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September 12, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sake

When you drink sake
You feel like the springtime,
And the loud cries
Of impatient creditors
On the outside
Sound in your ears
Like the voices of nightingales
Singing most sweetly.
(Japanese drinking song, Burton Holmes Travelogues, 1870)

Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage in Japan. It is made through fermentation, like beer and wine.  Sake is made from rice, a staple food in Japan. (NRIB)

It is not exactly known when people began making sake in Japan; however, it is believed an alcoholic beverage made from rice was already made in the Yayoi period (300 BC- 250 AD) when rice cultivation was brought from China to Japan.  (NRIB)

A Dec 18, 1910 article in the San Francisco Call notes, “It is said that 7 per cent of the entire rice crop of Japan goes to the making of this amber fluid, which contains about 13 per cent of alcohol and is characterized by five distinct tastes, according to experts – ‘sweetness, sharpness, sourness, bitterness and astringency.’”

In Hawai‘i, a century after Captain James Cook’s arrival, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape.  However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge.  The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations between 1885 and 1924, when limits were placed on the numbers permitted entry.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures.  Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix. 

Most suggest the first Sake brewery outside of Japan was in Hawaii, the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co. Many people still believe that to be true, but it was likely the fourth sake brewery established in the US.  The Japan Brewing Co was incorporated in Berkeley, California in June 1901. In addition, two other California sake breweries were established in 1903 and 1907. (Auffrey)

However, the Honolulu sake brewery was more successful, more long lasting, and left a much greater legacy than any other of the early Sake breweries in the US. (Auffrey)

“The Honolulu Sake Brewery and Ice Co Ltd, was built in 1908 by Tajiro Sumida and Tomokuni Iwanaga as the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co, Ltd.”

“‘The reason it was started is because of the early Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work as plantation laborers,’ Emil A Nomura, the brewery’s assistant brewmaster, said the other day.”

“‘You see,’ Nomura said, ‘with the meager wages these workers earned, there was barely enough money left to indulge in the privilege of drinking sake, the Japanese people’s favorite drink. And sake from Japan was expensive, because of import duties and things.’”

“To remedy that drinking man’s urge for his favorite brew, the Sumida-Iwanaga partnership designed the world’s first warm-weather sake brewery.”

“The new brewery differed from any traditional Japanese brewery because it was refrigerated and capable of producing sake all year.  ‘The factory had to be refrigerated because sake has to be made in a cool room (as cool as 43 degrees),’ Shinsaburo S Sumida, the brewery’s present president said recently.”

For a time, it was “The only brewery in the world which makes sake year round.”  “Sumida explained that until the Pauoa brewery was built by his father and Iwanaga, sake had only been made in winter months, usually from the end of October through February, because its fermentation-mold stages of brewing are easily spoiled by heat.”

The Hawai‘i sake brewery faced several other challenges …

Prohibition in 1920s … However, “The booming brewery, however, didn’t let the no-booze era dampen its spirits.  Instead, it froze brewing operations, turned up the brewery’s refrigerators, reopened as an ice factory and skated through the lean Prohibition (and Depression) years.”

“With repeal, in 1934, the ice house thawed itself out, increased its working capital from $150,000 to $250,000 (400 shareholders), imported five sake experts from Japan to supervise the installation of new machinery and went back into the brewing business.”

“With World War II came new problems: a rice shortage which didn’t allow rice to be used as anything but food and a sociological shakeup in Japanese American society.”

“‘It was an order,’ recalls Sumida. ‘We couldn’t use rice for making sake, so at that time we started making shoyu (soy sauce).’  And so the Pauoa brewery-factory shoyued its way through the war, and eventually resumed sake operations in 1948.”  (SB & Adv Jan 17, 1971)  The Honolulu Sake Brewery ceased operations in 1989.

A side story on Japan’s sake industry …

The Japanese started producing small glass floats in the early-1900s and the first Asian floats came ashore along the West Coast just before 1920.

These Japanese floats are part of early recycling efforts – initial Japanese floats we made from recycled sake bottles.  Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from these sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight).

To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with many different sizes and shapes of floats, ranging from 2 to 20 inches in diameter. Most were rough spheres, but some were cylindrical or “rolling pin” shaped.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process.

By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean.

