Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Poʻo Kanaka

Traditional translations of poʻo kanaka suggest it means “human head;” however, in this case, it has a regional translation and is used to describe a flower, the pansy (folks thought the flower looked like a man’s head.)

It was also the name given to a man’s home.

He is said to have been the first to introduce the pansy flower in Hawaiʻi and he planted pansies around his house.  (Kimura)

Puapoʻo-kanaka (“The flower-that-looks-like-a-man”) eventually became the favorite of Waimea cowboys, who wore entire leis of pansies strung round their flopping vaquero hats.  (Korn)

The house stood within a level clearing at a spot called Puʻukapu, along the trail leading to the more upland forested area up Mauna Kea known as Manaiole, what we call Mānā, today.

The house, built in the 1830s, was made of rubble-and-mortar construction.  Rocks were formed into walls and plastered over with putty lime mortar (the lime obtained from ground coral.)  Rubble ruins remain of the house site, today.

The home was described as an Irish stone cottage.

It’s not clear what the man’s real name was – some suggest it was initially William Wallace.  An Irishman, he came to Hawaiʻi aboard a whaling ship that landed at Kawaihae (about 1834.)  He left the ship and went up the hill to Waimea, where he settled – there, he took the name Jack Purdy.  (Kimura)

Some suggest Purdy, along with fellow Waimea resident John Palmer Parker, can be considered the first cowboys in Hawaiʻi.  They started out as bullock hunters, selling their salt beef, hides and tallow.

In the early-1830s, trade in sandalwood slowed down as island forests became depleted.  At about the same time, whaling ships hunting in the north Pacific began wintering in Hawaiian waters.

Ships provisioning in Hawaiʻi ports provided a market for salt beef, in addition to hides and tallow.  With the economic push of providing provisions to the whaling fleets, ranching became a commercial enterprise that grew in the islands.

Parker took a more business-like approach and took advantage of the opportunities of the day and established the Parker Ranch in the fledgling livestock industry.  Purdy was a rowdy, living the rugged life, typical of his peers in the early American West.  (Bergin)

A real or tall tale of his exploits (written in 1857) tells how Jack Purdy, mighty bullock hunter and expert guide, together with his employer and hunting companion, Mr. Julius Brenchley, succeeded without firearms – in fact not even equipped with their usual lassos – in capturing a ferocious wild bull and in killing the beast when he failed to extricate himself from a mudhole; and then celebrated their victory with a deserved steak dinner fresh off the carcass.  (Korn)

In 1832, Purdy married into Hawaiian royal lineage when he took Keawe-maʻu-hili (daughter to Kewae-a-heulu and Kaʻakau) as his bride.  Several of his children from that and his second marriage were respected cowboys.   (Bergin)

His grandson, Ikua Purdy, made headlines and national fame, when he won the World’s Steer Roping Championship in Cheyenne, Wyoming – roping, throwing and tying the steer in 56 seconds (on a borrowed horse.)  Ikua had worked at Parker Ranch, he later moved to Maui to ʻUlupalakua Ranch (he died there in 1945.)

Jack Purdy (William Wallace Jack Harry Hale Purdy) died on June 22, 1886, at the age of 86; he is buried near his home, Poʻo Kanaka.

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Three Volcano Pioneers of the Mid-19th Century Hawaii

“Keep and publish careful records, invite the whole world of science to co-operate, and interest the business man.” (Jaggar)

The efficiency of an institution which is essentially educational and not commercial, productive of ideas rather than dollars, must be measured by its effect on productive men of learning in stimulating them to production; that is, to new discovery, experiment investigation and publication.

The founding of the Volcano Observatory and the formation of the group of subscribers here called the “Research Association,” were themselves evolved productions of the inspiring work of early investigators, as well as of the natural intellectual stimulus created in man by the unexplained Kilauea lake of boiling nebulous flux.

Three names stand out above all others as recorders of the work of the Fire Goddess in Hawaii in the middle decades of the nineteenth century : Titus Coan, James Dwight Dana, and William Lowthian Green.

