Maui | Page 6 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 7, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Nothing can touch it”

“‘When we first went to Napili,’ said Mrs Kep Aluli, ‘it was an isolated beach with one cottage on it. We loved it.’” Star Bulletin, Jan 14, 1970.

In 1956, Kep Aluli and Yoshio Ogami were successful bidders for two of the thirteen “choice Napili beach lots” [they bought lots 7 & 8] “at “Napili beach in the Kaanapali section of Lahaina”. These were through an auction of Territory of Hawai‘i properties. (Advertiser, July 2, 1956)

Shortly thereafter, it was reported that “Kep Aluli, Honolulu builder, is planning a hotel at Napili Beach”. The land acquired from the Territory plus an acquisition of adjoining property “gives the developers a two-acre, beach-frontage hotel site and another acre a hundred feet away for tennis courts and beach facilities.”

“Describing the location, Aluli said, ‘Nothing can touch it.’” (Star Bulletin, Sept 11, 1956)

Aluli and Ogami built the Mauian Hotel on this property and shortly thereafter the Napali Kai and Hale Napli (and later others) sprang up.

“An entirely new resort complex has developed around Napili Bay, pioneered by Honolulu’s Kep Aluli and Canadian investors.” Honolulu Advertiser, Feb 15, 1966)

“Beyond Kaanapali, in that heart of Lahaina around Napili Bay, the new era already seems to have arrived.” “If the muscle and brain of the new Lahaina are at Kaanapali, its heart is more easily found at Napili”. (Honolulu Advertiser, July 17, 1964)

Kep Aluli was my parents’ classmate at Punahou. Others in the extended Aluli family were classmates with me and my siblings. When we were kids, we used to visit different neighbor islands during the summer; the visits to the Alulis at Napili were a special treat.

(During an extended Punahou alumni celebration, some of our classmates went to Maui and stayed at the Mauian at Napili – I wonder if the arrangers and others knew of the generations of connection the place has back to Punahou (with Kep’s nephew being one of our classmates.))

Napili, meaning the joinings or the pili grass, is on the West end of Maui. This area is referred to as Hono a Pi‘ilani (the Bays of Piʻilani (aka Honoapiʻilani,); from South to North, six of the identified bays are Honokōwai (bay drawing fresh water), Honokeana (cave bay), Honokahua (sites bay,) Honolua (two bays), Honokōhau (bay drawing dew) and Hononana (animated bay).

Sweet potatoes were reportedly grown between Honokōhau and Kahakuloa, presumably on lower kula lands; Kahana Ahupua’a was known as a place of salt gathering for the people of Lahaina.

Coastal marine foraging and fishing were combined with more upland agricultural pursuits. People would have moved between the coast and the upland agricultural fields, using the full range of resources available within their ahupua‘a. Semi-permanent and permanent habitation probably occurred in both coastal and upland settings.

Whaling (centered at Lahaina Town) was the first commercial enterprise in West Maui, but it had more or less collapsed by the 1860s. Commercial sugar cane production was the next large business venture in West Maui, starting as early as 1863, and it was focused between Ka‘anapali and Lahaina.

In the later 19th century, lands in West Maui became part of the Campbell Estate. This was also the time that the Honolua Ranch was first established. Cattle ranching began then and was continued by Henry Perrine Baldwin, who acquired the lands from the Campbell Estate in 1890.

In addition to ranching, other early commercial activities included coffee farming. David T. Fleming became manager of Honolua Ranch. Fleming was well-versed in pineapple production from the Hai‘ku area and gradually began shifting the ranch’s initiative to pineapple production.

The Honolua Ranch/Baldwin Packers complex shifted from Honolua to Honokahua in 1915, and a pineapple cannery was constructed. A major commercial pineapple industry emerged in West Maui during the 1920s.

The plantation communities of Honokahua and Napili emerged and developed as the Honolua Ranch/Baldwin Packers pineapple operations grew. The population of the Lahaina area increased with the successful economic operations of the pineapple plantation.

Baldwin Packers merged with Maui Pineapple Company in 1962 to form Maui Land and Pineapple Company, Inc. After this time, much of the Honolua Ranch lands were converted for resort development. Kep Aluli expanded that into Napili. (Lots of information here is from Scientific Consultant Services.)

