Category Archives: History

Big Island, Hamakua Coast, History, How It All Started, Our Story, The New Ahupua‘a, Where We Live

Time Travel: Looking Back At Our Land

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Richard Ha writes:

We’re planning to landscape the area around our new hydroelectric system with canoe plants, the plants that the first Polynesian settlers brought with them from their previous island homes to help them survive and thrive in their new land.

They were the original organic farmers. They had no oil back
then, of course, so no oil technologies.

And they did not just survive in their oil-free lives, but thrived and supported a large population here well (research suggests it was a
population as large as we have now).

So as we reach the age of Peak Oil, the end of easy and cheap oil and all that came with that, I want to explore how they did it. I
want to learn from them and see what, from those times, we can focus on again to improve our lives now. Our hydroelectric system is another example of what we are doing in these regards.

There are still people, of course, who have always lived
with the old ways, and who continue to do so. I met some people at the Hawai‘i Community College who are perpetuating this culture and who have offered to help me. I’ll write more about that soon.

For now I thought I’d revisit what we know happened on this
land before we started farming it. A lot of this information comes from the Cultural Resources Review of our poperty done by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

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Our farm encompasses three ahupua‘a in the district of South Hilo:

1. Ka‘upakuea at the north (bordered at the south by Makea Stream).

We don’t know much about what went on in Ka‘upakuea before the mid-19th century. In the mid-1800s, both Ka‘upakuea and Kahua were government lands, which were lands Kamehameha III gave “to the chiefs and people.” Ka‘upakuea was part of Grant 872. (Read the 1882 document A Brief History of Land Titles in the Hawaiian Kingdom for more on Hawai‘i’s historical land system.)

The area was later part of a sugar plantation, and has unpaved roadways and a west-east flume. Kaupakuea Camp was within the area of what’s presently our farm.

2. Kahua (which is between Makea and Alia Streams).

Kahua is a very narrow ahupua‘a, approximately 600 feet wide. It extends from the coast to about Makea Spring, which is at about the 980 foot elevation.

Kahonu (an ali‘i who was descended from both the I and Mahi
lines of chiefs, and who was in charge of the Fort at Punchbowl ca. 1833-34) was awarded either the whole of Kahua ahupua‘a or just the northern mauka half of it (references differ) as LCA 5663.

When he died in 1851, his relative Abner Paki (father of
Bernice Pauahi and hanai father of Lili‘uokalani) held the lands “under a verbal will from Kahonu” (Barrère 1994:138). When Paki died in 1855, the lands were listed as Bishop Estate lands.

3. Makahanaloa at its southern edge (bordered by Alia and Wai‘a‘ama Streams).

The ahupua‘a of Makahanaloa (Maka-hana-loa) runs from the coast about 3.5 miles up to the 6600-foot elevation. Kapue Stream flows from the base of Pu‘u Kahinahina down through Makahanaloa. Magnetic Hill is at the southwestern corner at the top of the ahupua‘a, which is a little over a mile wide and meets the North Hilo district boundary.

In the Great Mahele of 1848, 7600 acres of Makahanaloa and
Pepe‘ekeo were awarded to William Charles Lunalilo (an ali‘i who later became king, from 1873 until his death in 1874). Upon his death, his personal property went to his father Charles Kana‘ina.

Here are a couple of interesting facts about Makahanaloa
ahupua‘a: Somewhere within this area, though the exact location is unknown, there was (is?) an “ancient leaping place for souls.”

And according to historian Mary Kawena Pūku‘i, a sacred bamboo grove called Hōmaika‘ohe was planted at Makahanaloa by the god Kane. “Bamboo knifes used for circumcision came from this grove,” she wrote.

Sugar Plantation History

Sugar cane was one of the canoe plants; it came with the early Polynesians to Hawai‘i and they used it as food and sweetener, and chewed it to strengthen their teeth and gums.