Coan the missionary, earnest seeker after truth, for more than a third of the century watched every detail of the evolution of the volcanoes, pondered their meaning, and moreover made truthful record in scores of letters which were promptly published.

This genius for recording is rare among men, and is an all-important requirement in science; many men are good observers, but millions of valuable observations are forever lost, because of a lack of appreciation of the value of a jotting down – day, hour, minute, event, stages, appearances.

All science is no more than a categoric jotting-down, and the grouping of facts into new categories, until some of these reach the dignity of “theory.”

Coan without apparatus or endowment was an institution, a first Hawaiian volcano observatory, and in actual output he was a better observer and recorder than some institutions which have been elaborately equipped.

Professor Dana of Yale, foremost American geologist, was with the Wilkes Expedition at Kilauea in 1840, revisited Hawaii later, and wrote in 1891 a book, “Characteristics of Volcanoes,” which stands preeminent among volcano memoirs.

It was inspired by Kilauea and Mauna Loa, but is broad and sane, and presents a most painstaking and thoughtful summary of the progress of Hawaiian volcanic events, and their bearing on geology. Dana published in New Haven Coan’s letters, and it was doubtless Dana who stimulated much of Coan’s recording.

Green, the man of business, in his leisure moments student of volcanic life and of the inspiring heights and depths of the globe, conceived: to scale, with its film of waters and its blanket of gas, wrote a remarkable book in two volumes, “Vestiges of the Molten Globe.”

His second volume deals especially with the volcanoes, which he visited many times, and of it Professor Daly of Harvard writes: “It is certainly a pity that the second part of Green’s work is not more generally known. The book is almost as remarkable a contribution to the philosophy of vulcanism as Part 1, ‘On the Tetrahedral Theory of the Earth,’ is important in cosmogonic philosophy.”

Green’s work foreshadowed theoretic conceptions which modem thought has fixed more firmly, and his interest, as a business man, in the affairs of pure science was forerunner of the wider interest of many business men (and intelligent women) of Hawaii who now make up the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association.

These three men, Coan and Green resident here, Dana from an eastern university, typify the reason for the creation of an Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and their portraits should forever hang in honored place upon its walls.

Coan, the systematic observer, showed the value of record and system; Green, the merchant, fascinated by the spell of Pele and inspired by the problems of position of this mid-Pacific pinnacle, Hawaii, rising 37,000 feet above the ocean deep, adopted volcanology for avocation, and left monumental work to inspire specialist and layman alike.

While Dana the scholar, coming from a distant seat of learning, hospitably entertained in the islands by Coan, Green, Bishop, Brigham, Alexander and a host of kind friends, rewarded their kindness by making famous to the whole world the achievements of his Hawaiian scientific colleagues.

Dana added new volcano lore and illustrated what production may come from scientific hospitality. (All here is copied from Special Bulleting of Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, 1913, as stated by Thomas Jaggar.)

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Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue

The Wailuku is the longest river in Hilo (twenty-six miles.) Its course runs from the mountains to the ocean along the divide between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The Wailuku is the boundary between Hilo Palikū in the north and Hilo One on the south.

The earliest recorded bridge in Hawai‘i was a crude footbridge across the Wailuku River in Hilo and was reported by missionary C. S. Stewart in 1825. (The first major bridge on O‘ahu appears to have been one extending North Beretania Street across Nuʻuanu Stream, erected in 1840.) (ksbe)

“About a hundred yards above the beach, it (the stream) opens into a still deep basin, encircled by high cliffs. Into this basin the whole stream is projected by two cascades … A rude bridge crosses the stream just above the falls; and it is a favorite amusement of the natives to plunge from it, or from the adjoining rocks, into the rapids, and pass head foremost over both falls, into the lower basin.” (Stewart, Schmitt)

The Wailuku River bridge must have existed for only a short time, and it was quickly forgotten. Sereno Bishop, born on the Big Island in 1827, later recalled, “There were no bridges in these islands until after 1840.” Titus Coan, the pioneer missionary who settled in Hilo in 1835, wrote, “For many years after our arrival there were no roads, no bridges, and no horses in Hilo”. (Schmitt)

Hilo’s Wailuku River was finally spanned again in September 1859, this time by a 196-foot-long suspension bridge. Less than seven weeks after it was opened, this bridge collapsed while a party of eight or ten persons and their horses were attempting to cross. The group narrowly averted drowning and death by falling timbers.

