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December 29, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nu Kaliponi

“During the pre-contact and early contact periods, Kula was primarily an area for farming. Dryland taro patches grew in elevations up to 3,000 feet.”

“Farmers were reliant on growth of sweet potatoes and when crops failed due to caterpillars, blight, frost or sun, people in Makawao and Kula suffered from famine.”

“The arrival of whalers in the 1840s stimulated great demand for Irish and sweet potatoes. Potatoes were taken to Lahaina and sold aboard ships.”

“The California gold rush also resulted in great demand from prospectors for potatoes, other vegetables, sugar, molasses and coffee.”

“Farmers were doing so well that many Hawaiians were going into business for themselves, shipping their goods to San Francisco.” (DHHL)

“The call for [potatoes] is loud and pressing, as some vessels bound for California have taken as many as a thousand barrels each. The price is high, and the probability is that the market can not be supplied this autumn.”

“Kula, however, is full of people. Strangers from Wailuku, Hāmākua and Lahaina are there preparing the ground and planting, so that if the demand from California shall be as urgent next spring as it is now the people will reap a rich harvest.”

“They often repeat the saying of a foreigner, who, after having visited the mines of California, came back to Maui quite satisfied, and said to his neighbors at Waikapu, ‘California is yonder in Kula.’”

“‘There is the gold without the fatigue and sickness of the mining country.’ True, true.” (Polynesian, November 24, 1849)

“The foreigner’s remark caught the fancy of the Hawaiians and they were soon referring to Kula as ‘Kalifonia’ or ‘Nu Kalifonia’ (Nu Kaliponi) and working with great diligence to extract the wealth from the rich pay dirt on the slopes of Haleakala. “

“To encourage the spirit of enterprise which had been thus awakened among the native people, the privy council voted to have the government lands in Kula surveyed and divided into small lots of from one to ten acres and offered for sale to the natives at a price of three dollars per acre.”

“Rev. WP Alexander, one of the teachers at Lahainaluna, was employed to do the surveying and arrange the sales, and he devoted six weeks or more to this work in the spring of 1850. Other districts of the kingdom produced potatoes, but in lesser quantities than Kula.”

“The demand for potatoes continued strong all through 1850 and the first half of 1851. In the former year the exports of Irish potatoes amounted to 51,957 barrels, of sweet potatoes, 9,631 barrels.”

“In 1851 Irish potatoes were exported to the amount of 43,923 barrels, sweet potatoes to the amount of 56,717 barrels. Eighteen fifty-one was a year of disasters in California and of drought and depression in Hawaii.”

“The potato trade was the only branch of industry that presented a cheerful aspect, and by the fall of the year the potato boom was over. Mrs. Judd reports that in August the market was over-stocked, and there were no purchasers or ships to take [Hawaiian produce] to California.”

“Irish potatoes rotted in the ground, and onions and other vegetables scarcely paid the expense of digging. This was very discouraging to the agriculturists, who had expected to realize fortunes speedily by turning over the soil.”

“From this time, except for a slight revival in 1853 due to floods in California, the export trade in Irish potatoes rapidly dwindled away, but sweet potatoes continued to be exported in small quantities for many years longer.”

“A report to the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society in 1854 stated that the Hawaiian potato growers in 1849-1851, in their eagerness to gain all they could from the trade, shipped many inferior potatoes to California, and Hawaiian potatoes thereby got a bad reputation.”

“A more important reason for the decline of the Irish potato trade between Hawaii and California was the fact that the Californians began to raise potatoes themselves and in addition received large quantities from the neighboring Oregon territory.” (Kuykendall)

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Upcountry Potatoes-Ag Experiment Stn-1913
Upcountry Potatoes-Ag Experiment Stn-1913
Upcountry Potatoes-Ag Experiment Stn-1913
Upcountry Potatoes-Ag Experiment Stn-1913

Filed Under: Economy, General, Place Names Tagged With: Potato, Upcountry, Nu Kaliponi, Hawaii, Haleakala, Maui, Kula, Lahaina

October 22, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Farm Land

For Hawaiians involved with agriculture, there were three types of land available for growing crops. Ko Kaha Kai was land along the shoreline. Kula lands were on the lands above the shoreline. Kahawai lands were in the valleys, where fresh water could also be obtained.

The land area with which the Polynesian migrant first became familiar was of necessity that along shore, wherever his voyaging canoe made its landfall.

This area he termed Ko Kaha Kai (place [land] by the sea). This might comprise a broad sandy beach and the flats above it, or the more rugged shore of cove or harbor with its rocky terrain-in fact many and varied descriptions might fit, according to locale.