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Buildings, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Japanese, Rice, Sake

July 21, 2023 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

The Walkers

“The ‘Wandering Minstrel’ was purchased in Hong Kong … Sailors believe in lucky and unlucky ships. I never did – but I do now. She ruined her builders; everyone that owned her, regretted it; … From the time of sailing, Friday, October the 13th, 1887, we had nothing but gales, a typhoon and ill luck ….”  (Walker)

So starts the story of Captain Frederick Dunbar Walker, born in Dublin, Ireland, December 3, 1838, and his family – their misadventures aboard the ‘Wandering Minstrel’ and life in Honolulu.

“The Wandering Minstrel, a 500-ton bark, left Hong Kong on September 3, 1887, on a shark fishing expedition.  It was Captain Walker’s intention to be gone a year and a half.  The first port touched at was Honolulu”.  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 15, 1900)

“(S)he sailed from Honolulu, December 10th, 1887, on a fishing cruise, with a crew of 24 hands and 4 passengers, arrived at French Frigate Shoals on the 18th December, left same place December 27th, arrived at Midway Island, and anchored in Welles’ Harbour, Jan. 9th, 1888.”

“On February 2nd a strong wind and sea sprung up, so that she was unable to get out, and on the following day became a total loss.”  (Board of Trade Wreck Report for ‘Wandering Minstrel,’ 1889)

“During their enforced sojourn on this forsaken place the Walkers existed entirely on bird’s egg, fish and a shark and a turtle which they were fortunate to capture … Sometimes the party were a week without food…”

“On the Island was found a man named Jorgensen, a Dane, who was one of the crew of the ship named the General Siegel, which had been wrecked on the Island some time before.”

“Jorgensen had murdered the captain and a man of the ‘General Siegel,’ and after the killing the crew had deserted him, having previously destroyed another boat and gone in the remaining boat to the Marshall Islands six months before the Wandering Minstrel went to pieces on the reef.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 15, 1900)

“About three months after the wreck six of the crew took the best boat we had at nighttime, and went to Green Island, and from thence the following day started for the open sea.  A heavy gale set in that night, and there is no doubt all perished, as no tidings were ever heard of them.”

“Our life was one continual hunt for food. Six men left for Green Island and lived there and were never sick, though the water was a dirty greenish color, owing to decayed vegetable matter. Several of us on Sand Island, however, were ill with scurvy. Three died.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 24, 1909)

“The castaways were at last rescued by the schooner Norma, from Yokohama, engaged in shark fishing. The captain of the Norma had been told by friends of the Walkers in Yokohama to keep a sharp lookout for them, and he called at Midway Island in pursuance of what he admitted to be forlorn hope.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 15, 1900)

“Of the twenty-nine souls wrecked, six were drowned by the upsetting of a boat, one was murdered, three succumbed to the ravages of beri-beri, two died of starvation, one died on the way home and was buried at sea, and only sixteen of the original complement came back alive to Honolulu”.

“(A)mong that number are the five members of the Walker family, whose survival is all the more wonderful on account of their being the least fitting to stand the hardships endured.  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 15, 1900)

Walker’s three sons “have grown up with the town as enterprising and useful citizens, while he himself had been active to the last in various commercial and industrial projects.”  (Honolulu Star Bulletin, November 20, 1916)

The sons are, “Frederick GE Walker (a photographer,) Henry E Walker of the Walker rice mill, and Charles D Walker who is engaged in the boat-building business here.”   (Hawaiian Gazette, November 21, 1916)

The experience obviously didn’t deter the brothers from going to sea.  They raced boats; Charles, “recently returned from Japan, where he had gone to challenge Japanese yachtsmen to compete for a Hawaiian cup … stating that he will race a Hawaiian-built boat in Japanese waters on certain conditions.”   (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 13, 1904)

Son Henry showed, “The milling of rice is not confined to the Chinese, as is the cultural phase of the industry. One of the largest and most modern of the rice mills is conducted by Mr HE Walker in Honolulu.”  (Hawaiʻi Experiment Station, 1906)

The three boys also left a lasting legacy to their mother, Elizabeth.  Down the short Mission Lane, just below Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Museum, in the shadow of Kawaiahaʻo Church, is the ‘Elizabeth Building.)  (It’s still there.)

The brothers lived on the top two floors and maintained a carriage shop on the street level. The older brick building next door (‘Mews’) served as their place of business, which included carriage and boat shops. (“Mews” is a British slang term for stables.)  (Burlingame)

Another family legacy lives on … “Captain Walker once related the story to Mr Strong, a son-in-law of Robert Louis Stevenson, and it is shrewdly suspected in certain quarters that the diverting tale of “The Wrecker” is based on none other than the experiences of the survivors of the Wandering Minstrel.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 15, 1900)

Walker liked life in the Islands.  “Homeward bound – for Honolulu – beautiful Honolulu, justly called the ‘Paradise of the Pacific.’  I am unable to state how many residents there are who came as visitors, either on business or pleasure, and remained permanently.”

