Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Helene Hale

“One hundred [forty] years ago this past May, the University of Minnesota graduated its first African American student. Andrew Hilyer was one of only 34 graduates in the class of 1882. They and some 180  others attended college on a campus  that consisted of exactly two buildings.” (University of Minnesota)

“His son, Gale Hilyer, followed his father at the University of Minnesota and earned both bachelor (‘12 and law (‘15) degrees from the University.”  Gale’s daughter, Helene Hilyer, born March 23, 1918, followed them and graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Education in 1938.

Helene’s activities included membership in the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha for African American women. The remainder of her activities focused on peace activism. The Minneapolis Spokesman lists her as an activist for the integration of student housing.

Helene Hilyer earned her master’s degree in 1941, but was unable to find a job teaching in Minnesota because no one would hire African Americans.

“After graduation, and I was there for about a year. And then I got married and we went down to Georgia. My husband [William J. Hale] taught at Fort Valley, Georgia. And that lasted about a year and then we moved around from place to place. We moved to New York and moved to other places.”

“I went down to Montgomery, Alabama, which was the home of my mother. But I had no relatives down there at that time, so I didn’t know anything. But I did go down to Tuskegee Institute and gave speeches on nonviolent resistance as practiced by [Mohandas (Mahatma)] Gandhi.”

“And I often wonder whether Martin Luther King, [Jr.], might have been down there about that time. But I don’t know. We had very small turnouts for things like that. But I did it long before Martin Luther King came along with his nonviolent resistant movement.”

The family ended up in San Diego and Helene “taught at San Diego State … My daughter was about two or three years old at that time. The interesting thing about that is that talking about the race problem, my husband and I are kinda light. We can pass for anything we want to.”

“But the first time we went to San Diego, [her husband’s] uncle – who was a Black doctor and quite active in the community as the spokesman for the Black community, or Negro community, as they called it in those days – got him a job in Consolidated Vultee Corp (aircraft builder).”

“[T]hey weren’t hiring any other races in the early part of the war, so they put him – with a master’s degree from Columbia University – sweeping the runway for the test planes.”

“[M]y sister-in-law had gone to Columbia and she was a very good friend of Florence Ahn [who was from Hawai‘i], they had roomed together at Columbia University. And Florence Ahn, became – I think she became a very famous singer afterwards.”

(Florence Ahn, was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Julliard Graduate School of Music. In 1940, Florence was the first Asian-American to sing in the [Radio-Keith-Orpheum] RKO vaudeville theater stages in New York City, Boston, Washington, DC, and Florida.)

“Anyhow, my sister went to Hawai‘i and – my sister-in-law – and my husband went to visit her. And she sort of made us interested in Hawai‘i, when we found out more about it.”

“Don Blanding came to San Diego State College, where I was teaching.” (Blanding was an American poet, sometimes described as the Poet Laureate of Hawai‘i. He was also a journalist, cartoonist, author and speaker. He published daily poems in the Star Bulletin for two years in the 1920s.)

(Reportedly, Don Blanding, writing in his book ‘Hula Moons,’ explained the origins of Lei Day: “Along in the latter part of 1927 I had an idea; not that that gave me a headache, but it seemed such a good one that I had to tell some one about it so I told the editors of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the paper on which I worked.”)

(“They agreed that it was a good idea and that we ought to present it to the public, which we proceeded to do. It took hold at once and resulted in something decidedly beautiful.” From that it grew and more and more people began to wear lei on May 1.  In 1929, Governor Farrington signed a Lei Day proclamation.)

OK, back to Helene in San Diego … She “went to this convocation where [Blanding] spoke on Hawai’i. And he told about Kona. And that seemed to be just an ideal place. So I went home and I told my husband, ‘Kona is where we want to go.’ … So we came to Hawai‘i right after World War II, in 1947. And we came as schoolteachers.”

After their arrival, they opened the Menehune Book Store. Helene “taught at Konawaena [High School], both of us did. … my husband only taught for one year and he went and tried various things. … he started a business of candy machines and some other things.”

