Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Puna

Prior to Western contact, each of the major islands or independent chiefdoms in the Hawaiian chain comprised a mokupuni (island.) Over the centuries, as the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved.

Each island was divided into several moku or districts, of which there are six in the island of Hawaiʻi, and the same number in Oʻahu. There is a district called Kona on the lee side and one called Koʻolau on the windward side of almost every island.  (Alexander)  Another moku (common on a couple mokupuni) is Puna (“well-spring”) – this summary is about Puna on Hawaiʻi Island.

Puna was once known for its groves of hala and ʻōhiʻa-lehua trees.  Hawaiians observed, “Ka ua moaniani lehua o Puna / The rain that brings the fragrance of the lehua of Puna”.

This ʻōlelo noʻeau 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.

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

In Nā Mele o Hawaiʻi Nei, the reference “Puna paia ʻala i ka paia ʻala i ka hala,” is translated as “Puna of the fragrant bowers, fragrant with the blossoms of the hala” (pandanus.)  (King, 1938)

According to Pukui, in the olden days, people would stick branches of hala into the thatching of their houses to bring some of the fragrance indoors.

“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; McGregor)

According to Kamakau, the Island of Hawaiʻi was without a chief when Pāʻao arrived in Hawaiʻi in the eleventh century.  Evidently the chiefs of Hawaiʻi were considered aliʻi makaʻāinana (commoner chiefs) or just commoners, makaʻāinana, during this time.

Pāʻao sent back to Tahiti for a new ruler for Hawaiʻi, thereby ushering in a new era of ruling chiefs and kāhuna for the Hawaiian archipelago. The new ruler was Pili-kaʻaiea, from whom King Kamehameha I eventually descended.  (McGregor)

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.)

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.

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 Keaau, 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”.

“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; Rechtman)

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

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 began in 1790, reaching its peak between 1810 and 1825.

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 molasses.

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.

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.  There are at least over 40-Puna subdivisions.

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.

According to the 2010 census, Oʻahu has about 955,000-people and Puna has about 45,500.  That means there are less than a half-acre per person on Oʻahu and over 70-acres per person in Puna.

However, in Puna, they plotted out the subdivisions in cookie-cutter residential/agricultural lots across a grid, with very little space for other uses (such as parks, open space, government services, regional roads … the list goes on and on.)

Likewise, most subdivision lots are accessed by private, unpaved roads. The streets generally lack sidewalks and lighting, and do not meet current County standards in terms of pavement width, vertical geometrics, drainage and other design parameters.

There are only two main roads to move the people in the district in and out – one (Route 130 – Keaau-Pahoa Road) goes into Pahoa to Kalapana; the other (Route 11 – Volcano Highway) serves the lots up in the Volcano area.  (Lots of information here from the Puna Community Development Plan.)

I was saddened when the news broadcast the first house lost to the ongoing lava flow – a home of a friend and former student from Parker School.

I have been debating about posting on Puna – but decided that as the lava flows there, we should reflect on its history, but also be sensitive to and respectful of the trauma facing many of the families there – they are going through situations many of us will never have to face.

The image shows the Wilkes 1840-1841 map of Puna.  In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Coffee

Ke kope hoʻohia ʻā maka o Kona.
(The coffee of Kona that keeps the eyes from sleeping.)

The only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaiʻi.

Don Francisco de Paula y Marin recorded in his journal, dated January 21, 1813, that he had planted coffee seedlings on the island of Oʻahu.  The first commercial coffee plantation was started in Kōloa, Kauaʻi, in 1836.

Coffee was planted in Mānoa Valley in the vicinity of the present UH-Mānoa campus; from a small field, trees were introduced to other areas of O‘ahu and neighbor islands.

John Wilkinson, a British agriculturist, obtained coffee seedlings from Brazil. These plants were brought to Oʻahu in 1825 board the HMS Blonde (the ship also brought back the bodies of Liholiho and Kamāmalu who had died in England) and planted in Mānoa Valley at the estate of Chief Boki, the island’s governor.

In 1828, American missionary Samuel Ruggles took cuttings from Mānoa and brought them to Kona.   Henry Nicholas Greenwell grew and marketed coffee and is recognized for putting “Kona Coffee” on the world markets.

