Fishermen and Farmers of Hawaii

Man with a Yoke Carrying Taro 
by Joseph Strong, oil on canvas board,
1880, Honolulu Museum of Art.
Taro, or Hawaiian kalo, was one of
the primary staples in Ancient Hawaii.

        Out of the southwest Pacific long ago sailed great wooden canoes carrying explorers and their families who had left their island homeland and were looking for new islands where they could live. The men paddled the big boats and the wind filled out the matting sails shaped like lobsters' claws.

       These explorers finally settled on a little group of islands which they named “Hawaii” after the land from which they had come. Their new home had high mountains with wooded slopes, and green valleys with clear streams. White-capped waves lapped on the beaches of sand and coral.

       The men and boys spent much time fishing. They used round nets with little stone weights around the edges, or sometimes they stood on the rocks and speared fish, or sat and dangled a line with a gleaming shell hook on the end. The octopus could be caught by poking a stick into its cave under the water. It would wrap its arms around the stick and then could be easily pulled from its den. These seafoods and the pigs and chickens that the people raised provided plenty of meat.

       The explorers had brought with them and planted seeds and roots of sweet potatoes, yams, taro, bananas, breadfruit, and coconuts. To make “poi,” the main food of the Hawaiians, taro roots were steamed until they were soft and then were pounded into a mash. This was fermented, thinned out with water, and served in a polished wooden bowl. The people dipped their fingers into the sticky “poi” and then neatly licked them clean. Breadfruit, roasted and peeled, tasted like fresh bread. The milk of coconuts made a refreshing drink, and the grated meat mixed with water was strained to make a creamy sauce for fish.

       The men cooked the food in big ovens dug in the ground. The meat or vegetables, wrapped in large green leaves, were put in the hole, covered with hot coals and earth, and left until they were well baked. The meal was served in wooden platters and bowls, or in dishes made of coconut shells or gourds. The people ate in the front yard, sitting on woven mats in front of a table of green leaves spread on the ground.

       The climate was so warm and sunny that they wore very few clothes, just loincloths or short skirts made of leaves or of tapa cloth. They made tapa from the inner bark of young paper mulberry trees, soaked until it was soft. With sticks they beat the bark into sheets and then painted designs on them. The chiefs and noble people wore wonderful mantles made of hundreds of yellow and red feathers. On the beaches were shells which could be strung into necklaces. Bright feathers or sweet-smelling flowers were made into bracelets and necklaces, called “leis.”

       The people were out of doors most of the day and the square one-room house was usually used just for a place to sleep. The walls and roof were covered with grass. There were no windows at all and the doorway was so small that grown people had to bend over to go through it. The one big room was quite bare except for a wooden platform on which woven mats were spread for beds. There was little light in the room, but often the people burned oily candle-nuts threaded on a string or a twig, or used stone lamps with candle-nut oil and tapa wicks.

       Everyone knew how to swim and often there were swimming races and fancy diving. One of the favorite sports was surfboard riding. The riders pushed their long thin boards out through the breaking waves, then, standing on the board, rode in to shore on the crest of a great breaker. Sometimes whole teams of riders raced to shore in this manner, or they had races in wooden dugout canoes. The Hawaiians liked to bowl with round stones and sometimes they slid down the grassy hills on wooden sleds.

       There were dances, called “hulas,” where trained dancers acted out stories, singing as they danced. These were the stories of long ago, of the gods and heroes, and of the origin of the people. The older people sat on the sidelines playing wooden or gourd drums and singing the chorus of the songs.

       But all this life has changed. Since 1778, when Captain Cook and his followers landed on the Hawaiian Islands, more and more people have gone there to live—Americans and English, Spanish and Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese. All have brought their customs and ways of living to the islands and the Hawaiian natives have adopted many of these ways and given up some of their old ones. Elizabeth McM. Hambleton

Fishing and Eating Like Ancient Hawaiians.