary both to the hulls and rigging of the ships …” (Portlock)

Accounts of early western visitors to the southeast coast of O‘ahu suggest that the area from Waikīkī to Maunalua Bay, including Wai‘alae, Wailupe, Niu and Kuliʻouʻou was well-populated and that food resources were more than sufficient. Anchoring his ship, the King George, in Maunalua Bay in 1786, Captain Nathaniel Portlock reported:

“Soon after our arrival, several canoes came off and brought a few cocoa-nuts and plantains, some sugar-cane and sweet root; in return for which we gave them small pieces of iron and a few trinkets.” (Portlock)

“… as the people now brought us plenty of water, I determined to keep my present situation, it being in many respects an eligible one; for we hitherto had been favoured with a most refreshing sea breeze, which blows over the low land at the head of the bay …”

“… and the bay all around has a beautiful appearance, the low land and vallies being in a high state of cultivation, and crowded with plantations of taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, &c, interspersed with a great number of cocoa-nut trees, which renders the prospect truly delightful. (Portlock)

The name Maunalua (two mountains) is said to have been attributed to Ka Lae o Koko, also known as Kuamo‘okāne (today known as Koko Head), and Kohelepelepe (today known as Koko Crater.) (Coleman)

Pahua Heiau is one of dozens of recorded archaeological sites and one of four confirmed heiau sites in Maunalua and is one of the most significant sacred sites remaining in Maunalua (now known as Hawai‘i Kai) on the southeastern shore of the island of O‘ahu.

Consisting of stacked stone terraces arranged in a rectangular shape, Pahua is a heiau (temple or shrine, place of worship.) It measures 68 by 40 feet and is set against the base of the ridge dividing the Kamilonui and Kamiloiki Valleys. (Coleman)

“The heiau sits high on the hillside above the far inland head of Kua-pā Pond, also known as Keahupua–o–Maunalua Fishpond… In former times one could look out from this vantage point over the broad plain surrounding the pond below and stretching eastward across the “saddle” behind Koko Crater to Kalama and Wāwāmalu beyond.” (Bertell Davis; Coleman)

Archaeologists suggest that Pahua was once an agricultural heiau, constructed between the fifteenth and eighteenth century, although there are many theories surrounding its traditional usage and function. (Coleman) Some suggest I may be a ko‘a (fishing shrine.)

The interpretation of the word pā–hua as “an enclosure of fruits” has been used as a support the thought that it was an agricultural heiau.

The word hua not only has meanings associated with fruit, ovum and seeds, but also with general fertility and fruitfulness (particularly as applied to a high agricultural yield; the verb hua means to sprout. (Coleman)

When the archaeologist J Gilbert McAllister first documented Pahua as a field site in the 1930s, the heiau had been abandoned for some time; he was unable to definitively ascertain its function and significance, either from previously published works or from interviews with kamaʻāina living in the area.

If Pahua was an agricultural heiau, it is likely that the kapu surrounding it were not exceedingly strict, and it is possible that low-ranking ali‘i of the area may have constructed the site and worshiped there.

Pahua was the only name recorded for the heiau as given by a native Hawaiian informant to McAllister in the early 1930s. Despite the possibility that Pahua was not the original or proper name for the site, limited historical evidence suggests that it was.

For example, Pahua is also documented as a name for the area in nūpepa (Hawaiian language newspapers) during the early and mid-1800s.

Reference to Pahua as a place is found in one of the first kanikau (chant of mourning) ever printed in the nūpepa. In the August 8, 1834 issue of Ka Lama Hawai‘i, David Malo used the phrase “noho anea kula wela la o Pahua,” (tarrying in the vibrating heat of the hot plains of Pahua.) (Coleman)

One meaning of the word pahua is “down–trodden,” which can be used to describe grass that has been flattened. Although rare, this understanding of pahua correlates to the description of Pahua as a kula (plain) that is found in the kanikau (laments) printed in the nūpepa.

Maunalua was also known for cattle in the 1880s. Other variations of pahua also suggest a link to cattle; the meaning of the word pāhu‘a is similar to that of kīpuka (a clearing, an oasis, a change in form.)

And it especially refers to an area that is free of brush and vegetation, such as a pasture where it was easy to rope cows. The word pahu‘ā, (pahu, to push; ‘ā, to drive, as in cattle) also suggests a strong association with cattle. (Coleman)

Pahua Heiau was excavated and restored during a volunteer community service project directed by Bertell D Davis with the Outdoor Circle and others in 1985.

Excavation uncovered evidence that the heiau was constructed in several stages, but Davis was not able to determine the chronology of the construction sequence. (Jordan)

Pahua heiau sits on land gifted to Office of Hawaiian Affairs by Kamehameha Schools in 1988, OHA’s first land holding. The site is located on the slope at the south end of the ridge between Kamilo Nui and Kamilo Iki Valleys, overlooking the top end of Makahuena Place.

