Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lāhainā Banyan

“The places in the garden where I find myself lingering and staring with unsoundable pleasure are those where it looks to me as though, with the shafts of light reaching and dividing through the trees, it might be deep in the forest.” WS Merwin

“The Banyan (Ficus Indica) is indigenous to India only. I call it one of the ‘kings of the forest,’ because no other of the vegetable giants ever measured a tithe of five acres in circuit, or afforded shelter from the torrid sun at one time to one-tenth of an army of ten thousand men.”

“No one who ever spent the long noontide of an Indian day under the capacious shadow of a banyan-tree, or slept uninjured during successive nights under the protection from dews and rains of its shingled foliage, or strolled leisurely for hours along avenues and foot-paths bordered by flowering shrubs and cooled by gurgling streamlets …”

“… all within the boundaries of the repeating branches of a single tree, will be disposed to dispute the claims of the banyan to be counted as one of the three monarchs of the woods.” (Dodge, Alama News, Mar 19, 1873)

The word “banyan” comes from the Gujarati language meaning merchant. The Portuguese used the word for Hindu traders selling their wares under the shade of the tree. Then English writers adopted the word in starting in the 16th century, when “banyan” became the term for the trees themselves.

Banyan trees are unique in that they not only grow vertically, but also horizontally. Thin roots grow to the surface of the ground and then can extend forming a new trunk. Here, it can thicken and weave along the original trunk and continue to branch out. A banyan is a kind of fig tree. (Panda)

Some context to the Lahaina Banyan …

The 1806 “Haystack Prayer Meeting” by “the Brethren,” a group of several students at Williams College, Williamstown, MA is credited as the informal beginning of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).

The Board was officially chartered June 20, 1812 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Four fields of missionary activity were identified: (a) peoples of ancient civilizations, (b) peoples of primitive cultures, (c) peoples of the ancient Christian churches, and (d) peoples of Islamic faith.

The first mission of the ABCFM was in 1813 to Marathi of western India, headquarters in Bombay. (Congregational Library)  “If ever I see a Hindoo a real believer in Jesus, I shall see something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything I have yet seen.” (Henry Martyn, American Board in India and Ceylon, Bartlett)

“But God knows how to raise the dead. And it was on this most hopeless race, under the most discouraging concurrence of circumstances, that he chose to let the first missionaries of the American Board try their fresh zeal. The movements of commerce and the history of missionary effort naturally pointed to the swarming continent of Asia.” (Bartlett)

In 1870, the work of the American Board of Foreign Commissioners in western India was transferred to the Board of Foreign Missions. Thereafter, that field was known as the West India Mission.

In addition to the inherited station at Kolhapur, succeeding stations were opened at Ratnagiri in 1873, in Sangli in 1884, in Miraj in 1892, in Vengurla in 1900, in Kodoli in 1893, in Islampur in 1906 and in Nipani in 1910. (Gale)

The ABCFM mission to Hawai‘i …

In the Islands, over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period,”) the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) sent twelve Companies of missionaries – 184-missionaries; 84-men and 100-women – to the Hawaiian Islands.

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived (1820,) Kamehameha I had died (1819) and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished, through the actions of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho, his son,) with encouragement by his father’s wives, Queens Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani (Liholiho’s mother.)) Keōpūolani later decided to move to Maui.

The Second Company of missionaries arrived in the Islands on April 27, 1823.  “On the 26th of May (1823) we heard that the barge (Cleopatra’s Barge, or “Haʻaheo o Hawaiʻi,” Pride of Hawaiʻi) was about to sail for Lahaina, with the old queen (Keōpūolani) and princess (Nāhiʻenaʻena;) and that the queen was desirous to have missionaries to accompany her”.

“A meeting was called to consult whether it was expedient to establish a mission at Lahaina. The mission was determined on, and Mr S (Stewart) was appointed to go: he chose Mr R (Richards) for his companion … On the 28th we embarked on the mighty ocean again, which we had left so lately.”  (Betsey Stockton Journal)

Keōpūolani is said to have been the first convert of the missionaries in the Islands, receiving baptism from Rev. William Ellis in Lāhainā on September 16, 1823.  Keōpūolani was spoken of “with admiration on account of her amiable temper and mild behavior”.  (William Richards)   She was ill and died shortly after her baptism.