Kaha was a special term applied to areas facing the shore but not favorable for planting. Kekaha in Kona, Hawaii, was one so named, and Kekaha on Kauai another. The ko kaha kai was not without its own verdure of a sort, however.

In fact the terrain just above the sandy stretches (pu‘eone) was often called ‘ilima, because of the low-growing, gray-foliaged, golden-flowering ‘ilima bushes found in abundance there.

Pohuehue, the beach morningglory, also had its natural habitation there, along with ‘auhuhu, whose leaves yielded a juice used to stupefy fish for ready catching in the inlets and sea pools.

In fact most of the varied low growth of the ko kaha kai found use in the planter’s or fisher’s economy. (Hand, Handy & Pukui)

Next above were the plains or sloping lands (kula), those to seaward being termed ko kula kai and those toward the mountains ko kula uka (uka, inland or upland).

Here were the great stretches of waving pili grass, which was used to make the thick rain-repellent thatch for dwellings (hale). Before cultivation took over the area, the carpeting grass was interspersed with vines (such as the koali, morning-glory) and many shrubs, all of which found practical uses by the immigrant folk. There were also a few stunted trees.

On the ko kula uka, the upland slopes, were found the native ginger and other flowering plants, medicinal herbs, and thick-growing clumps of shrubs. Here too the great variety of trees attained to greater height, and their wood became the source of valuable materials for many necessities of life.

This word kula, used by Hawaiians for sloping land between mountain and sea, really meant plain or sloping land without trees. There is a large land area in the southerly kula slopes of East Maui that is named Honua-‘ula (Red-earth).

Typically, on all the islands the kula lands are covered with red soil, both on leeward and windward coasts. This is the soil in which sugar cane and pineapples flourish today. It is soil in which sweet potatoes grow well. (In contrast, dark soil, rich in humus washed down from the forests, is what wet taro requires.)

Some kula lands, such as those of southern and eastern Hawaii and the southern slopes of Haleakala on Maui, were covered with lava or soil evolved from the dust of recent volcanic eruptions.

The red soil is oldest geologically, having evolved from decomposed basalt oxidized by sun, rain, and air. Next in age is the humus of valley bottoms.

Most recent is decomposed lava, such as is typical of Kona, Kā‘u, Hilo, and Puna on Hawaii, and of some areas on the southern slope of Haleakala on East Maui.

In terms of use, from the Hawaiian planter’s point of view it was the area beyond or intersecting the kula lands that was of prime importance in dictating his habitation and his favored type of subsistence.

This was the kahawai, ‘the place [having] fresh water’ – in other words, the valley stretching down from the forested uplands, carved out and made rich in humus by its flowing stream.

Here he could find (or make) level plots for taro terraces, diverting stream water by means of ‘auwai (ditches) into the lo‘i, or descending series of lo‘i until from below the whole of the visible valley afforded a scene of lush green cultivation amidst fresh water glinting in the sun.

The planter might have his main dwelling here, or he might dwell below and maintain here only a shelter to use during periods of intensive cultivation in the kahawai.

Here also was a source of many of his living needs and luxuries, from medicinal herbs to flowers for decorative garlands, and with a wide range in between.

Two other descriptive terms applied to land areas, one belonging to the kahawai and one not. The first was pahe‘e, meaning a wet, soft, or slippery area; and the other was apa‘a, meaning arid or dry. From its derivative (pa‘a) meaning firmly bound, the latter became a term of affection for land long lived upon. (All here is from Handy, Handy & Pukui)

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Planter-Herb Kane
Planter-Herb Kane

Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Kahawai, Farm Land, Planter, Ko Kaha Kai, Hawaii, Kula

September 15, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Holy Ghost Catholic Church

Elizabeth (Isabel) was a Spanish princess who was given in marriage to King Denis of Portugal at the age of twelve. She was very beautiful and very lovable. She was also very devout, and went to Mass every day. (Catholic-org)

Queen Elizabeth died on July 4th, 1336. She was 65 years of age, perhaps somewhat older, and had incorporated into her passage through this earth prayers, sacrifices, interventions for peace among monarchs, acts of worship, and works of mercy too numerous to mention in this brief piece.

Almost three centuries after her death, His Holiness Pope Urban VIII inexplicably broke his reported vow that there would be no canonizations during his Pontificate: He canonized St. Elizabeth of Portugal on Holy Trinity Sunday, May 25th, 1625. (SaintsCatholic)

Centuries later, Portuguese began arriving in Hawai‘i in large numbers to work on plantations in 1879. Many continued to be employed by the plantations even after their contracts had been fulfilled.

