Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Water Matters

For centuries, Hawaiians recognized the life giving qualities, significance and value of water to their survival. Water is wealth; water is life.

On islands with limited supplies of water, we need to better understand the importance of water in our lives. With greater understanding, we may then give greater respect (and attention and care) to water and recognize its critical link to our quality of life and ultimate existence.

Ground and surface water resources are held in public trust for the benefit of the citizens of the state. The people of Hawai‘i are beneficiaries and have a right to have water protected for their use and/or benefit.

The Hawaii Supreme Court identified water-related public trust purposes: Maintenance of water in their natural state; Domestic water use of the general public, particularly drinking water; and Exercise of Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights.

The object of the public trust is not to maximize consumptive use, but, rather, the most equitable reasonable and beneficial allocation of state water resources, with full recognition that resource protection also constitutes “use.”

“Reasonable and beneficial use” means the use of water for economic and efficient utilization for a purpose and in a manner which is both reasonable and consistent with the state and county land use plans and the public interest.

Such uses include: domestic uses, aquacultural uses, irrigation and other agricultural uses, power development, and commercial and industrial uses.

Under the State Constitution (Article XI,) the State has an obligation to protect, control and regulate the use of Hawaii’s water resources for the benefit of its people.

Over 90% of our drinking water statewide comes from ground water resources.

This percentage could change to include more surface water, as Counties make use of surface water ditches formerly run by sugar companies, most whose fields have since been taken out of sugar cultivation.

Virtually all of our fresh water comes through our forests.

Forests absorb the mist, fog and rain, and then release the water into ground water aquifers and surface water streams. Healthy forests protect against erosion and sediment run-off into our streams and ocean.

A healthy forest is critically important to everyone in Hawaii.

We are fortunate that 100-years ago, some forward-thinkers established Hawai‘i’s forest reserve system and set aside forested lands and protected our forested watersheds – thereby protecting the means to recharge our ground water resources.

Interestingly, it was the sugar growers, significant users of Hawai‘i’s water resources, who led the forest reserve protection movement.

Threats to the forests, and ultimately to our fresh water resources, are real and diverse – whether it is miconia (a tree that prevents rain water from soaking into the watershed, resulting in run-off and erosion,) …

… ungulates (such as pigs and goats that disturb the forest floor and lower level shrubs and ferns) or the many other invasive plants and animals that negatively impact the native forest resources.

We are reminded of the importance of respect and responsibility we each share for the environment and our natural and cultural resources – including our responsibility to protect and properly use and manage our water resources.

I was honored to have served for 4½-years as the Chair of the State’s Commission on Water Resource Management overseeing and regulating the State’s water resources.

We are fortunate people living in a very special place. Let’s continue to work together to make Hawaii a great place to live.

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Patterns of Hawaiian Culture

According to the theory underlying Hawaiian natural philosophy, all natural phenomena, objects and creatures, were bodily forms assumed by nature gods or nature spirits.

Thus, rain clouds, hogs, gourds, and sweet potatoes were ‘bodies’ of the god Lono. Taro, sugar cane, and bamboo were bodies of the god Kāne.

Bananas, squid, and some other forms of marine life were bodies of Kanaloa. The coconut, breadfruit, and various forest trees were bodies of Kū.

Wherever it was possible to grow taro, even though it necessitated complex arrangements, Polynesians did so, for taro was the basic – the original – staple of life for these people.

So far as the Hawaiians were concerned, the place of the taro in the diet, in the horticulture, and in mythology, makes this evident.

Taro as the staff of life, the land which provided subsistence, the people who dwelt on it, the ritual and festival in honor of the rain god …

… the role and place of fresh water upon which the life of food plants depended, the dedication of boy children to the gods of food production and procreation.

These provided the basic patterns of Hawaiian culture.

The fundamental patterns of this culture were determined by the habits of growth and cultivation of taro.

The terms used to describe the human family had reference to the growth of the taro plant: ‘aha, the taro sprout, became ‘ohana, the human extended family.

Taro, which grew along streams and later in irrigated areas, was the food staple for Hawaii, and its life and productivity depended primarily upon water.

The fundamental conception of property and law was therefore based upon water rights rather than land use and possession. Actually, there was no conception of ownership of water or land, but only of the use of water and land.

The term for land had reference to subsistence: ‘āina, ‘ai to feed, with the substantive suffix na. The people who dwelt or subsisted on the land were the ma-ka-‘ai-na-na, ‘upon-the-landers.’ And a native in his homeland was a ‘child of the land,’ kama-‘āina.

The fundamental unit of territory was the ahupua‘a, so called because its boundary was marked by an altar, ahu, dedicated to the rain god Lono …

… symbolized by a carved representation of the head of a hog, pua‘a, which was a form of Lono, the rain god and patron of agriculture.

The life of taro was dependent upon water. In his role as life-giver, Kane the procreator was addressed as Kane-of-the-water-of-life (Kane-ka-wai-ola).

Water (wai) was so associated with the idea of bounty that the word for wealth was waiwai. And water rights were the basic form of law, the Hawaiian word for which was ka-na-wai, meaning ‘relative to water.’

Although women cultivated small sweet-potato patches by the shore and in the vicinity of dwellings, farming was essentially men’s work.

With their digging sticks they prepared land for cultivation, excavated and constructed ditches and lo’i (irrigated terraces) for wet taro …

… and cleared land on the slopes and in the upland where dry taro was planted along with sweet potato, breadfruit, banana, and sugar cane.

The breadfruit is another of the Polynesian staples that was brought from Malaysia into Polynesia. 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. (From Handy, Handy & Pukui)

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Ka'anapali 200 Years Ago-(HerbKane)
Ka’anapali 200 Years Ago-(HerbKane)

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Ka Wai Ola a Kāne

‘Water of Life of Kāne’ (Lāna‘i Cultural & Heritage Center)

Wai (fresh water) is the most important resource for life. As such, wai must be considered a top priority in every aspect of land use and planning.

The kānaka maoli word for water is wai and the Hawaiian word for wealth is waiwai, indicating that water is the source of well-being and wealth.

The importance of the forest is that it plays a significant role in the water cycle, gathering moisture that is stored in the earth that ultimately finds its way to shore or the ocean, evaporated back into the sky to return as rain once again.

As such, the relationship between the wai and the forest is an infinite cycle.

“Fresh water as a life-giver was not to the Hawaiians merely a physical element; it had a spiritual connotation.”

“In prayers of thanks and invocations used in offering fruits of the land, and in prayers chanted when planting, and in prayers for rain, the ‘Water of Life of Kāne’ is referred to over and over again.”

“Kāne – the word means ‘male’ and ‘husband’ – was the embodiment of male procreative energy in fresh water, flowing on or under the earth in springs, in streams and rivers, and falling as rain (and also as sunshine,) which gives life to plants.”

“There are many prayers (referring to) ‘the Water of Life of Kāne” … We also hear occasionally of the “Water of Life” of Kanaloa, of Lono, and of Kū, and even of Hiʻiaka, sister of Pele, a healer”

“Lono was the god of rain and storms, and as such the “father of waters” (Lono-wai-makua).”

“The old priests were inclined to include in their prayers for rain and for fertility the names of the four major deities, Kāne, Kū, Lono, and Kanaloa, whose roles, while on the whole distinct, overlapped in many areas of ritualistic and mythological conceptions.”

The religion of the folk-planters and fishers – was sectarian to some extent; some worshiped Kāne, some Kū, some Lono, and some Kanaloa. Regardless of all such distinctions, life-giving waters were sacred. (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

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Stream-CWRM
Stream-CWRM