The farm sits on land that was formerly part of a sugar plantation that had its origins in 1857, when Theophilus Metcalf started Metcalf Plantation. After his death in 1874, the 1500-acre plantation was purchased by Mr. Afong and Mr. Achuck and its name changed to Pepeekeo Sugar Company. In 1879, they also acquired the 7600-acre Makahaula Plantation. By 1882, both were combined as Pepeekeo Sugar Mill & Plantation. In 1889, Afong returned to China, leaving the plantation in the hands of his friend Samuel M. Damon.

Over the years, it changed hands several more times. C. Brewer
& Co. bought the plantation in 1904, added a plantation hospital and improved housing. By 1910, plantation fields were connected by good dirt roads and harvested cane was delivered to the mill by railroad cars and stationary flumes.

Post-1923, the plantation improved its soil every year by adding coral sand (from Wai‘anae), bone meal and guano. “The sand was bagged and hauled into the fields by mules to be spread” (Dorrance & Morgan 2000:101). Eucalyptus trees were planted as windbreaks, protecting the fields near the ‘ōhi‘a forests.

Water came from Wai‘a‘ama Stream and Kauku Hill.
 Plowing was
done to 18 to 20 inches. After 1932, tractors with caterpillar tracks were used for plowing. From 1941, trucks hauled harvested cane to the mill.

In the early 1950s, lots and houses on the plantation were sold to residents.

Under C. Brewer, there were several mergers: Honomu Sugar Company in 1946; Hakalau Sugar Company in 1963; consolidation of Wainaku, Hakalau, Pepeekeo, and Papaikou sugar companies in 1971, and a final merger in 1973 with Mauna Kea Sugar (once 5 separate plantations: Honomu, Hakalau, Pepeekeo, Onomea and Hilo Sugar Company) to form Mauna Kea Sugar Company, the state’s largest with 18,000 acres of cane (Dorrance & Morgan 2000:104).

Prior to the final merger, Mauna Kea Sugar Company had formed
a non-profit corporation with the United Cane Planters’ Cooperative, the Hilo Coast Processing Company, to harvest and grind sugarcane.

The Hilo Coast Processing Company and the Mauna Kea Sugar
Company (at that point called Mauna Kea Agribusiness Company) mill shut down in 1994.

We started farming on this land in 1994.

I’m very interested in knowing more history about this place. If you or your family know old stories about this area, I would love to hear them.

Bananas, Big Island, Hamakua Coast, Hawaiian Role Models, History, Sustainability, The New Ahupua‘a, Where We Live

Room With a View

Richard Ha writes:

This is the view from my “office” window.

View

I took it from the air-conditioned cab of my bulldozer, where I can even charge my iPhone. I was on a conference call yesterday while I was in the middle of clearing some brush that we are going to replace with something more productive. Not bad, huh?
Bamboo

We’re busy putting our marginal lands into production. While we’re at it, we need to provide safety barriers using dual-use plants and trees. We need to protect the streams by preventing erosion and runoff over the long term. If we can accomplish this with plants that provide food, so much the better.

On the land surrounding the hydro generator, we want to highlight the modern and the ancient. The hydro generator represents the modern, and the plants the Polynesian navigators brought with them in their canoes are of particular interest to me.

Being a banana farmer, I am familiar with the cooking bananas, the mai‘a maoli and the mai‘a popoulu. The mai‘a maoli produced a large, heavy bunch. I remember thinking, I would have put that in the canoe as well. The mai‘a popoulu was probably a backup. It was susceptible to wind and not very strong, relative to competition from grasses, etc.

Anybody have those varieties? I don’t see them aroundanymore. They succumbed to the fusarium wilt, like the Bluefield bananas did in the 50s. That caused the world banana trade to shift to the Cavendish type of banana, which are starting to succumb to another race of the fusarium wilt. That is the biggest threat overhanging the world banana industry today.

More pictures from my bulldozer. That’s bamboo in the distance. It’s less than three years old, and I’m guessing it’s 60-plus feet tall and 5 feet in diameter now. That’s with only two applications of fertilizer.