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Pahua heiau in Hawaii Kai, Honolulu, Oahu

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Pahua heiau in Hawaii Kai, Honolulu, Oahu

Pahua_Heiau-OHA

April 14, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Protection of Traditional & Customary Practices

Several Supreme Court Cases have reviewed and clarified Native Hawaiian rights to Traditional & Customary practices. The Court noted:

“Our proud legal tradition in this State of protecting Native Hawaiian rights is not of recent vintage, for even as far back as the days of the Hawaiian Kingdom, protections have been in place to ensure the continued exercise of traditional Hawaiian rights amidst the pressures exerted by countervailing interests of a changing society.

“[A number of legal cases have been appealed to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court. Decisions by the Court in those cases have defined, explained and clarified. The Supreme Court’s] “evolving jurisprudence concerning Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights has conceived of a system in which the State and its agencies …”

“… bear an affirmative constitutional obligation to engage in a meaningful and heightened inquiry into the interrelationship between the area involved, the Native Hawaiian practices exercised in that area, the effect of a proposed action on those practices, and feasible measures that can be implemented to safeguard the vitality of those practices.”

“When an individual of Native Hawaiian descent asserts that a traditionally exercised cultural, religious, or gathering practice in an undeveloped or not fully developed area would be curtailed by the proposed project, the State or the applicable agency is “obligated to address” this adverse impact …”

“Consequently, if customary and traditional Native Hawaiian practices are to be meaningfully safeguarded, “findings on the extent of their exercise, their impairment, and the feasibility of their protection” are paramount. … To effectively render such findings, it is imperative for the agency to receive evidence and then make “[a] determination … supported by the evidence in the record.” (Pollack, SCAP-14-0000873 2015:3-10)

Following are some of the cases that address Native Hawaiian rights to traditional and customary practices.

Oni v Meek (1858)

In 1858, Oni, a tenant of the ahupua‘a of Hono‘uli‘uli, O‘ahu, filed suit against John Meek, who had a lease over the entire ahupuaʻa. Oni brought suit when some of his horses, which had been pastured on Meek’s land, were impounded and sold.

Oni claimed that he had a right to pasture his horses on the land division as one of his traditional tenant rights (by custom and by language in the Kuleana Act).

On September 22, 1858, the Police Court of Honolulu rendered a judgment for Oni. Meek was ordered to pay $80.00 for two horses and $4.00 in court costs. At the request of the defendant (Meek), the case was appealed to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court was concerned with the right of a private property owner to use the land as he individually wished without having to share its use. The court said “the custom contended for is so unreasonable, so uncertain, and so repugnant to the spirit of the present laws, that it ought not to be sustained by judicial authority.”

The court also said “…it is perfectly clear that, if the plaintiff (Oni) is a hoaʻāina, holding his land by virtue of a fee simple award from the Land Commission, he has no pretense for claiming a right of pasturage by custom.” (Judicial History Center) The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Meek.

Common Law – Hawaiian Usage (1892)

In 1892, the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom and Queen Liliʻuokalani passed a law that recognized Hawaiian usage as part of the common law of the Kingdom, together with the common law of England. (McGregor & MacKenzie)

Act to Reorganize the Judiciary Department, ch. LVII, § 5, 1892 Laws of Her Majesty Lili‘uokalani, Queen of the Hawaiian Islands, provided for exceptions to the English common law that were “established by Hawaiian national usage.” (McGregor & MacKenzie)

This law, which is today known as Section 1-1 of the Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS), provided the basis for the rights of the makaʻāinana (common people) beyond the rights reserved under the Kuleana Act, so as to include whatever was broadly customary as Hawaiian usage prior to 1892. (McGregor & MacKenzie)

State Constitutional Amendments (1978)

In 1978, the State convened a historic constitutional convention that included recommendations that reaffirmed its commitment to Native Hawaiian interests and values.

The 1978 Constitutional Convention recognized the need to “preserve the small remaining vestiges of a quickly disappearing culture [by providing] a legal means … to recognize and reaffirm native Hawaiian rights.”

“The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua’a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights.” (Hawaiʻi Constitution, Section 7)

Kalipi v Hawaiian Trust Co (1982)

In 1982, plaintiff William Kalipi, a Moloka‘i taro farmer, sought access to private land in order to gather “ti leaf, bamboo, kukui nuts, kiawe, medicinal herbs and ferns.”

The Hawai‘i Supreme Court held that “lawful occupants of an ahupua‘a may, for the purposes of practicing native Hawaiian customs and traditions, enter undeveloped lands within the ahupua‘a to gather those items enumerated in HRS § 7-1.” (Belatti & Garcia)

The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court noted: “The statutory exception to the common law is thus akin to the English doctrine of custom whereby practices and privileges unique to particular districts continued to apply to residents of those districts in contravention of the common law.”

“This, however, is not to say that we find that all the requisite elements of the doctrine of custom were necessarily incorporated in § 1-1. Rather, we believe that the retention of a Hawaiian tradition should in each case be determined by balancing the respective interests and harm once it is established that the application of the custom has continued in a particular area.” (Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, Kapili, 656 P.2d 745 (1982))

Public Access Shoreline Hawai‘I (PASH) v Hawai‘i Planning Commission (1995)

In PASH, developer Nansay Hawai‘i, Inc. applied to the Hawai‘i County Planning Commission for a Special Management Area permit to develop a resort community covering over 450 acres of shoreline area on the Big Island of Hawai‘i.

The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court explained in PASH case that “the State’s power to regulate the exercise of customarily and traditionally exercised Hawaiian rights … necessarily allows the State to permit development that interferes with such rights in circumstances. Nevertheless, the State is obligated to protect the reasonable exercise of customarily and traditionally exercised rights of Hawaiians.”

In PASH, the court reaffirmed the State’s affirmative duty to protect customary rights as it regulates the development of land “previously undeveloped or not yet fully developed” in Hawai‘i. The court admonished State agencies, stating that they “[do] not have the unfettered discretion to regulate the rights of ahupua‘a tenants out of existence”.

The PASH Court also clarified that “those persons who are ‘descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the islands prior to 1778,’ and who assert otherwise valid customary and traditional Hawaiian rights under HRS 1-1, are entitled to protection regardless of their blood quantum.”

Pele Defense Fund v Paty (1992)

Plaintiff Pele Defense Fund challenged the exchange of more than 27,000 acres of public lands, including areas designated as Natural Area Reserve lands, between the State and a private landowner.

Related to this, it was determined that, “The nature and scope of the rights reserved to hoaʻāina (tenants) by custom and usage are to be defined according to the values, traditions and customs associated with a particular area as transmitted from one generation to the next in the conduct of subsistence, cultural, and religious activities.”

That case also found that residency of a particular ahupuaʻa was not required for gathering, noting, “Unlike other areas in Hawai‘i, Hawaiians historically crossed ahupua‘a boundaries in the Puna district. …”

“…The hunting and gathering patterns in the Puna district are unique because they are influenced, to a large extent, by an active volcano, Kīlauea. It can be reasonably inferred that volcanic eruptions in the Puna area force hunters and gatherers to change areas to find plants and animals for subsistence purposes.” (Circuit Court of the Third Circuit, Civil No. 89-089 2002)

The Pele Defense Fund decision extended rights to non-Hawaiians, noting, “Accordingly, non-Hawaiians could have the same right as Hawaiians, irrespective of Article XII, § 7, if they could prove that their rights were based on custom and usage.”

Water Use Permit Applications (2000)

“The Waiāhole Ditch System collects fresh surface water and dike-impounded ground water from the Koʻolau mountain range on the windward side of the island of Oʻahu and delivers it to the island’s central plain.”

“Beginning in Kahana Valley, the collection portion of the system proceeds along the windward side of the Koʻolaus, then passes under the Koʻolau crest to the leeward side at the North Portal. … The ditch system was built in significant part from 1913 to 1916 to irrigate a sugar plantation owned and operated by Oʻahu Sugar Company, Ltd. (OSCo).”

“Diversions by the ditch system reduced the flows in several windward streams, specifically, Waiāhole, Waianu, Waikāne, and Kahana streams, affecting the natural environment and human communities dependent upon them.”

“Diminished flows impaired native stream life and may have contributed to the decline in the greater Kāneʻohe Bay ecosystem, including the offshore fisheries. The impacts of stream diversion, however, went largely unacknowledged until, in the early 1990s, the sugar industry on Oʻahu came to a close.”

In 2000, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court noted “we continue to uphold the exercise of Native Hawaiian and traditional and customary rights as a public trust purpose. … [T]he mandate of ‘conservation’-minded use subsumed in our state’s water resources trust contemplates ‘protection’ of waters in their natural state as a beneficial use. … [T]his state bears an additional duty under Article XII, section 7 of its constitution to protect traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights.”

Ka Pa‘akai o ka ‘Āina v Land Use Commission (2000)

In the dispute before the LUC, Native Hawaiian community organizations opposed the re-classification of over 1,000-acres from conservation to urban lands for the Ka‘ūpūlehu Resort Expansion, a luxury development project on the island of Hawai‘i.

Within the reclassified lands, the Court noted that the coastal point known as Kalaemanō and the historic 1800-1801 Ka‘ūpūlehu Lava Flow were two well-known physical features associated with native Hawaiian culture and history. The Court also noted the association of two historical figures to the petition area, Kame‘eiamoku and Kamanawa, two chiefs who served as advisers to Kamehameha I.

The Court reaffirmed special protections for Native Hawaiian cultural practices when it ruled that the State Land Use Commission (LUC) failed to satisfy its statutory and constitutional obligations to preserve and protect customary and traditional rights of Native Hawaiians.

Ultimately, the Court held that the LUC’s determinations were “insufficient to determine whether [the LUC] fulfilled its obligation to preserve and protect customary and traditional rights of native Hawaiians.”

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