Others, however, sought to take up independent work and on Maui turned especially to farming and ranching. The middle slope of Haleakala is an exceptionally fertile region and many people of Portuguese ancestry settled here, some homesteading the land.

Before long, this growing Catholic community felt the need for a priest. In 1882 James Beissel, a priest from Prussia, was assigned to Makawao, and his district extended from Ulupalakua around to Huelo. At some time between 1894-1897, he designed the Holy Ghost Church in Kula and supervised its construction. (NPS)

The two acres of land on which it was built were donated by Louis and Randal von Tempsky in Waiakoa, and the building was financed by weekly auctions of cattle by local ranchers. (Kula Catholic Community)

The octagonal shape of the structure, according to local belief, derives from the fact that it corresponded with the shape of a replica of the crown of Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, which the church housed.

The crown of St. Elizabeth plays an important role-in the Portuguese community’s Holy Ghost celebration. According to folk beliefs in the Azore Islands, from which many of Hawaii’s Portuguese population immigrated, Queen Elizabeth gave the Catholic Church her crown after she had prayed to the Holy Ghost and her people were delivered from famine. (NPS)

The richly decorated altar and the Portuguese language Stations of the Cross were commissioned by Father Beissel in 1895 and were carved by the famous artisan and master woodcarver, Ferdinand Stuflesser, from Groden, Tirol, Austria.

Shipped in nine separate crates around the Cape of Good Hope to Hawai‘i, the altar and stations were hauled by oxcart from Kahului Harbor to Waiakoa and reassembled by the faithful members of the parish.

They are recognized now as examples of museum-quality ecclesiastical art of that time. In January of 1899 Bishop Ropert Gulstan of Honolulu arrived to officiate at the formal dedication the church. (Kula Catholic Community)

This frame church, the only known nineteenth-century octagonal-shaped building in Hawai‘i, is approximately sixty feet in diameter. Its steep, corrugated-metal hipped roof is surmounted by a mock clerestory with a blind arcade and terminates with a steeple supported on a round-arched arcade with a balustrade.

Tuscan columns serve as corner posts for the eighteen-foot-high, tongue-and-groove walls, six of which have round-arched stained glass windows. The interior is a large octagonal space with the chancel at the north end opposite the entrance and choir loft.

Four central Tuscan columns carry an octagonal rib-vaulted, tongue-and-groove ceiling. The stations of the cross are unusual in that they are inscribed in Portuguese rather than Latin or English. (SAH Archipedia)

In 1991, under the leadership of Father Michael Owens, a major restoration of the church and altars was initiated, requiring the closure of the church for about one year. In 1995, the parish was able to celebrate its Centennial year in its resplendent, restored condition.

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Holy Ghost Catholic Church
Holy Ghost Catholic Church
Holy Ghost Catholic Church_interior
Holy Ghost Catholic Church_interior
Maui-Kula-HolyGhost-Catholic-Church-WC
Maui-Kula-HolyGhost-Catholic-Church-WC
Holy Ghost Catholic Church_interior-WC
Holy Ghost Catholic Church_interior-WC
Holy Ghost Catholic_Church
Holy Ghost Catholic_Church
Holy Ghost Catholic Church-high alter
Holy Ghost Catholic Church-high alter
St Elizabeth
St Elizabeth

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings Tagged With: Hawaii, Maui, Kula, Catholicism, Holy Ghost Catholic Church

May 19, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Environmental Zones

Traditionally in Hawai‘i, environmental zones were perceived and determined by various natural features and resource criteria. The following is a summary of Handy and Handy description of the terrestrial environmental zones:

The land area with which the Polynesian migrant first became familiar was of necessity that along shore, wherever his voyaging canoe made its landfall.

This area he termed ko kaha kai (place (land) by the sea). This might comprise a broad sandy beach and the flats above it, or the more rugged shore of cove or harbor with its rocky terrain-in fact many and varied descriptions might fit, according to locale.

Kaha was a special term applied to areas facing the shore but not favorable for planting. Kekaha in Kona, Hawaii, was one so named, and Kekaha on Kauai another.

The ko kaha kai was not without its own verdure of a sort, however. In fact the terrain just above the sandy stretches (pu‘eone) was often called ‘ilima, because of the low-growing, gray-foliaged, golden-flowering ‘ilima bushes found in abundance there.

Pohuehue, the beach morning-glory, also had its natural habitation there, along with ‘auhuhu., whose leaves yielded a juice used to stupefy fish for ready catching in the inlets and sea pools. In fact most of the varied low growth of the ko kaha kai found use in the planter’s or fisher’s economy.