Commemorating the mission in Lahaina …

On April 24, 1873, while serving as Sheriff on Maui, William Owen Smith (a missionary son) planted Lāhainā’s Indian Banyan to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Protestant mission in Lāhainā. 

Later, when not filling public office, Smith had been engaged in private law practice and was affiliated with various law firms during his long career.  Smith and his firm wrote the will for Princess Pauahi Bishop that created the Bishop Estate.

As a result of this, Pauahi recommended to Queen Liliʻuokalani that he write her will for the Liliʻuokalani Trust (which he did.)  As a result, Liliʻuokalani and Smith became lifelong friends; he defended her in court, winning the suit brought against her by Prince Jonah Kūhiō. (KHS)

Speaking of his relationship with the Queen, Smith said, “One of the gratifying experiences of my life was that after the trying period which led up to the overthrow of the monarchy and the withdrawal of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the Queen sent for me to prepare a will and deed of trust of her property and appointed me one of her trustees”.  (Nellist)

Smith was also a trustee of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate from 1884-1886 and 1897-1929, the Lunalilo Estate, the Alexander Young Estate and the Children’s Hospital.

Back to the Lahaina Banyan …

The tree was apparently a gift from the missionaries in India to the missionary descendants in Hawai‘i; it was about 8-feet when it was planted.

 After settling in, the tree slowly sent branches outward from its trunk. From the branches, a series of aerial roots descended towards the earth. Some of them touched the ground and dug in, growing larger until eventually turning into trunks themselves.

Over the years, Lahaina residents lovingly encouraged the symmetrical growth of the tree by hanging large glass jars filled with water on the aerial roots that they wanted to grow into a trunk. In time, what was once a small sapling matured into a monumental behemoth. (Lahaina Restoration Foundation)

Today, shading almost an acre of the surrounding park and reaching upward to a height of 60 feet, this banyan tree is reportedly the largest in the US.

Its aerial roots grow into thick trunks when they reach the ground, supporting the tree’s large canopy. There are 16 major trunks in addition to the original trunk in the center.

Other notable Banyans in Hawai‘i include the Indian Banyan tree on the mauka side of the Iolani Palace grounds.  The tree was a gift from Indian Royalty to King Kalākaua.  Reportedly, Queen Kapiʻolani planted the tree there.  Cuttings from the tree were planted at each end of Kailua Bay in Kona.

Starting on October 24, 1933, notable politicians, entertainers, religious leaders, authors, sports figures, business people, adventurers and local folks planted Banyans along Hilo’s Walk of Fame.

Filmmaker Cecil B DeMille was in Hilo filming scenes for ‘Four Frightened People.’  The Hilo Park Commission asked him and some of the actors from the film (Mary Boland, William Gargan, Herbert Marshall’s wife (Edna Best Marshall) and Leo Carillo) to plant trees to commemorate their visit.  (Pahigian)

Shortly after (October 29, 1933,) George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth added a tree; he was in town for an exhibition baseball game against the Waiākea Pirates.  In an earlier game in Honolulu, “Babe Ruth hit the first ball pitched to him for a home run when the visiting major league players defeated the local Wanderers here yesterday, 5 to 1.” (UP, El Paso Herald, October 23, 1933)

Initially, eight trees were planted in October 1933; there have been over 50-trees planted at what is now known as Banyan Drive on the Waiākea peninsula, traditionally known as Hilo-Hanakāhi.

At the time, Banyan Drive was a crushed coral drive through the trees. Forty trees were planted between 1934 and 1938, and five more trees were planted between 1941 and 1972. In 1991, a tree lost to a tsunami was replaced.  (Hawaiʻi County)

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“O Ulumāheihei wale no, ia ia oloko, ia ia owaho”

“O Ulumāheihei wale no, ia ia oloko, ia ia owaho” – “Ulumāheihei knows everything inside and outside” was the saying, alluding to matters that came up at the court of the chiefs and elsewhere.

When Kamehameha I was king, Ulumāheihei was a trusted advisor. In the time of Kamehameha II he had suppressed Kekuaokalani in a rebellion after Liholiho broke the ʻai noa (free eating) kapu; he commanded the forces against a rebellion by Prince George Kaumualiʻi on Kauaʻi.  Ulumāheihei became noted as a war leader for his victory over the rebels.