We have ‘opae in this healthy stream on our farm.

All the rose apple trees on Wai‘a‘ama Stream succumbed to a fungus a short time ago. We are going to plant other trees here, which will keep invasive species down and also help to keep the river cool.

This soil was fallow after a banana crop, and as I was walking along I saw earthworms. Healthy soil.

(I videotaped an earthworm!)

I am fascinated by our Hawaiian ancestors’ ability to survive, well, in a world without draft animals and metals.

I’m planning to write more about all this from a farmer’s point of view.

History, Maku‘u Stories, Science, Sustainability

Grass Roots Farming

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Richard Ha writes:

Science is great, but there are kids now that go to the
supermarket and think that’s where food comes from.

For me, it all goes back to Uncle Sonny and all the layers of technology that have cropped up since then.

Wheelbarrow

 

 

 

 

 

When I first thought about farming, I spent hours and hours
talking to Uncle Sonny Kamahele down the beach at Maku‘u.

I’ve written about Uncle Sonny here and here. He was my Pop’s
cousin, and I learned the basic principles of farming from him.

I had just graduated from UH Manoa with an accounting degree.
I had cost benefit volume analysis and market share on my mind.

 

Uncle Sonny drove to town once a week. He did not have
electricity or running water, but he always had a stack of U.S. News & World Reports with the current copy on top. He made his living farming watermelon by himself.

One day he told me that he needed to open up a new plot of land because he could not stay at the same place for too long; he didn’t want to get a virus or a wilt of some sort.

Over the days and weeks, I watched him cut grass in the new plot with a sickle and pull it into a roll, and then cart the grass out of his plot in a wheelbarrow. When he wasn’t doing that, he would take a hoe and remove the roots of the grass, because he knew that otherwise it would regrow.

The other types of weed were dormant seeds of broad-leaved weeds that would germinate and pop up. Uncle Sonny would remove these with a hoe, only on dry days, without disturbing too much of the soil. After awhile the seeds would stop germinating.

Uncle Sonny knew that certain weeds could continuously regrow if the roots were not removed, and that others only grew from seed. I noticed that, after awhile, hardly any weeds grew in the new plot, and I thought about how amazing that was.

The lessons I learned from Uncle Sonny? Know what your problem is. Also: no waste time.

My grandma Leihulu lived with us for several years as I was growing up in Waiakea Uka. She grew taro and made poi, and she did the same things as Uncle Sonny. She always had a stack of California grass smoldering, even when it was raining – they were weeds she’d removed the same way he did. It was second nature to her. It was just her lifestyle.

Whenever I see a plot of ground that’s clean like that, it’s pretty obvious to me that they did that with a hoe, and that that is somebody that knows what they’re doing.

As Uncle Sonny got older, he started using pesticides, but because they cost money he was very very careful with them. It saves that part where you have to go and hoe the weeds out and go and pull the seeds out. It saved him a lot of time. It wasn’t very many years later that he started to use Roundup.

When I started farming, we were using skull & crossbones types of poisons like Paraquat. When we switched to Roundup, we didn’t have to use that anymore. It made spraying herbicides so much safer for the farmer.

When you use a chemical like Roundup in conjunction with a 100-hp tractor, you can do 1000 times more than one human can do. That means you can produce that much more food.  But now that herbicides kill everything, you start losing that knowledge; you don’t have to know what the old guys knew.

When Uncle Sonny used herbicides, he always stuck the leaf into it and saw if it worked. If not, he’d add a little more.

He followed the instructions, but he never relied on the instructions for the final result. He knew the formula, but he checked to make sure the result was what he wanted. It showed me that he knew what he was doing. He knew why that particular spreader was in there, and checked the proportions for sure. Not that he doubted, but if he wanted it to work very well, he’d check it himself.

I haven’t seen anybody, not anybody, do that. But I think it was common knowledge with the old folks.