At Weltausstellung 1873 Wien (World Exhibition in Vienna, Austria (1873,)) Greenwell was awarded a “Recognition Diploma” for his Kona Coffee.  Greenwell descendants continue the family’s coffee-growing tradition in Kona. (Greenwell Farms)

Writer Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) seemed to concur with this when he noted in his Letters from Hawaiʻi, “The ride through the district of Kona to Kealakekua Bay took us through the famous coffee and orange section. I think the Kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it what you please.”

Hermann Widemann introduced the ‘Guatemalan’ variety (known as ‘Kona typica’) to Hawaiʻi in 1892. He gave seeds to John Horner, who planted an orchard of 800 trees in Hāmākua, comparing 400 trees of this new variety with 400 of the then-current variety known as ‘kanaka koppe,’ the so-called ‘Hawaiian coffee’, probably from 30 plants brought from Brazil by Wilkinson.  (CTAHR)

“’Coffee-trees are often planted with a crowbar,’ it is said. Strange as this may seem, it is nevertheless true. A hole is drilled through the rock, or lavacrust, and the soil thus reached; the tree, a small twig dug up from the forest, is planted in this hole, and it grows, thrives, and yields fruit abundantly.”  (Musick, 1898)

In 1892 it was estimated there were probably 1,000-acres in old coffee throughout North and South Kona; 150-acres new set out by the two companies then under way there, with expectation of setting out fifty more; 170-acres in the Hāmākua and Hilo districts and about 100 in Puna.  (Thrum)

“Hardly a mail arrives from abroad but brings further enquiry for coffee lands and information as to area; how obtainable; situation; prices, etc., and the usual multitudinous questions pertaining thereto, all of which gives evidence of the readiness of foreign capital to come in and push forward the reviving industry with vigor.  (Thrum, 1892)

More than 140,000 Japanese came to Hawai‘i between 1885 and 1924, with 3-year labor contracts to work for the sugar plantations; when their contract expired, many decided that a different lifestyle suited them better.  Many moved to Kona to grow coffee.

By 1905, only a few large plantations were left. At first, they attempted to operate on a share-crop basis, but eventually the land was divided and leased to tenant farmers.  (Goto)

This trend was adopted by others, and 5+/- acre parcels were leased primarily to first-generation Japanese families. The downsizing revolutionized and rescued the Kona coffee industry. (Choy)

By the 1890s, the large Kona coffee plantations were broken into smaller (5+/- acres) family farms.  By 1915, tenant farmers, largely of Japanese descent, were cultivating most of the coffee.

The 1890s boom in coffee-growing in North Kona was encouraged by rising prices.  Although sugarcane plantations expanded with US annexation in 1898, coffee-growing grew in Kona because of its adaptability to land that was too rocky for sugarcane.

During the early coffee boom, Portuguese and then Japanese laborers had filtered into Kona.  As one coffee plantation after another gave up when coffee prices fell and sugar plantations became more attractive, these plantations were broken up into small parcels (3 to 5-acres) and leased to these laborers.

Many worked on the newly formed sugar plantations and worked their coffee orchards as side lines.  As the coffee prices remained low, the Portuguese abandoned the coffee orchards, and by 1910, the Japanese were about the only growers left to tend the coffee trees.    (NPS)

Coffee production was so important to the Kona community; in 1932, the local high school’s ‘summer’ vacation was shifted from the traditional Memorial Day to Labor Day (June-July-August) to August-September-October, “to meet the needs of the community, whose chief crop is coffee and most of which ripens during the fall months.” (It lasted until 1969.) (Ka Wena o Kona 1936; HABS)

At the turn of the last century there was coffee on all the major Hawaii islands.  By the 1930s there were more than 1,000 farms and, as late as the 1950s, there were 6,000-acres of coffee in Kona.  Today, there are about 700 coffee growers statewide, 600 of them on the Big Island.  (Hughes)

The Kona Coffee Cultural Festival (in its 44th year) starts today and runs through November 16, with activities held throughout West Hawaiʻi.

This Festival has created a cultural experience in Hawaiʻi that showcases Kona’s nearly 200-year coffee heritage, culinary delights and the working Kona coffee farmers who work to preserve, perpetuate and promote Kona’s famous harvest.

