Hala | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

The rain that brings the fragrance of the lehua of Puna (Pukui 1983:172, verse 1587)

Puna is known for its groves of hala and ʻōhiʻa-lehua trees. This ʻōlelo no‘eau refers to the forests of Puna, which attract clouds to drench the district with many rains, refreshing and enriching the Puna water table, and sustaining the life cycle of all living things in Puna. (McGregor)

While the Puna moku (district) does not have running streams, it does have many inland and shoreline springs continuously fed by rains borne upon the northeast tradewinds. (McGregor)

Another ‘Ōlelo Noe‘au notes “Puna paia ʻala i ka hala. Puna, with walls fragrant with pandanus blossoms. Puna, Hawai’i, is a place of hala and lehua forests.

In olden days the people would stick the bracts of hala into the thatching of their houses to bring some of the fragrance indoors. (Pukui 1983:301, verse 2749)

“Puna on Hawaiʻi Island was the land first reached by Pāʻao, and here in Puna he built his first heiau for his god Ahaʻula and named it Ahaʻula [Wahaʻula.]”

“It was a luakini (large heiau where human sacrifice was offered). From Puna, Pāʻao went on to land in Kohala, at Puʻuepa. He built a heiau there, called Moʻokini.” (Kamakau)

One story tells that Hāʻena, a small bay near the northern boundary of Puna, is said to be the birthplace of hula. The goddess Hiʻiaka is said to have been instructed to dance hula on the beach there.

Puna is said to inspire hula because of the natural movements of waves, wind and trees. (Other stories suggest hula was started in other areas of the Islands.) (McGregor)

Early settlement patterns in the Islands put people on the windward sides of the islands, typically along the shoreline. However, in Puna, much of the district’s coastal areas have thin soils and there are no good deep water harbors. The ocean along the Puna coast is often rough and windblown. (Escott)

As a result, settlement patterns in Puna tend to be dispersed and without major population centers. Villages in Puna tended to be spread out over larger areas and often are inland, and away from the coast, where the soil is better for agriculture. (Escott)

This was confirmed on William Ellis’ travel around the island in the early 1800s, “Hitherto we had travelled close to the sea-shore, in order to visit the most populous villages in the districts through which we had passed.”

“But here receiving information that we should find more inhabitants a few miles inland, than nearer the sea, we thought it best to direct our course towards the mountains.” (Ellis, 1826)

Alexander later (1891) noted, “The first settlement met with after leaving Hilo by the sea coast road, is at Keaʻau, a distant 10 miles where there are less than a dozen inhabitants …”

“… the next is at Makuʻu, distant 14 miles where there are a few more, after which there is occasionally a stray hut or two, until Halepuaʻa and Koaʻe are reached, 21 miles from Hilo, at which place there is quite a village”. (Alexander in Escott)

“Nearly all the food consumed by the residents of this District is raised in the interior belt to which access is had by the ancient paths or trails leading from the sea coast.”

“The finest sweet potatoes are raised in places that look more like banks of cobble stones or piles of macadam freshly dumped varying from the size of a walnut to those as large as ones fist. In these holes there is not a particle of soil to be seen”. (Alexander, 1891)

Puna was famous as a district for some of its valuable products, including “hogs, gray tapa cloth (‘eleuli), tapas made of māmaki bark, fine mats made of young pandanus blossoms (‘ahuhinalo), mats made of young pandanus leaves (ʻahuao), and feathers of the ʻōʻō and mamo birds”. (McGregor)

An historic trail once ran from the modern day Lili‘uokalani Gardens area to Hāʻena along the Puna coast. The trail is often referred to as the old Puna Trail and/or Puna Road. There is an historic trail/cart road that is also called the Puna Trail (Ala Hele Puna) and/or the Old Government Road. (Escott)

It likely incorporated segments of the traditional Hawaiian trail system often referred to as the ala loa or ala hele. The full length of the Puna Trail, or Old Government Road, might have been constructed or improved just before 1840. The alignment was mapped by the Wilkes Expedition of 1804-41. (Escott)

With Western contact, extensive tracts of Puna’s landscape were transformed, first with sandalwood export, which began in 1790 and reached its peak between 1810 and 1825. (Puna CDP)

After Hawai‘i’s first forestry law in 1839 restricted the removal of sandalwood trees, cattle ranching and coffee cultivation became the leading commercial activities. By 1850, agriculture diversified with the cultivation of potatoes, onions, pumpkins, oranges and sugar molasses. (Puna CDP)

Before 1900, coffee was the chief agricultural crop in the area. Over 6,000-acres of coffee trees were owned by approximately 200-independent coffee planters and 6 incorporated companies. (HSPA)

Soon, sugarcane was in large-scale production. The dominant operation in Puna was the Puna Sugar Company, whose plantation fields extended for ten miles along both sides of Highway 11 between Keaʻau and Mountain View, as well as in the Pāhoa and Kapoho areas.