We are so far removed from our food now that we don’t really have a connection with why we’re doing what we’re doing. But we need the basic knowledge. You’ve got to know why you’re doing what you are doing.

Big Island, Geothermal, History, Mauna Kea, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Guest Post: We Underestimate The Old Hawaiians

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By guest blogger Rodrigo Romo:

With every question that seems to stir up controversy (geothermal, the Thirty Meter Telescope [TMT], etc.), the way I see it is to ask: "What would Kamehameha (or the old Hawaiians) do?"

The old Hawaiians lived in harmony with what the land/sea provided them, making sure they took care of their resources and making sure they were not depleted.

Would the old Hawaiians bring oil from distant lands to meet their energy needs? Or would they take advantage of what the land and the gods provided them (geothermal, solar, wind, hydroelectric)?

The old Hawaiians were famous for their star-based navigational skills. If they had the chance to further understand the universe from the top of Mauna Kea, would they pass on that opportunity? Or would they take advantage of the privileged location they were given by the land/gods to learn more about the universe?

I think part of the problem is that people underestimate what the old Hawaiians would do in today's technologically advanced world, and many think that they would still live like they did prior to the arrival of Cook.

I don't think that is the case. They were incredible wise people from an environmental point of view. They understood that by living on an island their resources were extremely limited and that their environment was very delicate.

Because of modern-day technology, we tend to forget that. It's easy for us to go to the grocery store and buy tomatoes from California, peaches from Chile and Atlantic salmon. We turn on the switch and expect the light to come on, because we know that there will be a ship/plane coming over to deliver our goods; goods that were not produced here from the land.

People see geothermal or wind as an intrusion to the environment, but have no problem with burning fossil fuels that are brought in from thousands of miles away.

They worry about the impact that a geothermal well may have on the air quality, but never think about the consequences that an oil spill from a tanker would have on our corals and the life around them.

People see the TMT as an intrusion into sacred land (regardless of the telescopes already present) but fail to see the wonderful opportunities it will provide to local young future Hawaiian scientists to be in the lead of space exploration.

We can learn a lot from the ways of the past: An understanding of the real value of our local resources, and how delicate our environment is. Combining that understanding with advances in technology will lead the path to achieving, or at least to moving closer to becoming a sustainable community/culture.

Aloha.

Rodrigo Romo was a member of the second Biosphere 2 crew. He is currently VP of Engineering for Zeta Corporation, where he is involved in water conservation projects. He lives in Hilo with his family.

Geothermal, History, Lowering Electric Rates

Kuokoa Board Member James Woolsey

James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a board member of Ku‘oko‘a, was in Hawai‘i recently to deliver the keynote address at the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Expo and Summit in Honolulu.

His keynote speech is here; forward ahead to 37:00 to hear it.

A recent Civil Beat article starts:

Hawaii needs to take decisive action in moving away from its dependence on foreign oil and capturing local renewable energy sources to power its energy needs, according to James Woolsey, former CIA director under President Bill Clinton and board member of Kuokoa, the local start-up company that wants to take over Hawaiian Electric Co.

“This will not work, this moving Hawaii into a position of leadership and saving Hawaii from its terrible energy dependence — it will not work without decisive action,” said Woolsey. “One can’t halfway do it.” Read the rest

Though he delivers a very sobering message, Jim also has a great sense of humor. While here he also spoke in Kona, and during that Q&A session, he turned his back, unbuttoned his long-sleeve dress shirt, and untucked it. Then he turned back around to face the audience to reveal his t-shirt.

Tshirt

His t-shirt shows a cartoon figure with a gas nozzle in one ear, which is blowing his brains out the other ear. The audience screamed laughing.

Also while he was here, we took the opportunity to make sure he became culturally familiar with who the Hawaiian people are, and how much importance we at Ku‘oko‘a place on all our people having a good cultural grounding in how the people think.

Greg Chun, president of Kamehameha Investment Group and an expert on the Keauhou/Kona area, met us at Keauhou to give us an orientation.