Next above were the plains or sloping lands (kula,) those to seaward being termed ko kula kai and those toward the mountains ko kula uka (uka, inland or upland.)

Here were the great stretches of waving pili grass, which was used to make the thick rain-repellent thatch for dwellings (hale). Before cultivation took over the area, the carpeting grass was interspersed with vines (such as the koali, morning-glory) and many shrubs, all of which found practical uses by the immigrant folk. There were also a few stunted trees.

On the ko kula uka, the upland slopes, were found the native ginger and other flowering plants, medicinal herbs, and thick-growing clumps of shrubs. Here too the great variety of trees attained to greater height, and their wood became the source of valuable materials for many necessities of life.

This word kula, used by Hawaiians for sloping land between mountain and sea, really meant plain or sloping land without trees. There is a large land area in the southerly kula slopes of East Maui that is named Honua‘ula (Red-earth.)

Typically, on all the islands the kula lands are covered with red soil, both on leeward and windward coasts. This is the soil in which sugar cane and pineapples flourish today. It is soil in which sweet potatoes grow well. (In contrast, dark soil, rich in humus washed down from the forests, is what wet taro requires.)

Some kula lands, such as those of southern and eastern Hawaii and the southern slopes of Haleakala on Maui, were covered with lava or soil evolved from the dust of recent volcanic eruptions.

The red soil is oldest geologically, having evolved from decomposed basalt oxidized by sun, rain, and air. Next in age is the humus of valley bottoms.

Most recent is decomposed lava, such as is typical of Kona, Ka’u, Hilo, and Puna on Hawaii, and of some areas on the southern slope of Haleakalā on East Maui.

In terms of use, from the Hawaiian planter’s point of view it was the area beyond or intersecting the kula lands that was of prime importance indicating his habitation and his favored type of subsistence.

This was the kahawai (the place (having) fresh water,) in other words, the valley stretching down from the forested uplands, carved out and made rich in humus by its flowing stream.

Here he could find (or make) level plots for taro terraces, diverting stream water by means of ‘auwai (ditches) into the lo‘i, or descending series of lo‘i until from below the whole of the visible valley afforded a scene of lush green cultivation amidst fresh water glinting in the sun.

The planter might have his main dwelling here, or he might dwell below and maintain here only a shelter to use during periods of intensive cultivation in the kahawai. Here also was a source of many of his living needs and luxuries, from medicinal herbs to flowers for decorative garlands, and with a wide range in between.

Two other descriptive terms applied to land areas, one belonging to the kahawai and one not. The first was pahe‘e, meaning a wet, soft, or slippery area; and the other was apa‘a, meaning arid or dry. From its derivative (pa‘a) meaning firmly bound, the latter became a term of affection for land long lived upon.

Wao means the wild – a place distant and not often penetrated by man. The wao la‘au is the inland forested region, often a veritable jungle, which surmounts the upland kula slopes on every major island of the chain, reaching up to very high elevations especially on Kauai, Maui, and Hawai‘i.

The Hawaiians recognized and named many divisions or aspects of the wao: first, the wao kanaka, the reaches most accessible, and most valuable, to man (kanaka;) and above that, denser and at higher elevations, the wao akua, forest of the gods, remote, awesome, seldom penetrated, source of supernatural influences, both evil and beneficent.

The wao kele, or wao ma‘u kele, was the rain forest. Here grew giant trees and tree ferns (‘ama‘u) under almost perpetual cloud and rain.

The wao kanaka and the wao la‘au provided man with the hard wood of the koa for spears, utensils, and logs for boat hulls; pandanus leaves (lau hala) for thatch and mats; bark of the mamaki tree for making tapa cloth …

… candlenuts (kukui) for oil and lights; wild yams and roots for famine time; sandalwood, prized when shaved or ground as a sweet scent for bedding and stored garments. These and innumerable other materials were sought and found and worked by man in or from the wao.

The term for mountain or mountain range – a mountainous region – is kuahiwi (backbone). Kuamauna is the mountain top, and kualono the high reaches just below it. Mauna is the term for a specific mountain mass, and may have a descriptive designation following, as Mauna Loa (Long Mountain.) The term mauka is directional, and means toward the mountains or uplands, or merely inland. (All here is from Handy.)

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Environmental Zones - Kau - Handy

Filed Under: General, Hawaiian Traditions, Place Names Tagged With: Kuahiwi, Hawaii, Kula, Environmental Zones, Kahakai, Kahawai, Wao, Wao Kanaka

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