Initially founded in 1899 as Olaʻa Sugar Company, it was later (1960) renamed Puna Sugar Company. The coffee trees were uprooted to make way for sugarcane.

ʻŌhiʻa forests also had to be cleared, field rock piled, land plowed by mules or dug up by hand with a pick. Sugarcane was in large-scale production; the sugar mill operation ran for just over 80 years, until 1984.

Macadamia nuts and papaya were introduced in 1881 and 1919, respectively. Since the closure of the Puna Sugar Company, papaya and macadamia nut production have become the leading crops of Puna. About 97% of the state’s papaya production occurs in Puna, primarily in the Kapoho area.

Another thing growing in Puna is housing. Between 1958 and 1973, more than 52,500-individual lots were created – at least 40-substandard Puna subdivisions were created.

As a comparison, Oʻahu is about 382,500-acres in size; the district of Puna on the island of Hawaiʻi is about 320,000-acres in size – almost same-same.

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A traditional hale (thatched house) would seem sparsely furnished. The best thatch used by the Hawaiians was pili grass; next came the leaf of the pandanus, lauhala; then the leaf of the sugar-cane, and lastly the ti leaf, and a number of inferior grasses. (Malo)

Over the floor of smooth pebbles lay many layers of mats, both coarse floor mats and fine sleeping mats; their number was dependent upon the rank of the residents.

There were kapa bedding and pillows of several kinds but no chairs, tables, cabinets, or other furniture per se. Nor would many personal items be in evidence. Makaʻāinana had few belongings, and aliʻi had storehouses for those that they accumulated. (Abbott)

In the living quarters, small articles customarily were stored in baskets, calabashes, and gourds, and many of these were suspended from the rafters by cord or netting, leaving the floor space open.

Many household furnishings were made from leaves of the hala tree (Pandanus species). Most hala species grow in groves (pū hala). The trees appear to be propped up on their thick roots, and their trunks put forth branches at sharp angles in the upper half of the plant. (Abbott)

Hala is a choice tree for the essential native Hawaiian landscape. Female trees, with the characteristic pineapple-shaped fruit, appear to be more in demand than the males.

But the uncommon male hala produce highly fragrant and attractive floral displays and should be grown more as well. (hawaii-edu) “Old stories tell of lost fishermen in canoes adrift at sea finding their way home via the fragrances of hala.” (Bornhorst)

Hala is a small tree growing 20 to 30 feet in height and from 15 to 35 feet in diameter. Lauhala, the leaves of the hala, are distinctive long blade-like, about 2 inches wide and over 2 feet long. The leaves are spirally arranged towards the ends of the branches and leave a spiral pattern on the trunk when they fall.

Plaited (or braided) lauhala are made into mats, hats, sails, and other useful items. Plaiting entails interlacing the strips at right angles to each other with the aim of obtaining a tight and regular fit. (Since no loom is used, it is incorrect to call this method ‘weaving.’) (Abbott)

“These things were articles of the greatest utility, being used to cover the floor, as clothing, and as robes. This work was done by the women. (Malo)

For use, lauhala was washed, soaked for several days, then softened by being passed through the smoke of a fire. The thorns on the midrib and margins of leaves were stripped out by pulling each leaf through a slit cut for this purpose in a leaf butt. (Abbott)

“The women beat down the leaves with sticks, wilted them over the fire, and then dried them in the sun. After the young leaves (muo) had been separated from the old ones (laele) the leaves were made up into rolls.”

“This done (and the leaves having been split up into strips of the requisite width) they were plaited into mats. The young leaves (mu-o) made the best mats, and from them were made the sails for the canoes.” (Malo)

All Hawaiian floor mats were made either of lauhala or of sedges. In a chief’s hale, over the coarsest floor mats were layered lauhala mats whose plaiting was in widths ranging from 0.5 to 1 inch. (Abbott)

Over the coarse floor mats, finely plaited mats were placed to serve as moena, sleeping mats. At least a few mats (and often many) were piled one atop the next, forming a mattress.

A well-cushioned bed was five to eight centimeters (two to three inches) thick, and the mats were often stitched together along one edge to prevent them from slipping. Beds of the ali’i were composed of numerous layers of mats, the topmost being moena makali‘i or fine sleeping mats, plaited from strips of material as narrow as 0.2 inch. (Abbott)

(It is said that when Kaʻahumanu visited the missionaries and spent the night in the visitors’ room in the frame house at Mission Houses she preferred 30-mats to sleep on.)

For bed coverings, the Hawaiians had kapa moe – single sheets of kapa, often used several at a time – or kapa ku‘ina, which consisted of several layers of kapa stitched along one edge with wauke cordage.

In either case, the covers were about the size of a modern double-bed sheet, and layers could be thrown off or added as the temperature changed during the night. Uluna, plaited lauhala pillows, traditionally were cubical or brick-shaped and stuffed with lauhala. (Abbott)

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