The image shows Hawaiʻi coffee.  In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Moku O Keawe

Moku O Keawe – The Island of Keawe recalls and honors a 17th-century chief, Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku (Keawe the One Chief of the Island,”) whose reign was ascribed “such peace and prosperity as the island of Hawai‘i had not enjoyed since the time of his ancestor Līloa”.  (Barrere, deSilva)

James Cook (1778) and George Vancouver (1793) both referred to the island as “Owhyhee.”  Today, we more commonly call it Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Island or the Big Island.

The following is a portion of Kūaliʻi’s chant (he was a chief from Oʻahu.)

Ua like; aia ka kou hoa e like ai,
‘O Keawe‘īkekahiali‘iokamoku,
‘O Keawe, haku o Hawai‘i

There is a comparison; here, indeed, is the one you resemble,
Keawe-i-Kekahi-alii-o-ka-moku,
Keawe, Lord of Hawaiʻi.
(Ka Inoa O Kūaliʻi, The Chant Of Kūaliʻi; Fornander; deSilva)

“Kūaliʻi’s chant devotes over a hundred lines in its own closing section to extolling his superiority; nothing on land, sea, or sky can compare to him; he is not like the hala, ‘ōhi‘a, or ʻaʻali‘i; nor is he like the porpoise, shark, or līpoa; nor is he like the ʻōʻō, nāulu rain, or mountain wind.”

“He can be compared to one thing only, the chant finally concedes; he finds an equal in his Hawai‘i island counterpart, the Hōnaunau-based chief Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku.”  (deSilva)

Keawe was believed to have lived from 1665 to 1725. He is sometimes referred to as King Keawe II, since prior to him there was already a King Keawenuiaumi. He was son of Keākealaniwahine, the ruling Queen of Hawaiʻi and Kanaloa-i-Kaiwilena Kapulehu.  Keawe was the great-grandfather of Kamehameha I.

Keākealaniwahine ruled from what is referred to as the Hōlualoa Royal Center, in Kona; it is split into two archaeological complexes, Kamoa Point/Keolonāhihi Complex and Keākealaniwahine Residential Complex.)

The Hōlualoa Royal Center had three major occupation sequences with various aliʻi: AD 1300 (Keolonāhihi), AD 1600 (Keākealaniwahine and Keakamahana (her mother)) and AD 1780 (Kamehameha I) – it appears very likely that the Hōlualoa Royal Center grew and changed over time.  (DLNR)

Prominent aliʻi in the Kona District who also may have resided at Hōlualoa include Keakealani-kane (father of Keakamahana,) Keawe, Keʻeaumoku-nui (son of Keawe) and Alapaʻi-nui (nephew of Keawe.)  (DLNR)

Keawe ruled along with his half-sister wife Kalanikauleleiaiwi who inherited their mother’s kapu rank. After his death, a civil war broke out over succession between his sons, Keʻeaumoku and Kalaninuiʻamamao, and a rival chief known as Alapaʻinuiakauaua (his nephew.)

Hale O Keawe, at the northern end of the eastern wing of the Great Wall at Puʻuhonua O Honaunau, was named after and either built by or for Keawe around 1700.

In ancient times the Heiau served as a royal mausoleum, housing the remains of deified high chiefs. The powerful mana (divine power) associated with these remains served to sanctify and validate the existence of the Puʻuhonua.

The earliest western accounts indicate that in the 1820s the structure was largely intact with thatched hale, wooden palisade, and multiple kiʻi (wooden images of gods.)  (NPS)

The only heiau allowed standing by Kaʻahumanu after the breaking of the kapu were Hale O Līloa (built by the High Chief Līloa in the 16th century) in Waipiʻo Valley and Hale O Keawe at Hoʻonaunau in Kona. These two edifices were the sacred repositories of the iwi of Hawai`i’s greatest chiefs. (Parker)

However, in December of 1828, Kaʻahumanu visited Hale O Keawe. She found to her dismay that someone had left hoʻokupu (gifts) inside to honor dead ancestors. She was so angry that she ordered the dismantling and destruction of both Hale O Keawe and Hale O Līloa in Waipiʻo.  (Parker)

Hale O Keawe was dismantled by Ka‘ahumanu in 1829; its bones were removed to Kaʻawaloa, its large timbers were used in the construction of a school and government house, and smaller pieces of its kauila wood framework were given as souvenirs to the missionaries.  (deSilva)

The pu‘uhonua was deeded to Miriam Kekāuluohi, a granddaughter of Kamehameha I, in the Māhele of 1848, and it was inherited, upon her death, by Levi Ha‘alelea, her second husband. In 1866, the property was auctioned by Ha‘alelea’s estate to Charles Kana‘ina, the father of William Charles Lunalilo.