“From 1947 to 1950, Mrs. Hale … became very well integrated into the community … Yes, we were active in the Democratic party, which in those days was real radical, you know. I mean, in the plantation communities, if you met in Na‘alehu, I remember, you had to meet in the cane fields. So we went through that period in the development of the Democratic party, too.”

“In 1954, Helene Hale ran for public office as a County Supervisor. She won her election and became the first woman to hold a government office in Hawaiʻi since Queen Lili’uokalani.”

“After representing the west side of the island for 8 years, Hale was elected Chairman and Executive Officer of Hawaiʻi County, a position that would later be known as mayor. She was the first woman and the first black person to be elected mayor in Hawaiʻi.”

“One of her significant achievements during her term in office was the establishment of the annual Merrie Monarch Festival in honor of King Kalākaua, an event celebrating traditional Hawaiian culture and hula.” (YMCA)

“In 1963 Hawaiʻi island was struggling economically, stemming from the devastation of recent tsunami and the decline of sugar plantations along the Hāmākua coast. Helene Hale, the County of Hawaiʻi Chairwoman at the time, sought to give the island an economic boost by tapping into the burgeoning tourist industry.”

“Hale sent her Administrative Assistant, Gene Wilhelm, and her Promoter of Activities, George Naʻope, to explore the Lahaina Whaling Spree on Maui to see what lessons could be learned there. They returned inspired, and the seeds for the Merrie Monarch Festival were planted.”

“A committee was formed that included Gene Wilhelm (Chairman), Koshi Miyasaki (Vice-Chairman), Clifford Bowman, Arthur Evers, Ken Griffin, Ralph Lau, George Naʻope, Carl Rohner, Floyd Swnn, Steve Thorson, Thomas Unger, and William Weber. In 1964 the work of this committee resulted in the first Merrie Monarch Festival”.  (Merrie Monarch Festival)

In 1967, William and Helene divorces; she married Richard Kiyota in 1978.  “In 1980, Hale was re-elected to the Hawaiʻi County Council and served one two-year term. She returned to the Council again in 1992. In 2000 at the age of 82, she successfully ran for State Representative and her victory made her the first Black woman to serve in the Hawaiʻi State Legislature and the oldest person ever elected.”

“In the State House, Hale supported civil rights legislation, and, in 2002, she introduced a resolution urging the United States not to go to war in Iraq. In 2008, Hale was presented the Honolulu Hawai‘i NAACP’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Helene Hale retired at the age of 88 and died on February 1, 2013, at the age of 94 in Hilo, Hawaiʻi.” (YWCA)

Among Hale’s legacy is the Helene Hale Scholarship administered by the University of Hawai‘i Hilo for students who have intent to pursue a career as a teacher.

“The Heléne Hilyer Hale ‘Citizen of the World’ scholarship comes with the hope and expectation that the recipients will follow in her footsteps to make a difference in their communities, bring an international perspective, work for peace and justice, and spread the spirit of aloha.” (UH Foundation)

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Time

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.

However, shortly after contact, there wasn’t always agreement about what time or date it actually was … time-keeping practices varied in the 18th century, depending on circumstances.

Noon marked the beginning of the day in astronomical reckoning, the middle of the day in civil reckoning, and the end of the day in nautical reckoning. Logs were kept on ship’s time but on entering a harbor reverted to civil time.

In addition, determining dates was not always consistent … folks travelling across the Pacific west to east may have differing dates that those travelling east to west. The International Date Line (generally on the 180th meridian) marks changes in days – but some early travelers didn’t make the adjustment.

To further confuse the issue, “The date line as originally drawn had a kink to the westward of the Hawaiian Islands to include Morrell and Byers islands which appeared on nineteenth-century charts at the western end of the Hawaiian chain. It was then proved that they did not exist, so the date line was straightened out.” (Howse)

In the 1880s, changes were being made in timekeeping practices. Several large nations still recognized prime meridians other than the one through Greenwich, and some continued to differ on the definition of a “day.”