Ulumāheihei was a learned man skilled in debate and in the history of the old chiefs and the way in which they had governed. He belonged to the priesthood of Nahulu and was an expert in priestly knowledge. He had been taught astronomy and all the ancient lore.  It was at the court of Ulumāheihei that the chiefs first took up the arts of reading and writing.  (Kamakau)

He was born around 1776 (the year of America’s Declaration of Independence.)  At the time, the leading chiefs under Kamehameha were Keʻeaumoku (the father of Kaʻahumanu,) Kameʻeiamoku, Keaweaheulu and Kamanawa.  (Bingham)

Ulumāheihei’s  father High Chief Kameʻeiamoku was one of the “royal twins” who helped Kamehameha I come to power – the twins are on the Islands’ coat of arms – Kameʻeiamoku is on the right (bearing a kahili,) his brother, Kamanawa is on the left, holding a spear.

In his younger years Ulumāheihei was something of an athlete, tall and robust with strong arms, light clear skin, a large high nose, eyes dark against his cheeks, his body well built, altogether a handsome man in those days.  (Kamakau)

After the conquest of Oʻahu by Kamehameha I, in 1795, he gave Moanalua, Kapunahou and other lands to Kameʻeiamoku, who had aided him in all his wars.  (Alexander)

Kameʻeiamoku died at Lāhainā in 1802, and his lands descended to his son, who afterwards became governor of Maui. Ulumāheihei’s first marriage was to Chiefess Kalilikauoha (daughter of King Kahekili of Maui Island.)  Liliha his daughter/hānai was born in 1802 or 1803.

Ulumāheihei later earned the name Hoapili (“close companion; a friend.’)

Hoapili resided several years at Punahou near the spring, from 1804 to 1811.   Hoapili gave Punahou to his daughter/hānai Liliha, who married Governor Boki.  In December, 1829, just before starting Boki’s fatal sandal-wood expedition, the Punahou land was given to Rev. Hiram Bingham, with the approval of the Queen-Regent, Kaahumanu.  (Alexander)

Testimony before the Land Commission notes, “The above land was given by Boki to Mr. Bingham, then a member of the above named Mission and the grant was afterwards confirmed by Kaʻahumanu.“  “This land was given to Mr. Bingham for the Sandwich Island Mission by Gov. Boki in 1829… From that time to these the SI Mission have been the only Possessors and Konohikis of the Land.”  (It was considered to be a gift from Kaʻahumanu, Kuhina Nui or Queen Regent at that time.)

By 1815, Kamehameha had established succession with two sons, and entrusted Ulumāheihei (Hoapili) with the care of their mother, Queen Keōpūolani. This made Ulumāheihei stepfather to Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena.   (Ulumāheihei (Hoapili) was spouse to Kalilikauoha, Keōpūolani and Kalākua.)

Like his father, he was a devoted and trusted advisor and chief under Kamehameha.  Hoapili was with Kamehameha when he died on May 8, 1819 at Kamakahonu at Kailua-Kona.

“Kamehameha was a planner, so he talked to Hoapili and Hoʻolulu (brothers) about where his iwi (bones) should be hidden,” noting Kamehameha wanted his bones protected from desecration not only from rival chiefs, but from westerners who were sailing into the islands and sacking sacred sites. (Bill Maiʻoho, Mauna Ala Kahu (caretaker,) Star-Bulletin)

Hoapili had accepted the word of God because of Keōpūolani.    After her marriage with Hoapili she became a steadfast Christian.  (Kamakau) To Kalanimōku and Hoapili (her husbands) she said, “You two must accept God, obey Him, pray to Him, and become good men. I want you to become fathers to my children.”

Hoapili welcomed the missionaries to the island and gave them land for churches and enclosed yards for their houses without taking any payment. Such generosity was common to all the chiefs and to the king as well; a tract of a hundred acres was sometimes given.  (Kamakau)  (Prior to the Māhele, title didn’t pass when land was given:title was later affirmed by the Land Commission.)