Kana‘ina, however, did not pay the $5000 bid, and Charles Reed Bishop stepped in to purchase Ha‘alelea’s land for that same amount on April 1, 1867. In 1891, six years after Pauahi’s death, Bishop deeded the land to the trustees of the Bishop Estate who leased it to one of their members, SM Damon.

Damon was responsible for the 1902 restoration work on the Great Wall and the stone platforms of two heiau, Hale o Keawe and ‘Ale‘ale‘a. The County of Hawai‘i took over Damon’s lease in 1921. That lease expired in 1961 when the then County Park was acquired by the US National Park Service.  (deSilva)

Further reconstruction consisted of four terraces and a passage between the southern end of the platform and the northern end of the Great Wall. In 1966-67 Edmund J Ladd directed the excavation and re-stabilization of the Hale o Keawe platform.

Ladd’s excavations in addition to historical accounts indicated that the platform did not originally have multiple tiers; therefore, the 1967 work restored the platform to its more authentic form that joins the Great Wall on its south side.

After the platform was restored, the thatched hale, wooden palisade, and kiʻi were also rebuilt on the site. Since the time of Ladd’s initial reconstruction, the Hale o Keawe structure and carved wooden kiʻi have been replaced on two occasions with the most recent efforts being completed in 2004.  (NPS)

The image shows the ahupuaʻa of Moku O Keawe. In addition, I have added other images to a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Waialua Female Seminary

Education in the US at the beginning of the 19th-century was primarily triggered by the need to train the people to help grow the relatively new nation.

Back then, it was believed that women should be educated to understand domestic economy, because they were to play the major role in educating the young, primarily in their homes, and later (as the school population grew and there was a shortage of teachers) as school teachers.  (Beyer)

Although schools for upper-class women were in existence prior to the 19th-century, the female seminary for middle-class women became the prevailing type of institution from 1820 until after the Civil War. The most prominent female seminaries were Troy Seminary (1821,) Hartford Seminary (1823,) Ipswich Seminary (1828,) Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837) and Oxford Seminary (1839.)

The seminary’s primary task was professional preparation: the male seminary prepared men for the ministry; the female seminary took as its earnest job the training of women for teaching and motherhood.  (Horowitz, Beyer)

The founders of the female seminaries were at first men who were committed to providing education for women, but as time went by, more of the founders were women. The financial backing for these seminaries was typically from private sources and the tuition charged the students. Their enrollment varied between 50 to 100-students; they preferred girls between the ages of 12 and 16.  (Beyer)

Western-style education did not begin in Hawai’i until after members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) arrived in 1820.

Because the primary educators responsible for developing the education system of Hawai’i were Americans, the educational practices for Hawaiian girls tended to mirror, but not necessarily duplicate, what was taking place on the continent.  (Beyer)

In 1835, at the general meeting of the Mission, a resolution was passed to promote boarding schools for Hawaiians; several male boarding schools and two female boarding schools were begun (Wailuku Female Seminary on the island of Maui and the Hilo School for Girls on the island of Hawai’i.)  Before the 1850s, both of these schools had closed.

Wailuku Female Seminary (or the Central Female Seminary, as it was first called) was the first female school begun by the missionaries. It received support at a time when the missionaries were experimenting with both boarding schools and a manual labor system.

The first female seminary to be established on the island of Hawaiʻi was the Kaʻū Seminary. In 1862, Orramel Hinckley Gulick and his wife, Ann Eliza Clark Gulick (a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary,) began the school. Both were the children of missionaries (Peter Johnson Gulick and Fanny Hinckley Thomas Gulick; Ephraim Weston Clark and Mary Kittredge Clark.)

