For sure the chiefs of old Hawai`i – the highest born, especially – were surrounded by loads of servants to care continuously for their every need including cooking, entertainment of every sort, medicine, traveling, tool-making. You name it. All this privileged attention: even when such a child [...]
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1778. Cook’s first contact with Hawaiians lasts 40-days. Between January 20 to March 2. Enough time to describe the landscape and the “Indians”. There, he easily trades for food: pork, fowl, sweet potatoes (large as a man’s head), yams, kalo, plaintains. So, he loves Kaua’i and Ni’ihau ( [...]
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He’e, or octopus, is the focus word. Although other meanings emerge, giving glimpses how Hawaiians viewed their world. To digress. The native Alahe’e tree was chosen anciently to make o`o or digging sticks – and a weapon when farmers joined in battle so ordered by the chiefs. I let kids handle [...]
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Read THE HAWAIIAN CANOE. In it, Abraham Pi`inaia, U of Hawai`i scholar, grandly wrote that Pacific islanders on canoes embarked on the “…last organized, systematic migration settlement trek in the history of mankind to unknown parts of the earth’s surface.” (pg. vii) That’s genius. Those [...]
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  1778. Kaua`i now found, Capt. J. Cook wants fresh, sweet water – to replace the awful, brackish stuff his crew’s been drinking. On river-rich Kaua’i that should’ve been easy to get, you’d think.   Not so. Cook sends officer Williamson after H2O. But when that shore party beaches, it� [...]
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The neatest photos are in a book about Hale`iwa, a place first settled by Hawaiians in the 1400s. In 1779, Charles Clerke, an officer aboard Capt. James Cook’s expedition ship wrote that Hale`iwa was  “…the most beautiful country as we have seen among these islands…” for its lushness and [...]
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Because of its photos, this book about the Hawaiian cowboy is a pleasurable source of information. The writing in it is terrific too. Learn how Hawaiians reshaped the work of “cowboying” to the rugged terrain of Hawai`i. Also the kaula `ili or lariat, braided in unique styles – learned from th [...]
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1778. Now anchored off Kaua’i and trading with Hawaiians, Capt. Cook worried `bout venereal disease being passed to natives. So, he forbade women aboard his ships and seamen from “meddling” with wahine on shore – particularly those sailors who were infected. Cook hoped for the best as he ha [...]
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Hawaiians took the kapu -- those rules of good behavior -- damned seriously. Even foreigners in 1810 Honolulu couldn't do business until King Kamehameha lifted religious restrictions. During that Kamehameha period, John Papa I`i, as a youngster, was seized by a need to cough -- at the hours that ab [...]
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As told anciently, Fire Goddess Pele is furious at Pig-God Kamapua`a for calling her ugly names. Seeking vengeance, the goddess switches to her lava form and chases after Kamapua`a, aiming to burn him to a crisp. The desperate man changes into a pig thinking that with four legs he can run faster tha [...]
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