While Kamehameha was still alive he allowed Keōpūolani to have other husbands, after she gave birth to his children; Kalanimōku and Hoapili were her other husbands.  In February 1823, Keōpūolani renounced the practice of multiple spouses for royalty, and made Hoapili her only husband.

In May 1823, he and Keōpūolani moved to Maui and resided in Lāhainā; they asked for books and a chaplain so they could continue their studies. Hoapili served as Royal Governor of Maui from May 1823.

She became very weak and Rev. William Ellis baptized her by the name of Harriet Keōpūolani. Before the end of the day she was dead. Thus the highest tabu chiefess became the first Hawaiian convert.  (Kamakau)

In September, the king was summoned to Maui where the queen mother, Keōpūolani, lay dying. At her death, September 16, 1823, in Lāhainā, the chiefs and people began to wail and carry on as usual, but Hoapili forbade the custom of death companions and boisterous expressions of grief, saying, “She forbade it and gave herself to God.”  (Kamakau)

After the death of Keōpūolani, her husband, Hoapili, was the leading representative of the Christian faith.

Later Kaʻahumanu and Kalanimōku and their households followed suit.  (Kamakau)  On October 19, 1823 Hoapili married Kalākua who became known as “Hoapili-wahine.”

In 1823, Kalākua Kaheiheimālie (ke Aliʻi Hoapili wahine, wife of Governor Hoapili) offered the American missionaries a tract of land on the slopes surrounding Puʻu Paʻupaʻu for the creation of a school.  Betsey Stockton founded a school for makaʻāinana (common people) including the women and children.  The site of the school is now Lahainaluna School.

Another good work for which Hoapili is celebrated was the building of the stone church at Waineʻe. The cornerstone was laid on September 14, 1828, for this ‘first stone meeting-house built at the Islands’; it was dedicated on March 4, 1832 and served as the church for Hawaiian royalty during the time when Lāhainā was effectively the Kingdom’s capital, from the 1820s through the mid-1840s (it was destroyed by fire in 1894.)  In addition, he erected the Lāhainā fort to guard the village against rioting from the whalers off foreign ships and from law breakers.  (Kamakau)

Hoapili is also credited with improving the King’s Highway (portions also called Hoapili Trail, initially built during the reign of Pi‘ilani;) it once circumnavigated the whole island.  Hoapili commissioned road gangs for the work. The Rev. Henry Cheever noted that these road gangs were largely composed of prisoners who had been convicted of adultery; Cheever called it “the road that sin built.”  (Samson)

On January 2, 1840, Ulumāheihei (Hoapili) died in the stone house at Waineʻe.  The image shows a drawing of Hoapili by CC Armstrong.

Click here for more on Hoapili: https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Hoapili.pdf

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Brockengespenst

And art thou nothing?
Such thou art, as when
The woodman winding
Westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where
O’er the sheep-track’s maze
The viewless snow-mist
Weaves a glist‘ning haze,
Sees full before him,
Gliding without tread,
An image with a glory
Round its head;
The enamoured rustic
Worships its fair hues,
Nor knows he makes
The shadow he pursues!
(‘Constancy to an Ideal Object,’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

The Brocken is the highest peak of Northern Germany. The Brockengespenst (Brocken spectre, Specter of the Brocken) is a common phenomenon on this misty mountain, where a climber’s shadow cast upon fog creates eerie optical effects.

“This beautiful sight is rarely seen in any country, and seldom except at sunrise or sunset, during a fog or cloudy weather. For this reason, the following account of what was seen in August, 1894, on Haleakala, written by Miss Lillie A Brown, one of the ladies who witnessed it and who were accompanied with a guide, possesses great interest:”

“‘We arrived at the brink of the crater (August 20, 1894, 5pm,) just in time to witness not only a marvelously glorious sunset above the clouds, but the Specter of the Brocken as well —a wonderful phenomenon, which comparatively few have ever been privileged to behold, at least as perfect as we saw it.’”

“‘Upon our approach to the summit, we found the crater completely filled with an unbroken, sheeny, silvery, misty cloud, obliterating every physical feature, and reaching itself above the horizon to sky-clouds of the same nature, so that above and below and around us was but cloud-world.’”

“‘Directly opposite us, as we stood together on the same rock, there suddenly appeared, suspended in this cloud, a rainbow, gorgeous in color, forming a complete circle, and enclosing, as in a hanging frame, three figures, many times larger than life, which we soon discovered to be our own reflected images.’”