Cropped group on roof with heiau

Left to right: Ku‘oko‘a Board Member Noe Kalipi; daughter-in-law of Jacqui Hoover; Board Member Jim Woolsey; Jacqui Hoover, President of the Hawai‘i Island Economic Development Board; Kamehameha Schools’ Greg Chun, and Ku‘oko‘a President Ted Peck.

We went up on roof of the Keauhou Outrigger, because from there Jim could see a paranomic view of Keauhou – from the bay to the heiaus and to the hillsides, large expanses that were formerly terraced and planted and which supported many people in pre-contact Hawai‘i.

Heiau

We have had a lot of conversations with Jim about these things we are so grounded in, but to actually see it all and walk it is different than just talking about it. We walked to the heiaus, and out to the ocean.

Heiau - view from roof

Before Jim was a lawyer and high up in government, he studied history. So he knows a lot about civilizations and this was not foreign to him; he understood it immediately. He gets it.

Noe Kalipi, Ted Peck, June and I had a very fun dinner with him the night before his speech. He is a really good guy!

He sees that Hawai‘i is a place where you can scale technology to demonstrate that these things can be done. His whole idea is that we can do this here in Hawai‘i.

He’s like us: We are all committed to making this happen. It’s not an “if.” We must do this.

Geothermal, History, Renewable Energy Sources

My Speech at the Council of Native Hawaiian Advancement Conference

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Noe Kalipi, Ramsay Taum and I – all board members from Ku‘oko‘a – each spoke for five minutes at the Council of Native Hawaiian Advancement conference.

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Noe and Ramsay were just awesome. It’s clear that Ku‘oko‘a is a native Hawaiian company with native Hawaiian sensibilities. The good wishes and warm requests for information were very humbling.

Senator Akaka spoke right before us.

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Here is the speech I gave.

Aloha Everyone,

I am Richard Ha, chairman of the board of Ku‘oko‘a. Ku‘oko‘a is trying to align the needs of the people with the needs of the utility.

I want to start by telling you who I am and what my values are. Mom is Okinawan, Higa from Moloka‘i; Pop’s father was Korean, Ha. My pop’s mom was Leihulu Kamahele. And her mom was Meleana Kamoe Kamahele and her dad was Frank Kamahele. Our family land was down the beach at Maku‘u in Puna. We were very poor but didn’t know it.

Pop would tell stories at the dinner table. He would talk about impossible situations, impossible odds. Then he would pound the table and point in the air. “Not, no can. CAN!”

And he would say, “There are a thousand reasons why no can. I only looking for the one reason why ‘Can.’”

He told us to find three solutions for every problem, and then find one more just in case. He only finished sixth grade, but he was a wise man.

I was a kolohe kid growing up. I went to UH Manoa, where I flunked out. Too many places to go, people to see and beers to drink. I was drafted, and applied to go to Officers Candidate School, and then I volunteered to go to Vietnam. Ended up walking in the jungle with a hundred other soldiers. If we got into trouble there was no one close enough to help us. The unwritten rule was that we all come back, or no one comes back. I liked that and kept that attitude ever since.

I went back to UH and majored in accounting so I could keep score when I went into business. Pop asked if I would come back and help run the family chicken farm. I came back and saw an opportunity to grow bananas, but I had no money.

“Not, no can, CAN!” so we traded chicken manure for banana pulapula. By questioning everything, looking into the future and forcing change we have been able to survive in farming for more than 30 years.

We farm 600 fee simple acres with 60 workers.  Five years ago, we noticed supply costs had been steadily rising, and we found it was all due to oil. I was the only person from Hawai‘i to attend three Peak Oil conferences. I went to learn about oil so that we could position our business.

There I found out that the world had been using twice as much oil as it had been finding for the last 30 years. This is a very serious situation. I am stuck with this knowledge and that knowledge has become my kuleana. I know what is likely to happen and so try to find solutions that are good for all of us.