This was not the first disaster or near-disaster at the site of the Wailuku Bridge. Weakened by earthquakes and a tsunami, the railroad bridge over the Wailuku River collapsed on March 31, 1923 – immediately after a loaded passenger train had crossed and another was approaching.

Two of the largest bridges on the Hawai‘i Consolidated Railway were destroyed by the 1946 tsunami, a disaster which effectively put that railroad out of business. (ksbe)

Waiānuenue Avenue (rainbow (seen in) water) in Hilo town is named for the most famous waterfall in Hilo, Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue, Rainbow Falls. There is a legend about this falls, the goddess Hina, her son Māui and the lizard-man Kuna.

Hina once lived in the cave beneath and behind the waterfall. Kuna would throw logs and boulders over the edge of the falls to try to cause harm to Hina. She called to her son Māui and he came quickly to her aid. He chased Kuna upland along the river, where they engaged in many battles.

Finally, Māui emerged the victor, though only because he was aided by the volcano goddess Pele. Hina was now safe. Many places along the Wailuku were named to commemorate different parts of the story so that the legend would not be forgotten. (Zane)

The local utility Hawaii Electric Light Co (HELCO) owns and operates two hydroelectric facilities arranged in tandem along the lower reach of the Wailuku River near Hilo. The Waiau plant was constructed in 1920 and upgraded in 1947. The Puʻueo plant downstream was built in 1910 and upgraded in 1941. The Wailuku River Hydroelectric Power Company plant began commercial operation in 1993. It is located at the junction of the Wailuku River and the Kaloheahewa Stream.

A 6-foot-diameter intake pipe for HELCO is located about 100 feet above Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue. The intake feeds the utility’s Puʻueo Hydroelectric Plant located down on Wainaku Street, several blocks from the ocean.

About a mile upstream is a section of river called Boiling Pots, as well as the Peʻepeʻe Falls.

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David Kamehameha

Mataio Kekūanāoʻa (1793–1868) and Kīnaʻu (1805-1839) each served as Kuhina Nui, a position generally described as “Prime Minister,” “Premier” and “Regent.”  They were each born of chiefs; Kekūanāoʻa was son of an Oʻahu chief; Kīnaʻu was the daughter of Kamehameha I.

They were also husband and wife.

They had five children: four boys, David Kamehameha (1828–1835), Moses Kekūāiwa (1829-1848,) Lot Kapuāiwa (1830–1872,) Alexander Liholiho (1834–1863,) and a girl, Victoria Kamāmalu (1838–1866.)

Consistent with custom, each of the sons were hānai (adopted) to other families – David by Kaʻahumanu, Moses by Kaikioʻewa, Lot by Nahiʻenaʻena, and Alexander by Kauikeaouli.  (Luomala)

When Kīna‘u’s last child, Victoria Kamāmalu, was born she refused her maternal uncle Kuakini’s request to take the child to the island of Hawaiʻi to rear. Defying custom, she herself nursed her and her adopted daughter Pauahi (but made John Papa ʻĪ‘ī and his wife Sarai her child’s kahu.)  (Luomala)

We hear a lot about two of Kekūanāo’a and Kīnaʻu’s sons – Alexander Liholiho became Kamehameha IV and Lot Kapuāiwa became Kamehameha V (daughter Victoria Kamāmalu became Kuhina Nui, like her parents.)

We do not often hear about David Kamehameha.

Some suggest David’s birth had helped reconcile differences between Ka‘ahumanu and Kīnaʻu.

It was the wish of Kamehameha the Great that Kīnaʻu and Kamāmalu, his daughters by Kaheiheimalie, marry his sons by Keōpūolani, the highest ranking chief of the ruling family in the kingdom during her lifetime, to continue his line.