“Many, like myself, are sea waifs, rescued from shipwreck, brought here and declined to move on, but commenced life anew, and are now well satisfied with their decision.”  (Walker)  Walker became a naturalized citizen on September 21, 1906.

© 2023 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, Buildings, Prominent People Tagged With: Frederick Dunbar Walker, Wandering Minstrel, Elizabeth Building, Hawaii, Midway, Rice, Mews

May 21, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haraguchi Rice Mill

The Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society was formed in 1850 to develop Hawaiʻi’s agricultural resources.  It was then that rice made its mark in the Hawaiʻi economy. The group purchased land in the Nuʻuanu Valley and rice seed from China and planted in a former taro patch.

At first the Society offered the rice seed to anyone in Hawaiʻi who wanted to plant it. King Kamehameha IV also offered land grants for cultivation of rice.  Because there were no proper milling facilities in Hawaiʻi, it didn’t take off as a viable crop right away.

Then, in 1860, imported rice seed from South Carolina proved very successful and yielded a fair amount of crop.  This, combined with the collapse of the taro industry in 1861-1862 (as the Hawaiian population declined, the demand for taro also declined,) added value to the numerous vacant taro patches and a boom in the rice industry.

In 1899, Hawaiʻi’s rice production had expanded so that it placed third in production of rice behind Louisiana and South Carolina.

The Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Hawaiʻi encouraged rice production, primarily in Hanalei.  As a result the acreage planted in rice on the island rose from 759 acres in 1933 to 1,058 in 1934.

For areas like Hanalei Valley, such efforts, coupled with the valley’s general remoteness and absence of competing demands for the land, allowed rice cultivation to continue as a regional activity.

The Hanalei Valley of Kauaʻi led all other single geographic units in the amount of acreage planted in rice. The valley was one of the first areas converted to this use and continued to produce well into the 1960s.

The Commercial Pacific Advertiser noted on October 3, 1861, “Everybody and his wife (including defunct government employees) are into rice – sugar is nowhere and cotton is no longer king. Taro patches are held at fabulous valuations, and among the thoughtful the query is being propounded, where is our taro to come from?”

When the Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaiʻi, their tastes preferred a shorter grain rice than the Chinese long-grain variety. With the decline of the Chinese population and increase in the Japanese population, more of the Japanese rice was being imported from Japan.

As the Japanese left the plantations, they started their own farms and cultivated their own staple rice.

It was at Hanalei where some Chinese built a rice processing facility; it as later purchased by the Haraguchi family in 1924.  At one time, the Haraguchis cultivated about 75-acres in Hanalei Valley.

Fire destroyed the original wooden mill in March of 1930; a new mill consisted of a 3-foot thick concrete foundation with corrugated iron for its roof and siding.  Interior spaces included engine room, milling area, and storage area for both finished and unprocessed rice.

This main engine operated all the mill machinery by turning a main shaft that connected all the other machines by a pulley system.  The rice in a pit would be delivered up by cups on a belt located on a “triple chute” system. One chute served the belts going downward, another chute for the belts returning upwards and a third to suck the dust up which traveled to the blower.

The cups carried the rice over the wall onto another chute and into the strainer. This strainer would shake the rice and separate any rubbish or stones to prevent it from entering the husking machines.  From the strainer, the rice would proceed to the first husker that removed part of the husk.

About 80% of the husks would be removed by this husker. The husks would travel up the air ‘chute to the blower which blew the husks out the back of the mill into a ditch that carried the husks into the river.

The partly husked rice would exit the first husker and was taken up a chute by belted cups and dropped onto another chute into the second husker. The second husker would remove the rest of the husks and the grains would continue up another “triple chute” which would carry it up and over into the polishing machine.

The fine dust from the second husker was collected in a basket under the machine and also taken up the chute into the blower.  Cowhide was used to polish the rice which prevented the grains from cracking which ensured high quality rice.  The rice would exit the polisher and taken up another chute to the grader.

The grading machine constantly shook to move the rice to the three different grades of rice. The whole grain would bypass the grading holes and a trowel was used to push the rice onto a small trough into the rice bag which hung at the end of the funnel.  From there the bags were scaled, sewn by hand and then stacked.