August 4, 2024 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

ʻEke Crater

Early Hawaiians considered ʻEke Crater (also called Puʻu ʻEke, Mauna ʻEke and (rarely) Mauna Eeka or Eeke) near the summit of the West Maui Mountain to be Heaven’s Gate, or a doorway between the physical and spiritual worlds. (West Maui Watershed)

“Mauna ʻEke is the name given to the circular range in the bosom of which lies the valley, whose sides, moistened with mists and trickling streams, are perennially green.”

“Ferns and convolvuli adorn the precipices ; shining leaves, delicately stemmed, tremble and gleam with every breath of wind.” (Twombly, 1900)

Maui is the second largest island of the archipelago, its oldest volcano (West Maui Mountain or Mauna Kahalawai) ca 1.3-million years old, East Maui Volcano (Haleakalā) ca 750,000-years old and considered active (last historical eruption in 1790.)

“You can see why, in 1841, the captain of a whaling vessel wrote, ‘See how that east part of the island rises abruptly into one high mountain, while the west section, though rugged, is not so lofty.'”

“‘Mauna ʻEke, on the west, is little more than five thousand feet high, while Haleakala, on the east, runs into the clouds nearly twice as far. But you will find that the more lowly of the two mountain masses has wilder scenery to offer.'”

“‘East Maui has wonderful attractions, but I find keener and more lasting pleasure in climbing up and down the ridges thrust out as ʻEke reaches down to the sea.'”

“(T)he wild valley and its surroundings have been left unchanged. In fact, everything must look much as it did when the first Polynesian migration entered Maui long centuries before America was discovered”.

“(Y)es, hundreds of years before the Norman Conquest of England – that is, unless ʻEke has been in eruption since then. If so, the lava long ago disintegrated into the richest sort of soil.” (Paradise of the Pacific, 1929)

ʻEke Crater is an extinct volcanic dome with eroded sides and gently concave summit. The summit bog is underlain by a clay hardpan over a compressed lava core and is characterized by numerous pits and open water ponds. (Powell)

Towering at nearly 4,500 feet in elevation, the name ‘Crater’ is quite deceiving, as no visible crater remains today. The mountain is actually the remnants of an eroded volcanic cone.

Measuring 1,600-feet in diameter, its rock core provides a moist impermeable surface on which unique montane bog communities thrive.

Highlighting and adorning its surface are mirrored pools of water with shimmering ʻEke silverswords and Nohoanu (a Geranium.) While beautiful, it is dangerous and riddled with sink holes and lava tubes. (West Maui Watershed)

The ʻEke silversword is endemic to the summit and ridges of ʻEke and Puʻu Kukui. It is described as a “branching, dwarf shrub” and “creeping profusely over the ground and progressively dying back at the base, thus isolating the branches into independent plants.” (Powell)

Nearby is Kiʻowaiokihawahine (Violet Lake.) The lake is small, only 10-20-feet in size, and formed in the boggy areas near ʻEke Crater and Puʻu Kukui.

Puʻu Kukui is considered the 2nd wettest spot (behind Waiʻaleʻale, Kauai,) and it and ʻEke Crater are often hidden in the clouds.

Eke crater, 2.8 miles away in a straight line.

July 28, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sereno Edwards Bishop

Sereno Edwards Bishop was born at Kaʻawaloa on February 7, 1827; he was son of Rev. Artemas and Elizabeth (Edwards) Bishop (part of the Second Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi (arriving April 27, 1823) and first stationed at Kailua, on the Big Island.)

Mrs Bishop had been a girlhood friend of Mrs Lucy G Thurston, who had preceded her to Hawaii as a missionary, some four years earlier. Mrs Bishop died February 28, 1828 at Kailua, the first death in the mission.

Mr. Bishop, Sr subsequently married Delia Stone, who was a member of the Third Company of missionaries (December 1, 1828.)

The missionaries’ house was usually in a thickly inhabited village, so the missionary and his wife could be close to their work among the people; the missionary children were typically cooped up in their home.

With hundreds of children all about them, missionary children had no playmates except the children of other missionaries, most of whom were scattered over the Islands, meeting only a few times a year. (Thurston)

“In the early-(1830s,) Kailua was a large native village, of about 4,000 inhabitants rather closely packed along one hundred rods of shore (about 1,650-feet,) and averaging twenty rods inland (about 330-feet.)”

“Near by stood a better stone house occupied by the doughty Governor Kuakiui. All other buildings in Kailua were thatched, until Rev. Artemas Bishop built his two-story stone dwelling in 1831 and Rev. Asa Thurston in 1833 built his wooden two-story house at Laniākea, a quarter of a mile inland.”

“The people had ample cultivable land in the moist upland from two to four miles inland at altitudes of one thousand to twenty-five hundred feet. It is a peculiarity of that Kona coast that while the shore may be absolutely rainless for months gentle showers fall daily upon the mountain slope.” (Bishop)

Sereno Bishop was sent to the continent at age 12 for education (he graduated from Amherst College in 1846 and Auburn Theological Seminary in 1851,) he married Cornelia A Session on May 31, 1852 and returned to Hawaiʻi on January 16, 1853.

His observation of Honolulu at the time noted, “The settled portion of the city was then substantially limited by the present
Alapaʻi and River streets and mauka at School street. There was hardly anything outside of those limits and the remainder was practically an open plain.”

“Above Beretania street, on the slopes and beyond Alapaʻi street, there was hardly a building of any nature whatever.”

“At that time there was a small boarding school for the children of the missions at Punahou, under direction of Father Dole. This little structure alone intervened between the city and Mōʻiliʻili, where about the church there were a few houses.” (Bishop)

Bishop assumed the position of Seaman’s Chaplain in Lāhainā. The Bishops remained nine years at Lahaina, where five children were born to them (two of the boys died at a young age.)

After 10-years in Lāhainā, he moved to Hāna and later returned to Lāhainā and served from 1865 to 1877 as principal of Lahainaluna. Mr. Bishop considered the work which he did among the native students at Lahainaluna was among the most fruitful of his life.

He left his mark at Lahainaluna, physically, in the shape of the grand avenue of monkey pods on the road to Lahaina, which he personally planted. (Thurston)

Bishop had a reputation as an amateur scientist with interests particularly in geology. Bishop’s contributions as an atmospheric scientist were sufficiently prominent to be mentioned in the Monthly Weather Review. (SOEST)

Rev. Sereno Bishop, a missionary in Hawaiʻi, was the first to provide detailed observations of a phenomenon not previously reported – he noted his observation on September 5, 1883. It was later named for him – Bishop’s Ring (a halo around the sun, typically observed after large volcanic eruptions.)

Bishop’s observations followed the eruption at Krakatoa (August 23, 1883.) His findings suggested the existence of the ‘Jet Stream’ (this used to be referred to as the ‘Krakatoa Easterlies.’)

“It now seems probable that the enormous projections of gaseous and other matter from Krakatoa (Krakatau) have been borne by the upper currents and diffused throughout a belt of half the earth’s circumference, and not improbably, as careful observation may yet establish, even entirely around the globe.” (Sereno Bishop)

Bishop made other volcanic observations; a hundred years ago, he noted Diamond Head was made in less than a hour’s time and is “composed not of lava, like the main mountain mass inland, but of this soft brown rock called tuff.” (Bishop, Commercial Advertiser, July 15, 1901)

In 1887, he moved to Honolulu and became editor of “The Friend,” a monthly journal, founded in Honolulu in 1843, “the oldest publication west of the Rocky Mountains.”

Bishop was identified as “the well-known mouthpiece of the annexation party” and criticized by royalists for his comments. He remained in Honolulu and died there March 23, 1909.

July 2, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Manaiakalani

A messenger sent by Maui,
Sent to bring Kane and his set,
Kane and Kanaloa, Kauokahi,
And Maliu.
Throwing out sacred influences, uttering prayers,
Consulting oracles, Hapuʻu the god of the king.
The great fish-hook of Maui,
Manaiakalani,
The whole earth was the fish-line bound by the knot
(A Song for Kualiʻi – Kualiʻi was a celebrated chief of Oahu, who reigned in about 1700 AD. (Journal of the Polynesian Society))

The demi-god Māui is the subject of extraordinary stories throughout Polynesia. In many of the accounts he is a mischievous trickster, stealing the secret of fire and helping his mother to dry kapa by lassoing the sun to slow its progression across the sky. (Bishop Museum)

A Manaiakalani story suggests that Maui pulled up the islands by tricking his brothers into letting him come out to fish with them.