In 1883, the US railroad industry divided the continental US into five (later four) time zones, establishing official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. (National Geographic)

The civil population nevertheless adopted ‘Railroad Time’ almost spontaneously; 85% of US towns of over ten-thousand inhabitants had done so by October 1884. However, it was not until 1918 that an Act of Congress set standard time all over the US. (Howse)

Hawaiʻi did not adopt standard time until 1896, with various notices published in the papers: “Hawaiian standard time will be ten and one-half hours slow of Greenwich. The half hour is chosen for the reason that the Hawaiian group, while limited in area, is almost centrally on the line between the ten-hour and eleven-hour belt, and the inconvenience of a wide difference between standard and local time is thus avoided.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 9, 1896)

“The meridian adopted, 157 deg 30 min, is not far from central to the group. The Kauai people will be expected to set their local time ahead 8-minutes and Niihau 10-minutes; the Maui people will set back local time on an average four minutes. The Hilo people, if they fall into line, will set back ten minutes, and Kona from 7 to 8 minutes.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 9, 1896)

The 1918 act of Congress also provided for nationwide daylight saving time from March through October.

It hit the islands, as well; “Daylight saving plan was again agitated for these islands the early part of this year, and, in April, on official orders from Washington, the navy department here set their clocks forward an hour, but it did not last long. Cutting a foot off the end of Pat’s blanket to add to its head was found to give no greater length or warmth.” (Thrum)

In 1933, the Hawaiʻi Legislature decreed daylight saving for the period between the last Sunday of each April and last Sunday of each September, but less than a month later repealed the act.

WWII brought daylight saving back to the Islands. Year-round daylight saving time, one hour ahead of Hawaiian Standard Time, was established in the Territory during World War II by General Order No. 66 of the military governor, taking effect on February 9, 1942. The new time became known as “Hawaiian War Time.”

In 1947, the Territorial Legislature permanently returned to the pre-war standard time – however, they also advanced Hawaiian Standard Time by 30 minutes, making it 10 (instead of 10-1/2) hours slower than Greenwich Mean Time, and thus two hours (not 2½) behind Pacific Standard Time. This change became effective the second Sunday of June, 1947. (Schmitt & Cox)

Later, the federal Uniform Time Act of 1966 was enacted (April 13, 1966) “to promote the adoption and observance of uniform time within the standard time zones” (called for in the 1819 law.) It sought to simplify the official pattern of where and when daylight saving time is applied across US. States/territories could opt out; the 1967 Hawaiʻi Legislature voted to exempt the Islands.

In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, effective starting in 2007, that declared daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March (‘spring forward’) and ends on the first Sunday in November (‘fall back’,) with the time changes taking place at 2 am local time.

So, today daylight saving time starts in most of the continental US; Hawaiʻi, Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation, which does observe daylight saving time,) Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands do not observe daylight saving time.

The image shows Ohio Clock in the US Capitol being turned forward for the country’s first daylight saving time in 1918.

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Daylight_Savings

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honolulu Fish Auction

“The auctioneer rings a brass bell at 5:30 am and the bidding begins.” (United Fishing Agency)

“One of the most colorful but least known spectacles offered along the waterfront is the daily fish auction, offered in several spots by independent auction houses who take a percentage for selling independent sampan catches.” (Star Bulletin, Dec 11, 1954)

“United Fishing Agency, auction sales only, was organized … by fishermen, wholesalers and retailers. Agency trucks pick up deep-sea tuna and marlin and shallow-water bottom fish at the docks.”

“The United Fishing Agency is one of the best things that has ever happened to Hawaii’s seafood industry. … The agency … revolutionised and changed for the better the way Hawaii’s seafood is marketed”. (Iverson)

Back then, “The man who makes things go, Shozo Tanijo has been buying and selling fresh fish for over 40 years. As auctioneer and assistant manager of the United Fishing Agency, his shrewd handling of early morning auctions means life and death to the fishing industry.”

“It isn’t so much a matter of waiting for bids as it is a question of coaxing them from canny buyers – wholesalers, retailers and peddlers.”  (Star Bulletin, Dec 11, 1954)  That was 70 years ago; not much seems to have changed.

