Hawaii | Page 400 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 11, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kī

Kī, the Ti plant, was an emblem of high rank and divine power. The kāhili, in its early form, was a kī stalk with its clustered foliage of glossy, green leaves at the top.

The kahuna priests in their ancient religious ceremonial rituals used the leaves as protection. Ki planted around dwellings is thought to ward off evil. (ksbe)

To dispel evil, fresh leaves were worn around the neck, waist, and ankles and hung around dwellings. Masses of plants were planted around homes to ward off evil and bring good fortune. (CTAHR)

It is a canoe crop, brought to the Islands by the early Polynesians. Kī was considered sacred to the Hawaiian god, Lono, and to the goddess of the hula, Laka. (ksbe)

The kī leaf was a most useful article to the Hawaiians in caring for food. The leaf is long and wide (20 in. x 6 in. is an average size,) smooth, shiny, tough, and, except for the midrib, the veins are unobtrusive.

It has no odor and is clean and fresh looking. Small foods were wrapped in a ti leaf laulau piʻao, larger in a flat bundle called laulau lāwalu.

Broiling wrapped food (lāwalu) was used a great deal. Food that had been cut into pieces, or small fish that would be lost in an imu, or burned crisp if broiled, were wrapped in leaves of the ti, occasionally in leaves of the wild ginger, which is said to have added a delicious fragrance to the fish.

The leaf bundle was toasted over the open fire, turning it occasionally and the food was cooked when the juice ceased to drip from the bundle. Mullet was “cooked with such perfection that when the banana leaves in which it had been steamed were taken off, it had received hardly a slight alteration in form and color.” (Titcomb)

Lieut. James Burney and Astronomer William Bayly, while anchored off Kaua‘i in 1779 with the Cook expedition wrote: “… the natives came off with hogs and sweet potatoes in plenty, and a Root that appears like a Rotten Root of a tree, and as large as a man’s thigh. It is very much like brown Sugar in tast but Rather Sweeter – the natives call it Tee (ki or ti.)”

Ti, grown in a favorable location for many years, may have a root weighing 200 to 300 pounds. Roots on the ordinary garden ti may weigh 50 to 60 pounds.

A favorite confection years ago was kī baked in the imu for about 24 hours or until it became a sweet, brown, candy-like food. (Mitchell)

Missionary William Ellis wrote of the ti root in 1823: “The natives bake it in large ovens underground. After baking, it appears like a different substance altogether …”

“… being of a yellowish brown colour, soft, though fibrous and saturated with a highly saccharine juice. It is sweet and pleasant to the taste, and much of it is eaten in this state”.

Foreigners first fermented, and then distilled, the Kī root into an alcoholic beverage. It is said to have started when Captain Nathaniel Portlock, part of Captain Cook’s crew in 1779, baked roots in an imu to convert its starches to sugars, added water and let it ferment with wild yeast into a mild beer.

Lieut. James Burney and Astronomer William Bayly, while anchored off Kauaʻi in 1779 with the Cook expedition wrote: ‘… The Natives eat it sometimes Raw and other times Roasted. We made exceeding good Beer, by boiling it in Water, then let it ferment, so as to purge itself.’

Later, William Stevenson, an escaped convict from Australia, is credited to have taught the native Hawaiians how to distill the beer beverage into a higher alcoholic concoction. (Kepler) Due to the early means of making the drink, it took on the name ʻōkolehao (lit. iron bottom.)

“Since the perverted ingenuity of some early beachcomber first adjusted a twisted gun barrel to an iron pot, and distilled from the root of the ti this liquor to which the French Republic through the Paris Exposition of 1899 gave a blue ribbon. …”

“ʻŌkolehao has been recognized as something in which Hawaiʻi might well have a proprietary pride, because of its surpassing excellence in its class.” (Hawaiian Star, September 20, 1906)

It had its detractors … “If people will drink, let us at least see, if possible, that they drink a fair article of poison. I hold that no man ever killed his wife when under the influence of good, generous liquor. It is the “tarantula juice,” the ʻōkolehao, that does most of the mischief.” (The Friend, October 1, 1879)

Ti is a member of the agave family; botanists had previously placed it in the lily family. Besides green, the foliage of ti plants can be red, orange, purple, or various combinations of these (blue has not yet been found in ti.)

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Ti Leaves

Ti_plant_(Cordyline_fruticosa)

Ti-red-green

Ti leaf and heiau

Ki Skirt

Hookupu

Ti Root

Okolehao_label (thewhiskyunderground)

February 9, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Emden

The swastika was used at least 5,000 years before Adolf Hitler designed the Nazi flag. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit svastika, which means “good fortune” or “well-being.”

Archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the hooked cross on the site of ancient Troy. He connected it with similar shapes found on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors.”

In the beginning of the twentieth century the swastika was widely used in Europe. However, the work of Schliemann soon was taken up by völkisch movements, for whom the swastika was a symbol of “Aryan identity” and German nationalist pride

This conjecture of Aryan cultural descent of the German people is likely one of the main reasons why the Nazi party formally adopted the swastika or Hakenkreuz (Ger., hooked cross) as its symbol in 1920.

After World War I, a number of far-right nationalist movements adopted the swastika. As a symbol, it became associated with the idea of a racially “pure” state. By the time the Nazis gained control of Germany, the connotations of the swastika had forever changed.

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote: “I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika.”

The swastika (or Hakenkreuz (Ger., hooked cross)) would become the most recognizable icon of Nazi propaganda, appearing on the flag referred to by Hitler in Mein Kampf as well as on election posters, arm bands, medallions, and badges for military and other organizations. (Holocaust Memorial Museum)

On September 15, 1935, the Nazi government introduced the Nuremberg Laws, legislation which defined German society and state in fascist and racial terms, and strengthened the legal oppression of Jews. (Telegraph)

The swastika came to Hawai‘i in 1936 – it flew aboard the Emden.

On January 7, 1925 the light cruiser Emden, the first significant warship built after the First World War, was launched at Wilhelmshaven and refitted as a training ship.

On October 23, 1935, the Emden embarked on a cruise through the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific – Azores, Caribbean, Venezuela, Panama Canal, Oregon, Honolulu, Panama Canal, Baltimore, Montreal and Pontevedra (Spain).

Karl Dönitz commanded the 1935 training cruise of the Emden. (He later became commander of submarines and eventually grand admiral. He was also Hitler’s successor and leader of the short-lived Flensburg government (1945)).

They arrived in Honolulu on February 8, 1936. The Royal Hawaiian Band greeted them and played music at Honolulu Harbor. The German crew band broke into music on board.

“In the evening (was a) big reception with dancing. … The next day on the trip to Kailua Beach is better. Here and in the following days in the Waikiki Beach – we experience so much vaunted Hawaii in every respect. With every day it becomes more beautiful.”

“Car and swimming trips alternate with family invitations. Whether German, Hawaiian, American, Military, Japanese or Chinese, we are soon good friends with them.”

“Willingly we are shown the paradisiacal beauty of the island. Who gets to see a hula hula dance, what can add special beauty to his memories.”

“The number of our friends is so great that it is impossible to invite them all to a board fixed, so the commander puts on two afternoons board hard, so we are able to guarantee granted us hospitality to thank all our friends and girlfriends.”

“Again, we are all endowed very rich goodbye. Hours earlier, everything gathered in front of the ship, listening to the … Military band. Then plays and then sing again the Royal Hawaiian band.”

“Each of our friends hanged a wreath of flowers around, pushes us again the hand and says: Aloha! This word of Hawaiians expresses all the feelings of his friends.”

“It is a farewell to one of us probably no one forgets. Even our brave ship carries an Aloha wreath at the bow. Always quieter Aloha calls, nor do we see the Aloha Tower, then the Diamond Head, and then we throw the wreaths – as required by the custom – overboard, the dream of Hawaii is over! – Aloha oe!!” (Witnesses Report; Norderstedter Zeitzeugen)

The Emden left the Islands on February 17, 1936.

Emden spent the majority of her career as a training ship; at the outbreak of war, she laid minefields off the German coast and was damaged by a British bomber that crashed into her. (WorthPoint)

During WWII the Emden was used as a training ship but participated also in several combat operations until 1944. In January 1945, “she took on board the mortal remains of General Field Marshal Hindenburg and his wife, which had been disinterred” to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy hands. (Williamson) (Paul von Hindenburg was German President before Hitler.)

Badly damaged by British bombers on April 10, 1945 at Kiel, she was blown up on May 3rd in the Heikendorfer Bay. The remains were broken up for scrap in 1949. (Ships Nostalgia)

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Emden in Honolulu Harbor

Emden Crew with lei

Emden Crew and Boat with lei

Emden-Light_Cruiser_Emden_off_the_US_West_Coast_1930

Emden-Light_Cruiser_Emden-in Honolulu Harbor-1936

Emden landing at Honolulu Harbor

Royal Hawaiian Band welcoming the Emden

Route of the cruise of the Emden-1935-36

February 8, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Friend of the Mission from the First’

“He had been the friend of the Mission from the first – had forsaken his vices, embraced the Gospel, joined the Church of Christ, and maintained a consistent life.”