Despite the competition from the California grown rice, the Japanese farmers continued to produce on a smaller scale than the Chinese farmers. By the early 1950s there were about 50 growers cultivating 170 acres of rice on Kauaʻi. Hanalei Valley held 90 acres, 48 acres in Wailua and the rest was split between Hanapepe and Waimea valleys.

In addition to the staple rice, “mochi rice,” used for traditional Japanese cake on New Year’s and other special occasions, was grown.

The mochi rice from Hanalei Valley was noted for its quality throughout the Islands. It was largely a luxury crop and most of it was consumed in the Islands; about 200-bags were shipped to the Mainland.

Some mochi rice was imported from the Mainland but local buyers preferred the local crop since it was said to produce a larger yield of mochi per pound.

In 1959, Hurricane Dot left the mill intact except for an air vent at the roof peak that was torn off and not replaced.  The mill ceased operating in 1960 when Kaua`i’s rice industry collapsed. Hurricane Iwa on November 23, 1982 toppled 85% of the building onto the machinery; then came Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

The Haraguchi Rice Mill was the last mill to operate in Hanalei Valley and the only remaining rice mill in the State of Hawaiʻi.  A nonprofit organization was formed to preserve and interpret the mill; the organization is guided by an unpaid Board of Directors (many of them are members of the Haraguchi family.)  The Haraguchi family now farms taro on the adjacent lands that once supported rice.

Today, the Hoʻopulapula Haraguchi Rice Mill is an agrarian museum located in the taro fields of Hanalei Valley.  The Rice Mill Kiosk is open to the public, Monday through Saturday, 11 am – 3 pm.  No Public access into the farm & Rice Mill unless through guided tours, available Wednesdays at 10 am (reservations are required.)  (Lots of information here from NPS.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Economy, General Tagged With: Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society, Haraguchi Rice Mill, Chinese, Hanalei, Hawaii, Japanese, Kauai, Rice

July 19, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Rice

Rice production was not a major contributor to Hawaiʻi’s economy until the latter half of the nineteenth century. As whaling declined in importance, greater emphasis was placed on agricultural production, primarily sugar and rice.

It was in 1850 when the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society was formed to develop Hawaiʻi’s agricultural resources that rice made its mark in the Hawaiʻi economy. The group purchased land in the Nuʻuanu Valley and rice seed from China and planted in a former taro patch.

At first the Society offered the rice seed to anyone in Hawaiʻi who wanted to plant it. King Kamehameha IV also offered land grants for cultivation of rice. Because there were no proper milling facilities in Hawaiʻi, it didn’t take off as a viable crop right away.

Then, in 1860, imported rice seed from South Carolina proved very successful and yielded a fair amount of crop. This, combined with the collapse of the taro industry in 1861-1862 (as the Hawaiian population declined, the demand for taro also declined,) added value to the numerous vacant taro patches and a boom in the rice industry.

From 1860 to the 1920s, Rice was raised in the islands of Hawaiʻi, particularly in Kauai and Oʻahu, because of their abundance of rain.

The Hanalei Valley of Kauai led all other single geographic units in the amount of acreage planted in rice. The valley was one of the first areas converted to this use and continued to produce well into the 1960s.

The Commercial Pacific Advertiser noted on October 3, 1861, “Everybody and his wife (including defunct government employees) are into rice – sugar is nowhere and cotton is no longer king. Taro patches are held at fabulous valuations, and among the thoughtful the query is being propounded, where is our taro to come from?”

During the 1860s and 1870s, the production of rice increased substantially. It was consumed domestically by the burgeoning numbers of Chinese brought to the Islands as agricultural laborers.

In 1862, the first rice mill in the Hawaiian Islands was constructed in Honolulu (prior to that it was sent unhulled and uncleaned to be milled in San Francisco.) By 1887 over 13 million pounds of rice were exported.

A particularly important stimulus for the increased demand for rice was the Reciprocity Treaty of 1876. This treaty between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi granted duty-free status to certain items of trade between the two countries, including rice.

Thomas Thrum wrote in 1877 that Kamehameha V and other landowners had “planted a large tract of land in rice (in Moanalua,) and even went so far as to pull up and destroy large patches of growing taro to plant rice.”

In 1899, Hawaiʻi’s rice production had expanded so that it placed third in production of rice behind Louisiana and South Carolina.

Much of this rice acreage was worked initially by Chinese immigrants, who first arrived as contract laborers in 1852. By 1860 this immigrant population totaled 1,200. Chinese immigration continued at a rapid pace until 1884, when the official census estimated the number of Chinese at 18,254.

