Hawaiian Roots

Pre-lūʻau photo in front of this stunning house in Moanalua. No date or other details.

Update: The photo is referenced in the book “The Hawaiian Calabash” by Irving Jenkins. “The thatched Hawaiian house was a private museum on the grounds of [Samuel] Damon’s estate at Moanalua, Oahu. … The posts hewn from trees and the limbs or branches which serve as beams are bound together by a cord fashioned of plant fibers, and not a single nail has been employed in the construction.”

One of my favorites photos… that looks somewhat like a painting? Kahakuloa in the distance. Based on the angle, I believe the fisherman was on Molokai. What do you think?

Imagining the number of canoes that must have been seen from here to inspire so many engravings of these crab claw shaped sails…

In this petroglyph field on the island of Hawaiʻi, there are about 155 petroglyphs of crab claw sails among a sea of approximately 480 total petroglyphs at Kaʻūpūlehu, next to the cultural center at Kona Village Resort.

“You think about the location. It was a place where they could safely enter the bay to rest,” Kumu Wela, the cultural manager, said. “This could have been the greenest or most abundant of foliage, which means water under us. … There could have been lots of hala trees. Hala was the material of choice to weave to make these sails. Or for trade or barter. The families on this coast here actually made salt.”

The last photo, she says, is of a kite. They were used as tools “by our sailors because they need to check the wind speed and things like that.” And, she says, it could have been used for kite fishing. “They were survivalists. They were creative. I believe our people were geniuses.”

1, 2, & 3: Lāhainā, watercolor and pencil by James Sawkins, 1855. (That’s Waineʻe church, Mokuʻula island surrounded by Mokuhinia fishpond.)

4. Lāhainā coconut grove wood engraving from a daguerreotype by B. Jay Antrum, 1856

5. Lāhainā illustration by Charles Nordhoff, 1875

Zoom in for detail.