“‘To test the reality of the apparition, we waved our hats and handkerchiefs, and our silhouetted images waved back to us out of the centre of the gorgeous rainbow frame, our reflected motions seeming to shoot off rays of color, in effect something like that of a search light.’”

“‘Five times this phenomenon appeared and disappeared, on each successive occasion losing somewhat of its brilliancy of color. The suspended rainbow, ourselves on the crater’s edge, and the sun’s fiery ball – in our rear, were all perpendicular to the same horizontal plane.’”

“‘As the rainbow gradually faded from our vision, we turned; the sun was setting in great billowy clouds, with gorgeous masses of color above it. To our right – I can compare it only to a vast rolling Arctic plain – lay great strata of clouds as far as the eye could see …’”

“‘… so like a white frozen country that it required but a slight effort of the imagination to people it with furclad humanity, the reindeer, and the Arctic bear, or to imagine ourselves being fleetly sledged over its glistening snows.’”

“‘Above this new strange cloud world was the blue dome of heaven, making far away with the white plain, a distant elevated horizon.’”

“‘Again we turned our faces to the crater. The silvery, misty cloud had rolled partly out, giving us a glimpse of the great depth of the yawning chasm below us, several of the great blow holes, and far beyond, just for one moment, we saw the blue sea of Hawaii over the further ridge’”

“‘Then darkness enveloped the great crater in her mantle, and we groped our way down from the rocks to the overhanging cliff which was to be our shelter for the night.’” (Whitney, 1895)

Specter of the Brocken appears when a low sun is behind a person who is looking downwards into mist from a ridge or peak. The “specter” is the shadowy figure – the glow and rings are of course a glory centered directly opposite the sun at the antisolar point.

It is no more than the shadow of the person projected forward through the mist. All shadows converge towards the antisolar point where the glory also shines. (Atmospheric Optics)

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Solar_glory_and_Spectre_of_the_Brocken
Solar_glory_and_Spectre_of_the_Brocken
Brocken_Gipfelstein-summit marker
Brocken_Gipfelstein-summit marker

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Twain and Maui

Mark Twain wrote books about some of his travels (that included a visit to Hawai‘i) … one such, Roughing It.  Here are some of his comments about Maui.

We “thence sailed to the island of Maui, and spent several weeks there very pleasantly.”

“I still remember, with a sense of indolent luxury, a picnicing excursion up a romantic gorge there, called the Iao Valley.  The trail lay along the edge of a brawling stream in the bottom of the gorge–a shady route, for it was well roofed with the verdant domes of forest trees.”

“Through openings in the foliage we glimpsed picturesque scenery that revealed ceaseless changes and new charms with every step of our progress.”

“Perpendicular walls from one to three thousand feet high guarded the way, and were sumptuously plumed with varied foliage, in places, and in places swathed in waving ferns.”

“Passing shreds of cloud trailed their shadows across these shining fronts, mottling them with blots; billowy masses of white vapor hid the turreted summits, and far above the vapor swelled a background of gleaming green crags and cones that came and went, through the veiling mists, like islands drifting in a fog …”

“… sometimes the cloudy curtain descended till half the canon wall was hidden, then shredded gradually away till only airy glimpses of the ferny front appeared through it—then swept aloft and left it glorified in the sun again.”

“Now and then, as our position changed, rocky bastions swung out from the wall, a mimic ruin of castellated ramparts and crumbling towers clothed with mosses and hung with garlands of swaying vines, and as we moved on they swung back again and hid themselves once more in the foliage.”

“Presently a verdure-clad needle of stone, a thousand feet high, stepped out from behind a corner, and mounted guard over the mysteries of the valley.”

“It seemed to me that if Captain Cook needed a monument, here was one ready made – therefore, why not put up his sign here, and sell out the venerable cocoanut stump?”

“But the chief pride of Maui is her dead volcano of Haleakala – which means, translated, ‘the house of the sun.’”

“We climbed a thousand feet up the side of this isolated colossus one afternoon; then camped, and next day climbed the remaining nine thousand feet, and anchored on the summit, where we built a fire and froze and roasted by turns, all night.”