In 1882 the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act; then, Japanese workers were brought in to take their place. Within only five years the Japanese constituted more than forty-two percent of the plantation work force and one-seventh of the total population.

Ironically, this influx of Japanese immigrants accelerated Hawaiʻi’s decline in rice production. Japanese preferred short grain rice rather than the long grain rice the Chinese were used to eating. So rice began to be imported from California for the Japanese.

California’s success would ultimately mean the end of the rice industry in Hawaiʻi. Furthermore, the hand labor techniques of Hawaiʻi’s Chinese and Japanese rice farmers could not compete with California’s mechanized production technology.

Additional problems with the rice bird and rice borer, as well as the lack of interest on the part of the younger generation to continue rice farming, eventually meant the end of a once prosperous industry.

Attempts to revive rice production by the Agricultural Extension Service of the University of Hawaiʻi were made in 1906 and 1933, primarily in Hanalei.

As a result the acreage planted in rice on the island rose from 759 acres in 1933 to 1,058 in 1934. For areas like Hanalei Valley, such efforts, coupled with the valley’s general remoteness and absence of competing demands for the land, allowed rice cultivation to continue as a regional activity long after it had been abandoned throughout the rest of Hawaiʻi.

Today, there is no trace of the rice fields in Hawaiʻi. However, Hoʻopulapula Haraguchi Rice Mill museum in Hanalei Valley provides a remnant look at the once prospering agricultural venture.

It was built by the Chinese and purchased by the Haraguchi family in 1924. The Haraguchi family has restored the mill three times; after a fire in 1930, then again after Hurricane Iwa in 1982 and Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

The mill ceased operating in 1960 when Kauai’s rice industry collapsed. A nonprofit organization was formed to preserve and interpret the mill, which has been visited by thousands of school children and adults in the past 29 years.

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© 2019 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Rice
Rice
Rice
Rice
View of rice fields towards Pālolo Valley from the back of Waikīkī, Hawai`i, ca. 1910
View of rice fields towards Pālolo Valley from the back of Waikīkī, Hawai`i, ca. 1910
Rice
Rice
Windward_Rice_Planting
Windward_Rice_Planting
Rice_fields_workers_beneath_Punchbowl_Crater,_Honolulu,_in_1900
Rice_fields_workers_beneath_Punchbowl_Crater,_Honolulu,_in_1900
Rice-aep-his290
Rice-aep-his290
Rice-aep-his291
Rice-aep-his291
The Iron Horse Comes to Hawaii-Peter Hurd-1889
The Iron Horse Comes to Hawaii-Peter Hurd-1889
Chinese water buffalo plowing rice field Hawaii Tai Sing Loo-(KSBE)=
Chinese water buffalo plowing rice field Hawaii Tai Sing Loo-(KSBE)=
Chinese-Waterbuffalo-Rice
Chinese-Waterbuffalo-Rice
Rice
Rice
Windward_Rice_Farmers
Windward_Rice_Farmers

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Waikiki, Kaneohe, Rice, Hanalei

March 10, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Luluku Agricultural Terraces

Terraces for the irrigated cultivation of taro once occupied a significant area within every major stream valley on O‘ahu. Taro pondfields (lo‘i kalo) were particularly numerous in Kailua and Kāne‘ohe ahupua‘a (traditional land divisions) in Ko‘olaupoko District, on the windward side of the island.

Both of these ahupua’a were of central importance to early rulers: Kailua had once been the capital of O‘ahu; and Kāneʻohe was so favored by Kamehameha I that he retained the land division as his personal property when other conquered lands were distributed to his soldiers and retainers in 1795. (Allen)

Unbeknown to many, land within the loop in the off-ramp road from H-3 connecting to Likelike Highway holds evidence of an inland component of the prehistoric settlement in Kāneʻohe.

This area is a small part and representative example of what constitutes the most extensive early wetland agricultural complex known on Oʻahu and has evidence of a long period of continued use.

The ‘ili (a smaller land division within an ahupuaʻa) of Luluku, located in the ahupuaʻa of Kāneʻohe, district of Koʻolaupoko, is where these numerous agricultural terraces are located. The site is currently inaccessible to the public.

Luluku is one of five upland ‘ili (Luluku, Punalu‘u Mauka, Kapalai, Pa‘u and Kea‘ahala) that are within the traditional boundaries of Kāneʻohe.

The terrace system in Luluku followed the stream channels and utilized all of its tributaries to irrigate the various loʻi kalo (taro,) forming a continuous mosaic of lo‘i from the inland slopes to the lowlands along the coast.

The buried field systems at Luluku predate AD 1600 and the period of state development. The majority of the terraces at Luluku were almost certainly under cultivation by the fifteenth century; their cultivation may have figured importantly in the development of the ahupua‘a socioeconomic system. (Allen)

The upstream and downstream surface terrace sets in Luluku were awarded to different people during the mid-nineteenth-century redistribution of lands in fee simple: the upstream set belonged to Kekane (or Kikane), the downstream set to Makaiohua. Both men claimed taro lo‘i. (Allen)

The evidence from Luluku and some surrounding areas suggest that:

1) lo‘i cultivation in windward O‘ahu began in areas at the forest edge, where both forest and agricultural products could be collected for exchange.

2) agricultural production became standardized in some upland areas as early as AD 1000, suggesting developing centralization and involvement in a redistributive economic network.

3) agricultural construction and production in areas along major streams were coordinated at a broad level by A.D. 1400, probably predating and contributing to the emergence of the ahupua’a system of land division and administration.

4) production of taro surpluses by A.D. 1400 reflects the centralized control of agriculture not only for economic reasons but to ensure that a support base existed for administrators in an elaborated political hierarchy; and

5) coordination of elaborate water distribution networks that used water from main streams for agricultural purposes is reflected before A.D. 1500 and probably contributed to the development of the ahupua’a system, predating the development of the state system of government and codification of the Hawaiian legal system. (Allen)

As late as 1940, especially in the lowland terraces, Kāneʻohe ahupua’a was still one of the most active communities in planting commercial taro.

In modern times, uplands were planted in bananas and papaya; lowlands were planted with rice and taro.

I remember this upland area known as the “Banana Patch.” Large-scale banana plantations began in 1930s; rice and taro farmers also planted bananas in areas unsuitable for their main crop. (There’s even a “Banana Patch” boat design from this area.)

The lo‘i kalo complex of agricultural terraces were initially divided by the construction of the Likelike Highway. The terraces were further impacted by the construction of H-3 and are now located within the Kāneʻohe Interchange.

As part of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) Highways Administration and H-3 Cooperative Agreement, Hawai’i Department of Transportation and Office of Hawaiian Affairs are undertaking a project that would preserve and interpret the cultural resources at the Luluku Terraces in Kāneʻohe.

To date, an Interpretive Development Plan has been prepared, a Hālawa-Luluku Interpretive Development Working Group has been formed, and mitigation measures and actions are identified. These efforts will restore a small portion of the once extensive loʻi kalo in Kāneʻohe.

The vision of the program is, “The Luluku Agricultural Terraces shall be restored through the perpetuation of culturally appropriate science, engineering and agricultural practices.”

“Research will be demonstrated through the planting of primarily native Hawaiian kalo using ancient and contemporary techniques in water resource management and sustainable agricultural practices.”

“The relationship between the land and its people are of both historical and cultural importance in the context of interpretations which emphasizes Luluku’s ability to feed many people in the Kāneʻohe district and areas beyond.”

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Luluku-Walls-Terraces
Luluku-Walls-Terraces
Luluku_Walls-Terraces
Luluku_Walls-Terraces
Luluku_Plains (M Cypher)
Luluku_Plains (M Cypher)
Former Taro Loi Converted to Rice Fields
Former Taro Loi Converted to Rice Fields
Taro Production in Heeia - 1930
Taro Production in Heeia – 1930
Windward_Rice_Planting
Windward_Rice_Planting
Kaneohe Rice Mill-1913
Kaneohe Rice Mill-1913
Pineapple-Southern_Kaneohe-1923
Pineapple-Southern_Kaneohe-1923
Pineapple-Southern Part of Kaneohe Bay-1924
Pineapple-Southern Part of Kaneohe Bay-1924
Kaneohe Pineapple Fields-1920
Kaneohe Pineapple Fields-1920
Nuuanu_Pali-View_of_Kaneohe-1935
Nuuanu_Pali-View_of_Kaneohe-1935
Major Streams - Kaneohe-USGS-1959
Major Streams – Kaneohe-USGS-1959
Luluku-Location-Image
Luluku-Location-Image
Luluku-Surrounding_Archaeological_Sites-Map
Luluku-Surrounding_Archaeological_Sites-Map
Luluku-Conceptual_Site_Plan
Luluku-Conceptual_Site_Plan

Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions, General Tagged With: Hawaii, Kaneohe, Rice, Pineapple, H3, Likelike Highway, Luluku, Banana, Taro

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

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