There are truly Native Hawaiian sensitivities embedded in our Ku‘oko‘a team and organization. The board and the team we have put together are the best we could find. Ramsay Taum and Noe Kalipi are members of our board and we will each say a few words. Board members went to Hilo to participate in the festivities for the seven vaka that came up from the south. We felt that it was important.

Right now there are no guidelines to choose the low-cost, proven technology solution that eases the pressure on the rubbah slippah folks. We can do this. You folks all know the consequence of rising cost of energy, water, school lunches, etc. It is the folks on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder who will get their lights turned off first. Too often they are Hawaiians.

Iceland has managed to make themselves energy secure and food secure. Their electricity costs are less than half of ours. Can we find the solution to our energy problems while taking care of the rubbah slippah folks too? Leaving them behind is not an option. If we search for the solution, if we ask the question, we can find the answer.

In modern Hawaiian history, the economy has taken taken taken and the culture has given, given, given. We have a unique opportunity now where the economy can give and the culture can receive. If we can stabilize energy costs at a low level, as oil prices rise we will become more competitive to the rest of the world and our people’s standard of living will rise. We can address the energy problem and take care of the rubbah slippah folks too.

As Pop used to say: “Not ‘no can;’ ‘CAN!’”

History

Happy 4th, & The Value of Whale Oil

Happy Independence Day to you all.   

Our country has come a long way in 225 years.

From the blog 24/7 Wall St.:

The cost of living in America has gone up about fifteen fold since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Of course, not all prices have risen at the same rate.

The value of coffee has increased fifteen times from its price 234 years ago. This is similar to the decrease in the value of the dollar, based on the purchasing power of a dollar and the consumer price index.

The value of land has risen a great deal in certain parts of the country – particularly those areas that were rural and now are parts of big cities. It was impossible to know 150 years ago that land in New York’s Central Park would be worth several thousand times what it was in 1776. Conversely, products like whale oil, once used to light homes, now have no legal value at all. Powdered wigs have almost certainly dropped in value now that they are out of fashion.  Read the rest

Here’s a chart showing America’s energy consumption (of wood, coal, hydroelectric power, petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear power) from 1776 through 2007.  It will be interesting to see what a similar chart looks like in another 50 or 100 years.

Happy 4th of July!

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Canoe, History, Sustainability, Travel, Where We Live

Sailing On The Haunui

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After writing here about the voyaging canoes that just arrived in Hilo from Aotearoa (New Zealand), I really wanted to go down to the bayfront yesterday to help welcome them.

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There are seven voyaging canoes at Hilo Bay right now. They left Aotearoa in April, led by traditional-style navigators from around the Pacific, on a journey called Te Mana O Te Moana (The Spirit of the Sea). Their voyages, which are being filmed for a documentary, are being made to raise awareness about our ocean environment and the need to care for it.

And of course, their journeys celebrate the revival of traditional navigation.

The official welcoming ceremonies started yesterday morning. There were hakas by some of the voyagers, and speeches of welcome, and more.

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Chad “Kalepa” Baybayan, Navigator-in-Residence at Hilo’s ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, told the crowd that Nainoa Thompson had called from Honolulu that morning, apologizing because he couldn’t be there. He’d been up all night with a sick child, and then just as day broke, his other child had woken up sick.

Nainoa Thompson, of course, is the master Hawaiian navigator who was at the very forefront of bringing back the long-lost art of traditional Polynesian navigation.

The seven vaka/wa‘a/canoes were lined up there in the bay, and seeing them there made me wonder how many times in the distant past there had been similar sights there. Many, I’m sure.

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Lots and lots of people from the community came out to welcome the canoes, and all the local canoe clubs were there, and it was a neat place to be.

After awhile we left, but then a couple hours later we happened to drive past the bayfront again and I could see from Kamehameha Avenue that the wa‘a all had their sails unfurled. “Let’s go see what’s happening now!” I told my 7-year-old, and we turned in.

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They were taking people out on the canoes, that’s what was happening. It was great!