“With the first pallor of dawn we got up and saw things that were new to us.  Mounted on a commanding pinnacle, we watched Nature work her silent wonders.”

“The sea was spread abroad on every hand, its tumbled surface seeming only wrinkled and dimpled in the distance.  A broad valley below appeared like an ample checker-board, its velvety green sugar plantations alternating with dun squares of barrenness and groves of trees diminished to mossy tufts.”

“Beyond the valley were mountains picturesquely grouped together; but bear in mind, we fancied that we were looking up at these things – not down.”

“We seemed to sit in the bottom of a symmetrical bowl ten thousand feet deep, with the valley and the skirting sea lifted away into the sky above us!”

“It was curious; and not only curious, but aggravating; for it was having our trouble all for nothing, to climb ten thousand feet toward heaven and then have to look up at our scenery.”

“However, we had to be content with it and make the best of it; for, all we could do we could not coax our landscape down out of the clouds.”

“Formerly, when I had read an article in which Poe treated of this singular fraud perpetrated upon the eye by isolated great altitudes, I had looked upon the matter as an invention of his own fancy.”

“I have spoken of the outside view–but we had an inside one, too.  That was the yawning dead crater, into which we now and then tumbled rocks, half as large as a barrel, from our perch, and saw them go careering down the almost perpendicular sides, bounding three hundred feet at a jump …”

“…kicking up cast-clouds wherever they struck; diminishing to our view as they sped farther into distance; growing invisible, finally, and only betraying their course by faint little puffs of dust; and coming to a halt at last in the bottom of the abyss, two thousand five hundred feet down from where they started!”

“It was magnificent sport.  We wore ourselves out at it.”

“The crater of Vesuvius, … is a modest pit about a thousand feet deep and three thousand in circumference; that of Kilauea is somewhat deeper, and ten miles in circumference.”

“But what are either of them compared to the vacant stomach of Haleakala?”

“I will not offer any figures of my own, but give official ones–those of Commander Wilkes, U.S.N., who surveyed it and testifies that it is twenty-seven miles in circumference!”

“If it had a level bottom it would make a fine site for a city like London.”

“It must have afforded a spectacle worth contemplating in the old days when its furnaces gave full rein to their anger.”

“Presently vagrant white clouds came drifting along, high over the sea and the valley; then they came in couples and groups; then in imposing squadrons; gradually joining their forces, they banked themselves solidly together, a thousand feet under us, and totally shut out land and ocean …”

“…-not a vestige of anything was left in view but just a little of the rim of the crater, circling away from the pinnacle whereon we sat (for a ghostly procession of wanderers from the filmy hosts without had drifted through a chasm in the crater wall and filed round and round, and gathered and sunk and blended together till the abyss was stored to the brim with a fleecy fog).”

“Thus banked, motion ceased, and silence reigned.  Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy floor stretched without a break–not level, but in rounded folds, with shallow creases between …”

“… and with here and there stately piles of vapory architecture lifting themselves aloft out of the common plain–some near at hand, some in the middle distances, and others relieving the monotony of the remote solitudes.”

“There was little conversation, for the impressive scene overawed speech.”

“I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.”

“While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of the coming resurrection appeared in the East.  A growing warmth suffused the horizon, and soon the sun emerged and looked out over the cloud-waste …”

“… flinging bars of ruddy light across it, staining its folds and billow-caps with blushes, purpling the shaded troughs between, and glorifying the massy vapor-palaces and cathedrals with a wasteful splendor of all blendings and combinations of rich coloring.”

“It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always.”

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ʻOheʻo

Although the canoe was a principal means of travel in ancient Hawaiʻi, extensive cross-country trail networks enabled gathering, harvesting other necessities for survival.

Famed for his energy and intelligence, King Piʻilani and his son Kiha constructed the legendary Alaloa or long trail known as the King’s Highway.

It was built about the time Christopher Columbus was crossing the Atlantic, before there were roads in Hawaiʻi.  Back then, they were trails and Piʻilani was ruler of Maui.

According to oral tradition, Piʻilani unified the entire island of Maui, bringing together under one rule the formerly-competing eastern (Hāna) and western (Wailuku) multi-district kingdoms of the Island.   Piʻilani ruled in peace and prosperity.