When I was at DLNR, I had the opportunity to experience the fish auction.  A couple owners of several longline boats wanted me to have a firsthand experience. It was memorable.

“The United Fishing Agency started the Honolulu Fish Auction on August 5, 1952.” (Hawaii Seafood) “They brought together several small fishing companies founded by Japanese immigrants in the 1900s.”

“Modeled after the famous Tokyo auction [where fish were sold individually rather than by the boatload to wholesalers (Mossman)], the Honolulu Fish Auction was born … “

“The Hawaii longline fleet has since grown to over 140 vessels operating the most sustainable fishery in the world.  They still operate it today at the new facilities located dockside on Pier 38 [at Honolulu Harbor].” (United Fishing Agency)

“In other parts of the world, fishermen sell their fish to wholesalers who generally dictate prices. The United Fishing Agency came up with a better way that allows the independent fishermen to sell their catch at a fair price …”

“… and, in turn, enables auction buyers representing the wholesale, retail and restaurant sectors to get the freshest fish. Open competitive bidding rewards higher quality fish with higher prices.” (HawaiiSeafood)

“Wholesalers and retailers bid against each other at these auctions. Often street truck-peddlers will form a hui to buy one 150-200-pound fish which they split later.” (SB, Dec 11, 1954)

Today, “The United Fishing Agency is a privately-held company with Mr Akira Otani as President, Brooks Takenaka as Manager, and Frank Goto as General Manager Emeritus.” (Iversen)

“‘The commercial fishing industry is the largest food producer in the state,’ says Goto, who also serves as assistant vice president of United Fishing Agency, the entity that runs the auction and is celebrating its 70th year in business.”

“‘We’re really 80%-90% of the local production of food in the state, so if we’re talking about food security, we’re the most important industry. Fresh fish is not only a cultural staple here,’ he adds, ‘it’s also an economic necessity.’” (Mossman)

“Brooks Takenaka, the auction’s general manager, is fond of saying that Hawaii’s pelagic longline fishery is the world’s best managed, pointing out that 20 per cent of Hawaii’s tuna longliners carry federal observers and that 100 per cent of swordfish longliners carry observers. When their quotas are reached, they stop fishing.” (Iversen)

“The day starts at 1 am. That’s when unloading begins, 6 days a week. The fishing vessels are unloaded in order of arrival. Fish are weighed, tagged with the vessel name, displayed on pallets, and kept clean and cold.”

“Before being offered for sale, each fish is carefully inspected by the United Fishing Agency staff to ensure fish quality and safety. Buyers arrive before the auction begins to inspect the day’s landings. By tradition, the auctioneer rings a brass bell at 5:30 am and the bidding begins.”

“Hundreds of fish are displayed on pallets on the auction floor. The United Fishing Agency auctioneer moves down the rows of fish surrounded by buyers who openly bid against each other for value, the best prices and quality fish.”

“The majority of fish are sold individually. This competition continues until all the fish are sold. Up to 100,000 pounds of fish can be auctioned in a day. Buyers are invoiced for their purchases by United Fishing Agency and fishermen are paid that day for their fish.” (HawaiiSeafood)

Limited tours at the auction are available by Reservation Only, on selected Saturday mornings from 6:00am – 7:30am.  Cost is $35 for adults and $25 for children 8 – 12 years old.  As a place of business the Honolulu Fish Auction does not allow unescorted access into the facility.  NOTE: Tours are not generally scheduled mid December to mid January.

Honolulu Fish Auction Tour Registration Dates

“The tour begins with viewing the fishing vessels dockside and a discussion of how the fish are harvested and handled to preserve quality and safety.  The daily life on a fishing vessel is described.”

“The regulatory requirements of the fishery are then emphasized … The tour then traces the fish from the vessels into the fish auction facility.”

“On the auction floor, you will learn about how the fish are inspected to insure seafood safety and how a fish auction works. You have the opportunity to see the variety of fish landed and learn something about fish quality, seafood & health and seafood safety.  “ (HawaiiSeafood)

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Lānaihale

The island of Lānai was made by a single shield volcano between 1- and 1.5-million years ago, forming a classic example of a Hawaiian shield volcano with a gently sloping profile.  (SOEST)

The island of Lānai is about 13-miles long and 13-miles wide; with an overall land area of approximately 90,000-acres, it is the sixth largest of the eight major Hawaiian Islands.