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We hopped in line and got to go for a sail around Hilo Bay on the Haunui, or “Big Wind,” as one of the crew members translated it. It’s the canoe that was crewed by people from several different island nations.

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It turned out that Ka‘iu Kimura, executive director of the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, happened to come along for a ride at the same time as us, and we chatted for a bit. She’s going to be on one of the canoes when it leaves Hilo Tuesday. They will stop at a couple other islands and then she will continue with it until O‘ahu.

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“Are you a canoe person?” I asked her, and she said no, not really, and then told me that she’d sailed with the Hokule‘a back when it voyaged to Japan. That was a month’s journey, and included her getting to meet her Japanese relatives she’d never met before. Wow! What a way to arrive.

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We got to go down below on the canoe and see where they sleep. It’s such a small space. One of the crew members said he thinks the bunks must be 6’4” long, because when he lies down he touches both ends. And they are narrow, as is the walkway between.

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The narrow walkway between the bunks is filled with jugs of fresh water, which you have to walk atop.

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It was so great to get to see the wa‘a. “A once in a lifetime experience!” I overheard a man say into his cell phone, as he told someone about what was going on there.

I totally understood his enthusiasm, but you know what? It really wasn’t something we’re only going to see once. It’s happening a lot now. These and other voyaging canoes are moving around the oceans, and we will keep seeing them.

Traditional Polynesian voyaging, this method of wayfinding and journeying that originated with wise ancestors who lived long, long ago, is back and it’s strong. The new generations are learning it, in different places and on many different islands, and it’s not likely to be lost again.

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Along with these skills of being able to find one’s way across a vast ocean without GPS, and not having to depend on oil, comes a lot of other strengths. It is such a positive thing.

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And getting a glimpse of that yesterday – learning a little bit about what it looks like, feels like and smells like to sail through the water – was a wonderful experience.

It’s great to see that this traditional knowledge is alive and well; and also that it’s such an integral part of the fabric of Hawai‘i (and other Pacific island groups) again.

Canoe, Hawaiian Role Models, History, Sustainability, Travel, Where We Live

They’re Here! Vaka Welcome Ceremonies Are Sunday

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There’s something historic, and very interesting, going on in Hilo this weekend. Do you know about the vaka? The canoes?

Vaka

They are seven Polynesian-style canoes, representing different Pacific Islands, and all built in the last two years for this particular mission. Their crews have spent the past two months voyaging from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Hawai‘i, and Hilo is their first landfall. They arrived yesterday at Hilo Bay.

They are calling their journey Te Mana O Te Moana. “The Spirit Of The Sea.”

“…Several thousand years ago, the Polynesian ancestors traveled the Pacific on great voyaging canoes, called vaka moana, using only the stars, the ocean, and the surrounding wildlife to navigate, and lived closely connected to the sea. In crossing the Pacific from Aotearoa to Hawai’i, we aim to sail in the ancestors’ wake and learn from their wisdom. We want to teach young people about this old bond with the sea.”

Richard went by yesterday, and saw five of them already moored and latched together. “I watched the last two canoes, with their sails down, tie up,” he said. “They had someone blow the conch shell as they approached. People seemed very much aware of the historical nature of this event.

Pua
(Renowned hula master Pua Kanahele)

“The canoe folks stayed on board and some did special ceremonies, ending with each person hugging the rest individually. I left after they all arrived,” he said. “But more and more people were coming by to participate in history being made.”

Patrickk
(Sitting: Patrick Kahawaiola’a, President of the Keaukaha Community Association)

The public is invited to be a part of the official welcoming ceremony on Sunday at Hilo One (“Hilo O-nay.” “One” is the Hawaiian word for sand). Ceremonies at the bayfront beach start at 8 a.m. on the water. Then the vaka will sail to shore, anchor, and come ashore for on-shore activities at 10 a.m., which are scheduled to run through about 2 p.m.

Palekai
(Palekai is the beach park near where the canoes moored yesterday.)