Four to six feet wide and 138-miles long, this rock-paved path facilitated both peace and war.  It simplified local and regional travel and communication, and allowed the chief’s messengers to quickly get from one part of the island to another.  The trail was used for the annual harvest festival of Makahiki and to collect taxes, promote production, enforce order and move armies.

The southeastern section of the island of Maui, comprising the districts of Hāna, Kīpahulu, Kaupo and Kahikinui, was at one time a Royal Center and central point of kingly and priestly power – Piʻilani ruled from here (he built Hale O Piʻilani – near Hāna.)  This section of the island was also prominent in the later reign of Kekaulike.

Royal Centers were where the aliʻi resided; aliʻi often moved between several residences throughout the year. The Royal Centers were selected for their abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites being favored.

Long before the first Europeans arrived on Maui, Kīpahulu was prized by the Hawaiian aliʻi for its fertile land and abundant ocean.  The first written description of the region was made by La Pérouse in 1786 while sailing along the southeast coast of Maui in search of a place to drop anchor:

“I coasted along its shore at a distance of a league (three miles) …. The aspect of the island of Mowee was delightful.  We beheld water falling in cascades from the mountains,  and running in streams to the sea,  after having watered the habitations of the natives,  which  are  so numerous  that a  space of  three or four leagues (9 – 12 miles, about the distance from Hāna to Kaupō) may be  taken for  a single village.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Bushnell)

“But all the huts are on the seacoast, and the mountains are so near, that the habitable part of the island appeared to be less than half a league in depth.  The trees which crowned the mountains, and the verdure of the banana plants that surrounded the habitations, produced inexpressible charms to our senses…”

“… but the sea beat upon the coast with the utmost violence, and kept us in the situation of Tantalus, desiring and devouring with our eyes what it was impossible for us to attain … After passing Kaupō no more waterfalls are seen, and villages are fewer.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Bushnell)

With the development of the whaling industry on the island in 1880s the southeastern Maui population started to decline as people moved to main whaling ports, such as Lāhainā.  In the early-1900s, one of the regular ports of call for the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company was here at Kīpahulu. Steamships provided passenger service around Maui and between the islands.

Kīpahulu Landing also provided a way for growers and ranchers to ship their goods to markets. (Today the land where Kīpahulu Landing existed is private but protected with a conservation easement, overseen by the Maui Coastal Land Trust (now part of the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust.))

The Hāna Sugar Plantation, formed in 1864, gradually increased production by expanding cane plantings toward Kīpahulu Valley.  (Cusick)

However, shortly after World War II, Paul I Fagan, an entrepreneur from San Francisco, bought the Hāna Sugar Co, formed a ranch and started tourism on this part of Maui.

It had been only 20-years since Hāna was linked to the outside world by a rough dirt road, and it would be almost two decades more before it was paved.

In 1946, Fagan built a small six-room inn, called Kaʻuiki Inn (it was later expanded). Fagan’s guests consisted of his friends as well as sportswriters, one of which gave Hana the current name of “Heavenly Hana.”  (Maui College)

Near here was ʻOheʻo; here was a succession of several waterfalls tumbling from one pool into another and so on up the gulch.  (One interpretation of the name Oheo is “moving origin” – suggesting all pools as one (Yardley.))

In order to entertain guests and promote tourism in East Maui, employees at Fagan’s Inn crafted a legend that these pools had been reserved exclusively for Hawaiian Royalty and, therefore, were considered a sacred site.  (Cusick)

Billed as Hawaiʻi’s “Seven Sacred Pools” to attract tourists, ʻOheʻo Gulch actually has a series of 24 bowls that carry water down the slopes of 10,023-foot Mount Haleakalā to the sea.  (NY Times)

Then in the 1960s, Kīpahulu residents Charles Lindbergh and Sam Pryor, and philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller, concerned that public use of this area may be lost, worked to protect it.  Through their efforts, Kīpahulu Valley and ʻOheʻo Gulch became the Kīpahulu District of Haleakala National Park on January 10, 1969.  (NPS)

This part of the Park is located about 15-minutes past Hāna town, near mile marker 42 on the Hāna Highway (Road to Hana) after it turns into Highway 31. 

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC