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You are here: Home / Hawaiian Traditions / National Chronological Era

June 17, 2023 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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