Kamāmalu became the wife of Liholiho (Kamehameha II.)  Kīnaʻu had refused to marry Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III.)  (Luomala)

When Kīnaʻu and Kekūanāoʻa were married, Kaʻahumanu was furious; “she ground her teeth and spit fire. … It was not until Kīnaʻu became pregnant with her first child that Kaʻahumanu became reconciled to what had taken place.” (Kamakau)

As was the custom, the child was hānai (adopted) by others.  Pukui, emphasizing the permanency of the hānai relationship, has stated that a child “is the hānai of his permanent, adoptive parents” and the relationship is as permanent as that in modern legal adoption.  (Luomala)

At his birth (May 20, 1828,) Kīnaʻu presented her first-born, Prince David Kamehameha, to Kaʻahumanu, “a boy fine enough for any mother not of the seed royal to glory in.”  (Judd)

A second grandchild whom Kaʻahumanu had charge of at this time was Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani. (Kamakau)

Kaʻahumanu clashed with Boki (Governor of Oʻahu.)

“He (Boki) accused Kaʻahumanu of appropriating to herself the private estate of the young king (Kauikeaouli – Kamehameha III) so that he could have no land, and of reviling him by calling him a servant of David Kamehameha and of Ruth, the daughter of Kekūanāoʻa and Pauahi, who had been one of the wives of Liholiho. But these slanders recoiled on the governor, whose folly and wickedness contrasted strongly with the prudence and inoffensiveness of the queen regent.”  (Bingham)

When Kaʻahumanu received word that Boki may try to kill her, Kaʻahumanu said, “I do not fear death planned by this son of ours, but he will have to (come) himself to kill me and these grandchildren of mine who will stay by me.” (These were David Kamehameha and Ruth Keʻelikōlani.)  (Boki later gave up the idea of killing Kaʻahumanu.) (Kamakau)

When David was four, in 1832, Kaʻahumanu died at her house in Mānoa Valley, and afterwards, David was raised by Kekāuluohi (Kīnaʻu’s half sister, who became Kuhina Nui of Hawaiʻi on April, 5, 1839 and took the name Kaʻahumanu III.)

Hiram Bingham noted David Kamehameha was “the favorite little son of Kekāuluohi;” although it is likely Kīnaʻu still had a hand in his upbringing.

Kekāuluohi joined Kawaiahaʻo Church on March 2, 1828 the third occasion in the history of the church on which members were received into it, and Kīnaʻu on March 7, 1830. These chiefesses were of the same firmness of character as Kaʻahumanu, and their husbands took a similar stand. They too were like parents to the people.  (Kamakau)

Prince David Kamehameha died of unknown causes at the age of seven, December 15, 1835.  He was buried at Pohukaina on what is now the ʻIolani Palace grounds and was later transported and buried at the Mauna ʻAla Royal Mausoleum.

On November 16, 1836, High Chief Kahana Kapaʻahea and the High Chiefess Analeʻa Keohokālole had their third son, David Kalākaua; it has been suggested that he was named in honor of David Kamehameha.

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Hawaii Geologic Setting

Tiny dots upon a map of the Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands are in reality the tops of a range of mighty mountains, perhaps the greatest mountain range on earth, built up from the sea floor by thousands upon thousands of volcanic eruptions. The average depth of the floor of the ocean on the two sides of the island chain is about 15,000 feet.

Thus the lowest of the islands are mountains more than 15,000 feet high; and Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii, rises some 30,000 feet above its base. It is certainly the highest island peak in the world, and quite probably is the world’s highest mountain in terms of elevation above the ocean floor.

Fifteen hundred miles across the central Pacific stretches the line of islands that we call the Hawaiian Archipelago. From Ocean (Kure) Island at the northwest, we pass southeastward by Midway and Gardner Islands, French Frigates Shoal, Necker, Nihoa, and Kaula Islands, all of which are small low islands, until at Niihau we reach the first of the large islands of the Hawaiian group.

There are eight of these major islands. In order southeastward they are: Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii. Most of the larger islands are well watered and clothed in tropical vegetation—green jewels set in a hand of sparkling white surf, and laid in the blue plush of the ocean.