Lānai has thirteen ahupua‘a (native land divisions), three of which are fairly unique in the larger island group, as they cross the entire island from Kona (leeward) to Koʻolau (windward) regions.

The tallest peak on Lānai is Lānaihale.

The name of the summit is associated with the traditional story of a young chief, Kauluaʻau, son of Aliʻi nui Kākaʻalaneo, a ruler of Maui during the early-1400s.

Kauluaʻau, because of his misdeeds (pulling up breadfruit plantings) in Lāhainā, was banished to Lānai (then known as Kaulahea.) (Maly)

At that time, Lānai was known for being haunted by ghosts. This summit area is where the ghosts of Lānai would gather. The story recounts Kaululaʻau’s plot to kill the ghosts.

According to the account, Kauluaʻau built a house on the summit of Lānai and held a housewarming party, and invited the ghosts.  When they entered the house, Kauluaʻau killed the ghosts and ridded Lānai of their presence.

This story serves as the basis for the name of the island, Lānai (day of victory, day of conquest,) as well as the name of the summit, Lānaihale (house of Lānai.)  (Maly, PBS)

“The land rises with an ascent more or less steep … all around the island, and is at first dry and rocky, with an abundance of thatching pili. A mile or two up it becomes smoother, and patches of brushes appear, and vegetation generally is more luxuriant.”

“Higher up small trees grow, and on the very top of the island, timber is found for good-sized native houses.” (The Polynesian, August 6, 1853; Lānai Culture & Heritage Center)

To get there, you travel on the Munro Trail, a single-lane dirt road (with periodic pull-outs) built in 1955 (generally running north-south and follows a traditional foot trail, later used by island cowboys as a horse trail before improvement as a road.)

It was named after the former ranch manager, George C Munro, who was responsible for planting the numerous Cook Island pines in the summit region.

“At the very summit of the island, which is generally shrouded in mist, we came upon what Gibson (an early (1861) Mormon missionary to the islands) called his lake – a little shallow pond, about the size of a dining table.”

“In the driest times there was always water here, and one of the regular summer duties of the Chinese cook was to take a pack mule and a couple of kegs and go up to the lake for water.”  (Lydgate, Thrum)

Sitting in the rain shadow of Maui, Lānai has always been stressed for want of water.  It was a lone Norfolk Island Pine, planted by Walter M Gibson at Koele in 1878, that in 1911, alerted Munro to the importance of the fog coming off of Lānaihale as a producer of valuable water in the form of fog (cloud) drip.

Hearing the constant drip of water on the corrugated roof of the ranch house situated alongside the Norfolk Pine, Munro realized that the pine boughs collected water from the fog and clouds.

As a result, Munro initiated a program of planting pines across the island.  (Lanai Culture & Heritage Center)

Munro ordered seeds for Norfolk Pines (he received Cook Island Pine seeds instead) and by 1913, initiated a tree planting program on Lānaihale, and outer slopes of the island.

In 1956, Hawaiian Pineapple Company ran catchment experiments, and found that in a 24 hour period, one pine tree could produce 240 gallons of water from fog-drip.

This upland area contains most of the remaining native dominated forest and is habitat for the ʻuaʻu (Hawaiian petrel,) ʻapapane and rare land snails.  (DLNR)  A large colony of the Hawaiian petrel is known to exist near the summit of Lānaihale.

The name of the nearby peak of Haʻalelepaʻakai (salt left behind or discarded) relates to a story of two fishermen who come across from Maui, laden down with their fishing gear and salt.

Early in the morning, they rose up to this second summit and look down into Palawai Basin, and they could see a bed of white “Ae no ka paʻakai” (There’s salt down there.)