Due to the isolated location of the seminary, it was difficult to attract many students to the school. As a consequence, tuition and board were free, as long as the girls were placed under the parental care of the teachers of the school until the girls were married or obtained employment.

In 1865, after struggling to fill the school, it was decided to move the school to Waialua, Oʻahu, on the Anahulu Stream.  It opened there on August 7 with 50-students, ranging in age from 11 to 15.  As with other schools at the time, the students were instructed in the Hawaiian language.

The girls are selected by the pastors, from among the most promising girls of the parishes; and every major district in the islands had one or more representatives in the school. It was hoped that this institution would raise up a class of educated women, who might make teachers, and suitable partners for native Hawaiian ministers and missionaries.  (The Missionary Herald)

The large two-story building, surrounded by a veranda, housed the girls, their four teachers, one temporary assistant and two children of the teachers. A second large building was the school-house, the lower floor of which was a spacious school-room, while the upper story was divided into recitation rooms. (The Missionary Herald)

The girls at Waialua Female Seminary came from families where the traditional Hawaiian culture was still practiced. However, at school the girls were dressed in calico, as opposed to their usual holoku; they slept in beds, rather than on mats on the floor; and they ate at a table with silverware, instead of on the floor using their fingers.

The schedule for the day began with breakfast, followed by each girl reading from the Hawaiian Bible; after the principal offered a prayer in Hawaiian, they were dismissed to begin the routine work, which included all the work necessary to maintain the school (except for carting and carrying firewood and baking and pounding the taro for poi.)

The older girls put the food away, washed the dishes and swept the floor. The younger girls did various tasks, which included sweeping and dusting the parlor, the sitting-room or the schoolroom, gathering up the litter of leaves and branches from the yard and garden paths, or putting the teachers’ rooms in order. Some of the girls were involved with preparing the meals; all the girls washed and ironed clothes once a week.

The academic work took place between 9 am and noon and 1 pm and 4 pm.  The curriculum included geography, arithmetic, surveying, astronomy, singing, Bible history and the Bible in general. Manual training consisted of instruction in cutting and sewing dresses, in washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning house and painting; an hour and a half was spent on gardening and farming.

The school kept the girls until they graduated (40 percent of the enrollment,) married (34 percent of the enrollment,) were employed (4 percent of the enrollment,) left for health reasons (6 percent of the enrollment) or were dismissed for not applying themselves or for bad behavior (16 percent of the enrollment.)

In December of 1870, the school closed when the Mission sent the Gulicks to evangelize in Japan.  Waialua Female Seminary reopened on April 3, 1871, under the direction of Miss Mary E Green (another missionary descendent and graduate of Punahou and Mount Holyoke Seminary.)

Miss Green ran the school until 1882, when she became ill and could no longer run the school. The property was sold and the money was given to the trustees of Kawaiahaʻo Seminary in Honolulu to make further improvements there.  (Lots of information here from Beyer and Missionary Herald.)

The school was called ‘Hale Iwa’ by the girls (the first use of the name for this area.)  Later, that name came back to this area when OR&L opened the Haleiwa Hotel (1899;) when the hotel closed (1943,) the name of the area remained as Haleiwa, and it continues to be called that today.

The image shows Waialua Female Seminary (1865.)  In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

The image shows my mother and grandmother in 1928 (my mother is the little girl sitting to the left, her mother is sitting nearby, wearing a hat.)

The scene is at Kailua-Kona at a site known as Pa O ʻUmi; over the years, most of this outcrop of land has been covered over with Aliʻi Drive – a small remnant remains extending beyond today’s seawall.

Here is where Chief ʻUmi-a-Liloa (who reigned about the same time Christopher Columbus was crossing the Atlantic) landed when he first came to Kailua by canoe, moving the Island’s Royal Center from Waipiʻo to Kailua.

On this point of rock ʻUmi ordered his attendant to dry his precious feather cloak (ʻahuʻula.)  (The site is also referred to as Ka Lae O ʻAhuʻula.)

My mother was the great-great grand-daughter of Hiram Bingham, leader of first missionaries to Hawaiʻi who first landed in the Islands, here at Kailua-Kona in 1820.  (Mokuaikaua Church, built by Bingham’s fellow missionary, Asa Thurston, is in the background, as well as Huliheʻe Palace (to the right.))

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