The small islands northwest of Niihau—the so-called Leeward Islands—are too small to collect a toll of moisture from the passing winds. They are barren and waterless. Lanai and Kahoolawe also are dry, because the high islands to windward of them extract the water from the wind before it reaches them.

The Hawaiian mountains were born when a fissure opened in a northwest-southeast direction across the floor of the Pacific Ocean. How long ago this happened we have no way of knowing.

We believe the oldest rocks of the major islands now visible above sea level may date from the late Tertiary period of geologic time, some 30 or 40 million years ago. Obviously the oldest rocks, at the base of the heap on the ocean floor, must be very much older, perhaps 60 million years old, or even more.

Through most of the period of the islands’ growth upward through the ocean water the building force of volcanism met little opposition.

But as the top of the mountain reached into shallower water near the surface of the sea first currents and then waves began to attack the growing mass, knocking fragments of lava rock loose and washing them away into deeper water.  When eventually the volcanoes thrust their heads above the sea their struggle for existence became still more intense.

Then began the great battle between the constructive forces of volcanism, ever striving to build the island upward and outward with flow upon flow of new lava, and the destructive forces of wave, stream, wind, and even ice erosion, carving away the land and carting away the debris to dump it into the ever-hungry abysses of the ocean.

So long as volcanism continued fully active the islands continued to grow, but when volcanic activity weakened and finally died out the powers of erosion seized control. Great canyons were carved into the slopes by streams, waves battered away at the shores, cutting them back into high cliffs with broad shallowly submerged platforms at their bases, and the whole land mass was gradually worn away.

The ultimate end of this process is a broad, nearly flat platform cutting across the volcanic cone a few tens of fathoms below sea level. All that is left of the former islands is a shoal.

Before this final stage of erosion is reached, however, a new agent of construction appears. On the shallowly submerged platforms, organisms such as corals start to grow in abundance, and secrete their limy skeletons to form reefs. In early stages these reefs surround a central volcanic island, and are known as fringing reefs.

In later stages the volcanic island may disappear entirely leaving only a limestone reef, slightly submerged to form a shoal, or projecting slightly above the water to form an island. Such “coral” islands are ring-shaped and are known as atolls.

Volcanism appears to have progressed southeastward along the great fissure in the ocean floor. At least, the volcanoes at the northwestern end of the Hawaiian chain ceased activity long before those at the southeastern end.

The northwesternmost volcanic mountains have been eroded away until no more volcanic rock can be seen. The visible parts of Ocean (Kure) and Midway Islands are formed entirely of organic limestone and calcareous sand, the remains of lime-secreting sea animals and plants.

We feel quite certain, however, that at some comparatively small depth the limestone rests on the truncated summits of great volcanic mountains.

At French Frigates Shoal, La Perouse Rock is a tiny remaining pinnacle of volcanic rock projecting through the limy reefs. Necker and Nihoa Islands are remains of once much larger volcanic islands, and Niihau has lost a great slice of its eastern slope through marine erosion.

Kauai and Oahu Islands were deeply eroded by streams and waves before a renewal of volcanic activity buried much of their lowlands beneath floods of late lavas. On Maui, the volcanic mountain comprising the western part of the island has been deeply dissected by streams, with the formation of huge valleys such as Iao.

Haleakala Volcano, forming the eastern part of Maui, also had great valleys cut into it by stream erosion before renewed volcanism partly buried the work of the streams.

Hawaii is the southernmost and largest of the islands and also the youngest. Of the five great volcanoes  that built this largest of deep-sea islands, Kohala Volcano at the northern end of the island is the oldest.

Streams have cut huge spectacular canyons into its rainy northeastern slope, and waves driven by the nearly constant trade winds have cut high cliffs along its northeastern shore.

Next to the south, Mauna Kea has not been active since the arrival of the Hawaiian people, but has erupted since its summit was covered by a small glacier during the last great period of glaciation, perhaps within the last 15,000 years.

Hualalai, on the western part of the island, has erupted once in historic time, in 1801. The two southernmost volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, are still in their full vigor of activity and for the most part are almost unmarred by erosion.  (All here is copied from Hawaii Nature Notes, Hawaii National Park, May 1951)

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