So they decided to throw away their salt away at the summit and planned to gather the salt below. They made it down, they found that the salt was gone (what they saw from the summit was mist.) (Maly, PBS)

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Wai O Keanalele

“Wai o ke ola! Wai, waiwai nui! Wai, nā mea a pau, ka wai, waiwai no kēlā!”  (Water is life! Water is of great value! Water, the water is that which is of value for all things!) (Joe Rosa; Maly)

Water was so valuable to Hawaiians that they used the word “wai” to indicate wealth. Thus, to signify abundance and prosperity, Hawaiians would say waiwai.

“Kekaha wai ‘ole na Kona” (“waterless Kekaha of the Kona district”) speaks of Kekaha, the portion of North Kona extending north of Kailua Bay from Honokōhau to ʻAnaehoʻomalu.  It is described as “a dry, sun-baked land.”)

Kamakau notes during the 1770s, “Kekaha and the lands of that section” were held by descendants of the Nahulu line, Kameʻeiamoku (living at Kaʻūpūlehu) and Kamanawa (at Kīholo,) the twin half-brothers of Keʻeaumoku, the Hawai‘i island chief.

It is the home of Kamanawa, at Kīholo, and its fresh water resources that we look at today.

Situated within the ahupuaʻa of Puʻuwaʻawaʻa, this area has ancient to relatively recent (1801 Hualālai eruption and the 1859 Pu‘u Anahulu eruption.)

Kīholo (lit. the Fishhook) refers to the legend which describes how in 1859 the goddess Pele, hungry for the ‘awa and mullet, or ʻanae, which grew there in the great fishpond constructed by Kamehameha I, sent down a destructive lava flow, grasping at the fish she desired.  (DLNR)

This place name may have been selected as a word descriptive of the coastline along that part of the island where the east-west coast meets the north-south coast and forms a bend similar to the angle between the point and the shank of a large fishhook.

There is no confirmation for this theory, except for our knowledge that Hawaiian place names have a strong tendency to be descriptive.  (Kelly)

While only a handful of houses are here today, in ancient times, there was a village that with many more that called Kiholo home.

“This village exhibits another monument of the genius of Tamehameha (Kamehameha I.) A small bay, perhaps half a mile across, runs inland for a considerable distance. From one side to the other of this bay, Tamehameha built a strong stone wall, six feet high in some places, and twenty feet wide, by which he had an excellent fish-pond that is not less than two miles in circumference.”

“There were several arches in the wall, which were guarded by strong stakes driven into the ground so far apart as to admit the water of the sea; yet sufficiently close to prevent the fish from escaping. It was well stocked with fish, and water-fowl were seen swimming on its surface.” (Ellis, 1823)

Where it was feasible, sometimes in small embayments, and other times directly on the coastal reefs, Hawaiians built walled ponds (loko kuapā) by building a stone wall, either in a large semicircle – from the land out onto the reef and, circling around, back again to the land—or to connect the headlands of a bay, they enclosed portions of the coastal waters, often covering many acres.

These ponds provided sanctuaries for many types of herbivorous fish. One or more sluice gates (mākāhā) built into the wall of a pond allowed clean, nutritious ocean water and very young fish to enter the pond. This was the type of fishpond that was reported to have been built at Kīholo by early visitors to the area.  (Kelly)

While Ellis credits Kamehameha with building Ka Loko o Kīholo (The Pond of Kīholo,) it is more likely that the fishpond was built in the fifteenth to the early part of the seventh centuries and that Kamehameha later repaired and rebuilt it.  (Kelly)

It was in operation well after that.  “Took the road from Kapalaoa to Kailua on foot. Passed the great fish pond at Kīholo, one of the artificial wonders of Hawaiʻi; an immense work! A prodigious wall run through a portion of the ocean, a channel for the water etc. Half of Hawaii worked on it in the days of Kamehameha.”  (Lorenzo Lyons, August, 8, 1843; Maly)

Fishing and fish from the pond provided much of the food for the villagers.  In addition, due to the limited rainfall and no surface streams, they also planted sweet potatoes, at least seasonally (probably just before the winter rains were expected, whatever soil was available was piled in heaps and nourished with leaves and other vegetable matter.)  (Kelly)