The brothers never took him out because whenever they did he would catch a scrawny little fish. He said he sought to prove that he is as skilled as they were.

He prepares the sacred hook, baiting it with the wing of the pet bird of the goddess Hina. Māui tells his brothers that once he starts to haul in the catch, not to look back until he is finished.

Māui casts the hook into the water and catches the enormous ulua fish Pimoe.

The brothers strain against the fish and soon parts of Pimoe are above the surface of the water, immediately turning to stone. The brothers cannot resist any longer and turn around to see their catch.

But when they do, the line breaks and rather than one enormous island, Māui, the earth-fisher, is only able to raise up the eight separate Islands of Hawaiʻi.

Another story related to Manaiakalani tells of Māui’s attempt to rearrange the Islands of the group and assemble them into one solid mass.”

“Having chosen his station at Kaʻena Point, the western extremity of Oʻahu, from which the island of Kauai is clearly visible on a bright day, he cast his wonderful hook, Mana-ia-ka-Iani, far out into the ocean that it might engage itself in the foundations of Kauai.”

“When he felt that it had taken a good hold, he gave a mighty tug at the line. A huge boulder, the Pōhaku O Kauai, fell at his feet.”

“The mystic hook, having freed itself from the entanglement, dropped into Pālolo Valley and hollowed out the crater, that is its grave.” (Manaiakalani, therefore, formed Kaʻau Crater.) (Emerson)

Finally, in frustration, Māui throws his hook into the sky where it becomes a constellation, still easy to see in the spring and summer months, known by Western astronomers as the tail of Scorpio. (Bishop Museum)

In the Hawaiian sky of Kau (summer season, May to October), Manaiakalani (The Chief’s Fishline) is visible for most of the night, just as Ke Ka o Makali‘i (The Canoe- Bailer of Makali’i) is visible for most of the night in the sky of Hoʻoilo (winter season, November to April.)

Like other stars and groups of stars, Manaiakalani is used in celestial navigation as directional clues when they rise and set. On cloudy nights, when only parts of the sky are visible, navigators may recognize isolated stars or star groups and imagine the rest of the celestial sphere around them. The image shows a depiction of Maui and Manaiakalani.

June 22, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lahaina, i ka malu ‘ulu o Lele

(Lahaina, in the shade of the breadfruit trees of Lele) (Pukui, 1983, No. 1936) (Lele is an earlier name for Lahaina.)

Hālau Lahaina, malu i ka ‘ulu

(Lahaina is like a large house shaded by breadfruit trees) (Pukui, 1983, No. 430).

In 1898, Albert Kaleikini, a student at Lahainaluna, went on an excursion to Pu‘u Pa‘upa‘u. (Pa‘upa‘u (lit. drudgery (servants were weary of bringing water to bathe the chief’s child)) is a hill above Lahainaluna School on Maui.)

Though David Malo did not die at Pa‘upa‘u, he wanted to be (and was) buried there (Malo died October 21, 1853). Pu‘u Pa‘upa‘u has a symbol from Malo’s school (he was one of the first students enrolled at Lahainaluna Seminary). A large ‘L’ (standing for Lahainaluna, reportedly put there in 1929) is visible from most parts below.

Beholding the spectacular view from Pu‘u Pa‘upa‘u, Kaleikini was moved to write “Lahainaluna”, which became the school’s Alma Mater. (Lahainaluna 150th reunion) It’s first verse is:

O ka Malu ‘ulu o Lele (Nō e ka ‘oi)

Nā kualono nani ē (kū kilakila)

Me ka ua kilikilihune (Aʻo Hālona)

Hoʻopulu i ke oho o ka palai

Oh, the land of shadow of the flying breadfruit

The wonder of lands

With the every spraying delightful showers (of Halona)

Wetting the foliage of the ferns

“Lahaina District was a favorable place for the high chiefs of Maui and their entourage for a number of reasons: the abundance of food from both land and sea; its equable climate and its attractiveness as a place of residence …”

“… it had probably the largest concentration of population, with its adjoining areas of habitation; easy communication with the other heavily populated area of eastern and northeastern West Maui, ‘The Four Streams,’ and with the people living on the western, southwestern and southern slope of Haleakala; and its propinquity to Lanai and Molokai.” (Handy and Pukui)

“The southern shores of western Maui were perhaps second only to Puna, Hawaii, as a favorable locality for breadfruit culture. … Puna on Hawaii was the district most famous for its breadfruit.” (Handys and Pukui) At Puna in 1823, Ellis noted “Groves of cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees are seen in every direction, loaded with fruit, or clothed with luxuriant foliage.”