“When he found that he must die, he resolved to retire to the island, and to that spot in that island, which had been familiar in his early days.”

“As he stood upon the shore of O‘ahu ready to depart, with the Missionaries near him, and multitudes of natives about him weeping because they should see his face no more …”

“… he declared, in the presence of all, his confidence in the Missionaries, and his joy in the religion which they had brought to the Islands and to himself …”

“… and then desired that all might be quiet, while, on the beach and under the open heavens, one of the Missionaries should commend him and them to the protection and guardianship of Almighty God.”

“Having retired to the home of his fathers, he a few days after died; and as he died, this venerable warrior and chieftain said, ‘I am happy – I am happy’ – a speech, which, we venture to say, no dying Islander ever uttered before the Missionaries arrived and preached the Gospel.”

“Some months before his death, he had his parting advice to his people committed to paper. Just before he left O‘ahu, it was read to him.”

“‘These are my sentiments still,’ said he; ‘and, on the day that I am taken away, I wish the people to be assembled, and these words to be read to them as mine.’”

“This document, like his other compositions, since his professed obedience to the Gospel, is described as breathing a spirit of piety, and exhibiting evidence of the Christian hope.”

“The evidences of his Christian character are thus enumerated by Mr. Bingham – ‘The consistency of his life with what he knew of the requirements of the Word of God – his steady adherence to Christian principles, which he professed to follow since his contest, preservation, and victory at Tauai …’”

“‘… his steady, warm, and operative friendship for the Missionaries; and his constant, earnest, and efficient endeavours, while his health would allow it, to promote the cause of instruction and religious improvement among the people …’”

“‘… his constancy in attending the worship of God – his firmness in resisting temptation – his faithfulness in reproving sin – his patience in suffering – his calm and steady hope of heaven, through the atonement of Christ …’”

“‘… whom he regarded as the only Saviour, to whom he had, as he said, given up himself, heart, soul, and body, to be his servant for ever —all combine to give him a happy claim to that most honourable title of Rulers on earth, a Nursing Father in Zion, and to the name of ‘Christian, the highest style of man.’’”

“‘This world,’ he said, ‘is full of sorrow: but, in heaven, there is no sorrow nor pain – It is good! – It is light! – It is happy!’”

“It is a subject of gratitude, that the life of so important a man was preserved during the troubles of last year, when his sudden removal might have been followed by most disastrous consequences.”

“Thanks should be rendered, also, for the gracious support which was afforded him, during his long illness, as death gradually advanced.”

“The power of religion was strikingly manifest in the victory, which, in this instance, faith gained over inveterate habits, pride, the love of sin, and the love of the world: nothing but Christian truth ever obtained such a conquest.”

“Such a man as Karaimoku would be a blessing to any nation.”

“He only wanted an early education, to have made him an accomplished statesman. The nation must long lament his loss, for there is no one who can fill his place.” (Missionary Register, 1828)

“Kalanimōku, whom the natives called (“kaula hao, iron cable, of the country, a compliment higher than the discharge of twenty-one guns from the fort would have been” (Bingham)), died in 1827.”

“Anticipating the approach of his dissolution from the progress of dropsy (edema – a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body), the old chief sailed from Honolulu for Kailua (Kona), where he wished to die.”

“Here, under an unsuccessful operation for his disease, he fainted, and after a few hours expired, on the 8th of February. In him the heathen warrior was seen transformed into the peaceful, joyous Christian.” (Anderson)

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William Pitt Kalanimoku (c. 1768–1827) was a military and civil leader of the Kingdom of Hawaii-Pellion

February 7, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Oregon Mission

Early missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) on the continent were to the Cherokee and Choctaw Indians of the southeast.

“Other Indian missions were begun shortly after this; in fact the next two decades saw the most widespread efforts of the Board upon the American continent. Many of these missions to Indian tribes were short lived and not very productive but there are three which stand out as of special interest: the mission to the Cherokees, the Oregon mission and the mission to the Dakotas.”

“The Oregon mission is famous for the part in it of Dr. Marcus Whitman and for its connection with the settlement of the northwest and the final inclusion of what are now the states of Washington and Oregon within the Union.”

“There are two controversies connected with this enterprise which have enhanced the interest it would have on other grounds.”