Kīholo and other ponds (ie Pā‘aiea (once where the Kona Airport is situated)) would have supplied food for Kamehameha’s warriors when they sailed off in the great canoe fleet to conquer the chiefs on the Islands of Maui, Moloka‘i and O‘ahu in 1794 and 1795. (Kelly)

“The natives of this district (also produced) large quantities of salt, by evaporating sea water. We saw a number of their pans, in the disposition of which they display great ingenuity. They have generally one large pond near the sea, into which the water flows by a channel cut through the rocks, or is carried thither by the natives in large calabashes.”  (Ellis, 1823)

“After remaining there some time, it is conducted into a number of smaller pans about six or eight inches in depth, which are made with great care, and frequently lined with large evergreen leaves, in order to prevent absorption. Along the narrow banks or partitions between the different pans, we saw a number of large evergreen leaves placed.”

“They were tied up at each end, so as to resemble a shallow dish, and filled with sea water, in which the crystals of salt were abundant. … it has ever been an essential article with the Sandwich Islanders, who eat it very freely with their food, and use large quantities in preserving their fish.”  (Ellis, 1823)

“Salt was one of the necessaries and was a condiment used with fish and meat, also as a relish with fresh food. Salt was manufactured only in certain places. The women brought sea water in calabashes or conducted it in ditches to natural holes, hollows, and shallow ponds (kaheka) on the sea coast, where it soon became strong brine from evaporation. Thence it was transferred to another hollow, or shallow vat, where crystallization into salt was completed.”  (Malo)

The 1850s saw several outbreaks of lava from Mauna Loa: in August 1851; in February 1852 (it came within a few hundred yards of Hilo;) and in August 1855, when it flowed for 16-months.

Then, in 1859, activity shifted to the northwestern side of the mountain. A flow started on January 23rd at an elevation of 10,500 feet; it came down to the sea on the northwest coast in two branches, at a point just north of Kīholo. On January 31st the stream had reached the sea, more than thirty-three miles in a direct line from its source – the first eruption in historic times from a high altitude to accomplish the extraordinary feat.  (Bryan, 1915)

The 1859 flow basically destroyed Kīholo and transformed it from a former residence of chiefs to a sparsely populated fishing village.  In the early 20th century, Kīholo became the port for Puʻuwaʻawaʻa Ranch, some 10 miles inland near Puʻuanahulu. Cattle were shipped from Kīholo to Honolulu until 1958. The construction of Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway in 1975 ended Kīholo’s former isolation.  (Kona Historical Society)

What about the water?

Today, evidence remains of the fresh groundwater flow through subterranean lava tubes and chambers out into the bay.   There is a series of caves in Puʻuwaʻawaʻa that was formed from lava tubes. The ceilings of lava tubes often collapsed in some places and were left intact in others, forming caves with relatively easy access through the collapsed areas.

Such caves were used for shelters by Hawaiians, perhaps during the summer months when they came to gather salt or to fish. The place name Keanalele (the discontinuous cave) is descriptive of caves found just inland of the coast in the ahupua‘a of Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a between Kīholo and Luahinewai.

Some of the caves contain fresh or brackish water, particularly those located toward the makai (seaward) end of the cave series. Caves that contained water were precious to the inhabitants of the area, even if the water in them was slightly brackish.  (Kelly)  One of these is identified as Wai O Keanalele, with three feet of almost fresh water..

On January 25, 2002 the Board of Land and Natural Resources transferred responsibility for State-managed lands within the ahupua‘a of Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a and Pu‘u Anahulu from its Land Division to the Divisions of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) and State Parks.

The portion that was made the responsibility of the Division of State Parks was designated the Kīholo State Park Reserve.  The Kīholo State Park Reserve is comprised of 4,362 acres and includes an 8-mile long wild coastline along the Kona Coast of the Island of Hawai‘i (bounded by Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway on the east, the Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a/Kaʻupulehu district boundary on the south, the shoreline on the west and the Pu‘u Anahulu/ʻAnaehoʻomalu ahupua‘a boundary on the north.)

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