“Brigham (in 1911) wrote that ‘at Lahaina on Maui, were as fine trees forty years ago as any I have seen in Samoa or Fiji.’ … Lahaina is referred to in chants as Ka malu ‘ulu o Lele, ‘The breadfruit-shade of Lele.’” (Handys and Pukui)

In ancient Hawai‘i, most of the makaʻāinana (‘common people’) were farmers, a few were fishermen. Tenants cultivated smaller crops for family consumption, to supply the needs of chiefs and provide tributes.

“The people had ample cultivable land in the moist upland from two to four miles inland at altitudes of one thousand to twenty-five hundred feet. … The soil is most fertile, being formed from the decay of recent lava flows.”

“There the natives found their chief means of subsistence, and, in good seasons, were sufficiently fed. In bad seasons there were droughts, and more or less of ‘wī,’ or famine.” (Bishop)

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods. (Krauss)

In 1819, Arago noted, “The environs of Lahaina are like a garden. It would be difficult to find a soil more fertile, or a people who can turn it to greater advantage; little pathways sufficiently raised, and kept in excellent condition, serve as communications between the different estates. …”

“The space cultivated by the natives of Lahaina is about three leagues in length (~9-miles), and one (~3 miles) in its greatest breadth. Beyond this all is dry and barren; everything recalls the image of desolation.” (Arago)

Ellis noted (about 1823), “we found ourselves within about four miles of Lahaina, which is the principal district in Maui, on account of its being the general residence of the chiefs, and the common resort of ships that touch at the island for refreshments.”

“The appearance of Lahaina from the anchorage is singularly romantic and beautiful. A fine sandy beach stretches along the margin of the sea, lined for a considerable distance with houses, and adorned with shady clumps of kou trees, or waving groves of cocoanuts.”

“The level land of the whole district, for about three miles, is one continued garden, laid out in beds of taro, potatoes, yams, sugar-cane, or cloth plants. The lowly cottage of the farmer is seen peeping through the leaves of the luxuriant plantain and banana tree, and in every direction white columns of smoke ascend, curling up among the wide-spreading branches of the bread-fruit tree.”

“The sloping hills immediately behind, and the lofty mountains in the interior, clothed with verdure to their very summits, intersected by deep and dark ravines, frequently enlivened by glittering waterfalls, or divided by winding valleys, terminate the delightful prospect.” (Ellis, Polynesian Researches)

“The settlement is far more beautiful than any place we have yet seen on the islands. The whole district, stretching nearly three miles along the sea-side, is covered with luxuriant groves, not only of the cocoanut, but also of the bread-fruit and of the kou” (American Missionary, CS Stewart was resided in the Hawaiian Islands from 1823 to 1825)

For thousands of years, Ulu (Breadfruit) was a staple food in Oceania. It is believed to have originated in New Guinea and the Indo-Malay region and was spread throughout the vast Pacific by voyaging islanders.

The breadfruit is multipurpose, it may be eaten ripe as a fruit or under-ripe as a vegetable – it is roasted, baked, boiled, fried, pickled, fermented, frozen, mashed into a puree, and dried and ground into meal or flour.

It was a canoe crop – one of around 30 plants brought to the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians when they first arrived in Hawaiʻi.

“This tree, whose fruit is so useful, if not necessary, to the inhabitants of most of the islands of the South Seas, has been chiefly celebrated as a production of the Sandwich Islands; it is not confined to these alone, but is also found in all the countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean.” (Book of Trees, 1837)

“If a man plant ten breadfruit trees in his life, which he can do in about an hour, he would completely fulfil his duty to his own as well as future generations.” (Joseph Banks, 1769)

“Breadfruit is spoken of as ‘ai kameha‘i, meaning that it is a food (‘ai) that simply reproduces itself ‘by the will of the gods,’ that is, by sprouting. It is not planted by means of seeds or slips.” (Handys and Pukui)

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