“One has to do with a very human feud between two families growing out of the fact that a certain young lady. Narcissa Prentiss, turned down one suitor and accepted another.”

“The rejected suitor was Rev. H. H. Spaulding who carried on a very successful work among the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho and the successful one was Dr. Marcus Whitman.”

“After Dr. Whitman had been commissioned by the Board to go on an exploratory expedition among the western Indians he was strongly advised to find him a wife to take with him. That didn’t seem hard to do for. in fact, he had already met Miss Prentiss and things were ripe for a proposal.”

“But he found it very difficult to find another couple who had the proper qualifications and who were willing and able to undertake the long and dangerous journey over the Oregon trail. It finally became apparent that the only such couple were Spaulding and his bride.”

“Now quite understandably Mr. Spaulding never liked Narcissa Whitman and eventually bad feeling developed between him and the doctor although there never seemed to be any between Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spaulding.”

“It is greatly to the credit of all concerned that the quarrel was finally settled and settled for good by frank and prayerful conferences and the help of other members of the mission.”

“Both the Spauldings and the Whitmans were completely devoted Christian missionaries; had they not been it is not likely that they could have worked together so long and finally disposed of their quarrel.”

“The other controversy has to do with the historic ride of Dr. Whitman back to the east in the winter of 1842-43. The question in dispute is whether he went east primarily to counsel with the Prudential Committee of the Board about the continuance of the mission …”

“… or to intercede at Washington in the interest of emigration into Oregon and the claiming of the northwest as United States territory. Did he ride as a patriot or as a missionary?”

“As a matter of fact it seems that Marcus Whitman went east with both objectives in mind. The Mission Station at Waiilatpu which was the Whitman’s place of work, a few miles from the present city of Walla Walla, was on the main trail then travelled to the Willamette Valley.”

“Every year larger and larger parties of immigrants passed the station. They started from Missouri in the spring and arrived at Waiilatpu late in the autumn sadly in need of supplies and human help generally. Dr. Whitman had become increasingly interested in this flow of immigration.”

“He was forever pleading with Secretary Greene of the Board to send out pious and industrious families to settle in that part of the territory.”

“While the Board didn’t do anything to help him hundreds and finally thousands came, some pious hut more who were not of any particular help to the cause of the Indian mission.”

“That part of the mission about Waiilatpu was never so prosperous as the one among the Nez Perces. The Indians were the Cayuses, a small and restless tribe number numbering not more than three hundred. “

“There were some among them who were faithful Christians and who worked at the farms which they cultivated under the instruction of Dr. Whitman and his helpers.”

“They had learned something of the Christian gospel before the Whitman party arrived and were accustomed to having daily devotions. Some children came to the school which was conducted when conditions permitted.”

“But the Indians finally came to feel, probably with some justification, that Dr. Whitman’s main interest was in the white settlement of the country. It seemed to them that he was a friend of the whites and they looked upon the white immigrants as threatening their own possession of rights to the land. They certainly had sufficient grounds for that fear.”

“Another and rather curious cause for antagonism toward Dr. Whitman contributed to the eventual tragedy. It was quite customary among the Indians to kill the ‘te wat’ or medicine man if the patient that he treated died.”

“Inevitably some of those whom Dr. Whitman treated died and he was held to blame for it. When there was an epidemic of measles the Indians suffered more than the whites …”

“… and many died as they had developed no immunity to the white man’s disease and also because they treated it by first sweating the patient and then having him plunge into cold water. So the sickness and deaths were blamed on the white men.”

“After a period of increasing tension and irritation, one day a general massacre was carried out and both Dr. and Mrs. Whitman along with a dozen others were killed.”

“The inevitable result was the pursuit and punishment of the Indians and this part of the mission was ended. The Cayuse tribe eventually lost its identity.”

“But the Nez Perces continued to make progress as a Christian community. The beginnings of the Church for the white population had been made in Oregon and Washington. Whitman College also constitutes a permanent memorial and fruit of the short and troubled career of Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.” (All from Hugh Vernon White, Secretary, The Congregational Church)

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WhitmanMission

Marcus Whitman-1802-1847

Marcus_Whitman

Marcus_Whitman_Statue_Walla_Walla

Marcus Whitman-Statuary Hall DC

Whitman_Mission_Entrance

Whitman_Mission_Memorial

Whitman College

February 6, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Jimmy Mann

The day after Jimmy Mann arrived in Hawaii in 1916, he was penniless. The first night he had met “Doc” Hill and lost $4.40, all he had to his name, in a “friendly crap game.”