Kalepa Baybayan, Navigator-in-Residence at Hilo’s ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, said that the welcome ceremony is both so the community has a chance to see the seven canoes on the water, and also as an official exhange between our community and the ones arriving. “To formally welcome them to Hawai‘i, and Hilo,” he said.

“It’s a rare event,” he said, “and will probably never happen again in our lifetime. Seven canoes from the south Pacific sailing to Hawai‘i. This is a first.”

From the website:

“We’re sailing across the Pacific to renew our ties to the sea and its life-sustaining strength.  The ocean is the origin of life, and it continues to give us air to breathe, fish to eat, and nourishes our soul as well. As threatened as the ocean is now, however, it soon can no longer provide us with these essential life services.  Sailing together, we seek the wisdom of our ancestors and the knowledge of scientists to keep the Pacific healthy and give our grandchildren a future.”

Sailing across the Pacific on seven vaka is to raise awareness about the state of the ocean developed gradually. Dieter Paulmann, the founder of Okeanos – Foundation for the Sea, has felt a strong connection to the sea for his whole life.

Richard met and had lunch with Dieter the other day, and said they have some things in common. “Mostly around how to deal with finite resources in a way that is beneficial for future generations,” he said.

“Dieter’s using the vaka voyage as a way to educate the people of the world about the urgency of changing our approach,” he said. “We are living in a world of limited resources. We need to utilize our resources in a wise way, in a way that benefits future generations. We all know this deep in our na‘au.”

“I told him that here in Hawai‘i we are trying to maximize the use of geothermal for the benefit of future generations,” he said. “We both agree that people are starting to look at things in a different way. No one feels comfortable about the prospects that one’s children and grandchildren will live a lesser life than we did.

“We need to do what we can to ensure their lives are fulfilling,” he said. “And we can do that, but we need to take action now. I thought to myself, That is why I am involved with Ku’oko‘a. It is a way for our children, grandchildren and future generations to have a better life.”

Before he knew anything about this voyage, Richard wrote these words on the Ku‘oko‘a website: “We are embarking on a great journey, much like the ancient people who sailed to Hawai‘i hundreds of years ago. Like them, we are searching for a better tomorrow for our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We will find the place where the Aloha Spirit can thrive because we go with open hearts and minds.” Kind of fitting and cool, huh?

The Voyage’s Goal:

The vaka will sail to raise attention for the bad state of the Pacific, the crew will transport a message to the world, saying that we have to act now to be able to preserve a healthy ocean for us and our children. Otherwise, if the ocean dies, we die. The crew will carry this message to our conference “Kava Bowl” Ocean Summit 2011 in Hawai’i about the consequences climate change on ocean will have if we go ahead with our business as usual. The crew will participate in the conference, contributing with their experience and their thoughts, learning from other people at the conference at the same time.

The Motto:

The motto for the whole project, which reflects the spiritual thinking in Polynesian culture about the sea, which has the same life-force running through its water as runs through our bodies, and how to treat this precious resource to not disturb Tangaroa, the God of the Sea. The following saying is a poetic way to say “be respectful and gentle:” “Move your paddle silently through the water.”

Here’s a video about how they set up the voyage. Richard commented, “It’s very technically proficient. Looks like the objective is to encourage sailing this way – without using oil.”

Baybayan says this event represents a transfer of knowledge from Hawai‘i, which was really the leader of the modern-day voyaging revival. “It’s a transfer to all these different offspring, these families that have sprung up,” he says. “The seven different canoes represent seven different island groups.”

Read more about some of these islands’ preparations, and their journeys, in these articles from around Polynesia:

Samoa News

Samoa Voyaging Society blog

Fiji Islands Voyaging Society

Cook Island News and also this

Tahiti Times 

Waatea 603AM – Auckland’s Urban Māori Radio & News Station

Does anyone sketch? Check out this great sketch of one of the canoes, and see a challenge to sketch it here in Hawai‘i!

See you down at the Bayfront on Sunday morning? I’ll be there!