During the nearly 41 years since, James B. Mann has become one of the Territory’s best-known engineers. And in the process he has more than recouped that first night’s loss.

He drew the first design for the Ala Wai drainage canal and Kapiolani Blvd.

He was engineer for the first concrete road on the Big Island through the forest reserve from Waiakea to Olaa.

He was associated with Edward Clissold and the late Ralph E. Woolley in Home Factors, a residential subdivision firm, until recent years.

He founded Hawaii Blueprint & Supply Co., originally Blueprint Photo Copy Co., which he sold in 1954.

For more than 30 years he has been in private practice as a civil engineer and surveyor for subdivisions, boundary determinations, land court titles, and the like.

Both he and his wife, the former Henrietta Smith whom he married in 1922, have been active in civic and community affairs. He was vice president of Leahi Hospital’s board of trustees, and Mrs. Mann was a Punahou School trustee.

But he started his Hawaii career pretty much at the bottom. After getting off the boat in Hilo he went to work as a $1.25 a day county surveying gangman. Then he came to Honolulu as an assistant territorial surveyor at $125 a month.

Born in Portland, Ore., in 1892, he was graduated from Oregon State College as a mechanical engineer in 1912. After a summer stint as a dock foreman, he studied hydraulic engineering at the University of Wisconsin.

In 1913 he arrived in Miami, Fla., then a town “half the size of Hilo,” to work on drainage and development of the Everglades country.

“I haven’t been back since, but they say you can drive for two miles and its one hotel after the other.”

In 1915 he returned to Oregon State for a winter of graduate work in highway engineering. Then he decided to look up a friend who had gone to Hawaii.

He bought a $40 rail and ship fare ticket, meals included, that took him from Corvallis, Ore., to Hilo via Portland, Astoria, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

It was not a luxury cruise, however.

“I never saw the water – there were no portholes in fourth class – or the sky until we were three hours from Hilo and I sneaked past a guard and got on deck.”

Despite his “gambling” loss to William H. (Doc) Hill, then an itinerant eyeglass peddler, and today one of the Territory’s wealthiest men, the two young men became good friends.

“We use to date the same girls.”

Later his surveying job took him to Kauai and then back to the Big Island, surveying public lands and homesteads.

His boss was Robert K. King, older brother of former Governor Samuel Wilder King, a man whom he credits with teaching him all he knows about surveying.

Then Governor Lucius E. Pinkham had what was considered “a crazy-brain idea” of digging a canal to drain and fill the lowlands at Waikiki and to build a road from town to Kaimuki.

He was assigned to draw up the governor’s ideas on paper.

“Now we have the Ala Wai canal and Kapiolani Blvd.”

His next job was with the water resources branch of U.S. Geological Survey.

“Just to give you an idea of how much the Territorial government has grown, in those days Iolani Palace not only housed the governor and secretary but also the treasurer.

“Down in the basement was the Department of Public Works, the Board of Harbor Commissioners, the Land Commissioner and the Water Resources Branch.

“I don’t think there were 25 persons in the whole basement.”

During World War I he was one of a group of six or seven Island men sent to Virginia for Army engineering training.

Their instructor was a young Army first lieutenant named Edmond H. Leavey, who later married the elder daughter of a Honolulu newspaper publisher, rose to major general and to the presidency of the giant International Telephone & Telegraph Co. (Mrs. Leavey was the former Ruth Farrington.)

The war ended while Mr. Mann, then commissioned a lieutenant, was en route to Siberia. He returned to Hawaii.

Back home he found his government job filled, and since there was no GI bill, he was out of work.

Walking down the street he met Geoffrey Podmore of the Bishop Estate, who suggested he see George M. Collins, later an estate trustee and then superintendent of the land department.

He spent six years with the estate’s staff.

In 1925 he resigned to become a partner in the engineering firm of Wright, Harvey & Wright. He opened his own office in 1930.

Mr. Mann was a student of Island history. One of his fondest memories of Sanford Ballard Dole, president of the Republic of Hawaii and first governor of the Territory of Hawaii, dining at his Liliha St. home off and on for three years before his death.

The Manns have two sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Cline, was a civil engineer with his father. A younger, James Jr., was manager of the Hukilau Hotel at Hilo.

The daughter is Mrs. Laurie S. Dowsett.

Surveying his 42 years in Hawaii through the transit of success, he considers his $40 ticket a fortunate and rewarding investment. (All here is from Greaney, Honolulu Advertiser, January 12, 1958)

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