Incredible Hawaii. Terence Barrow

THE INCREDIBLE IS A PART OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND tradition-and our 50th State is certainly no exception. This unique little book, incredible in its own way, brings together the talents, knowledge and experience of two well-known Hawaiian residents, artist-illustrator Ray Lanterman and author-anthropologist Terence Barrow.

Whatever their subject, the authors sail along with justifiable confidence, opening to the reader, page after page, vistas of a little-known Hawaii. At times light-hearted, at other times serious, it is always a readable and lookable book.

The authors delight in the unusual fact, whether it be Oahu’s marvelous and unusual water system, song-making monarchs, or skiing on real snow on the slopes of Mt. Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Pacific area, reaching 13,796 feet above sea level-and this is the essence of their book.

Tourists and residents alike will find Incredible Hawaii a source of much pleasure which will lead them to a greater awareness of these utterly fascinating islands.

Acknowledgments

THE AUTHORS, BOTH WRITER AND ARTIST, WISH TO acknowledge the help they have received in the making if this book. Mr. Charles E. Tuttle conceived the idea if Incredible Hawaii, then arranged for the book to become a reality.

The authors wish to thank Mrs. R. A. Apple (better known to readers in Hawaii as Peg Apple) for reading the manuscript and for making suggestions for changes,· and Mrs. K. A. Jordan, also if Honolulu, for typing the manuscript in a creative way. Mr. Robert E. Van Dyke, Hawaiiana collector and historian, lent valuable documents and gave if his wide experience. Mr. Joseph Feher of the Honolulu Academy if Arts kindly checked the illustrations. Thanks are also due for permission to quote from the popular song ‘’My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua Hawaii” (Copyright 1933, Miller Music Corporation: copyright renewed 1961, Miller Music Corporation). For the.finished book, whatever its shortcomings, the authors assume full responsibility. Their aim is to provide an accurate yet light-hearted glimpse if some unusual and little known aspects if incredible Hawaii, hoping that the traveller will be entertained and the reader made more aware if these remarkable islands.

1 A Hawaiian story of creation

AN ANCIENT HAWAIIAN CREATION CHANT CALLED THE “Kumulipo” tells of the emergence of life out of cosmic darkness. In poetic terms it relates a story of evolution resembling the general concept of modern biology which is far from the Calvinist missionary doctrines that replaced it, namely that Adam and Eve and the world were created in a flash about five thousand years ago. Traditional Hawaiian thinking was more advanced on the subject.

The Hawaiians believed in Po, the fecund cosmic night in which was created the primitive forms of life such as coral animals, sea-urchins, barnacles and mollusca in general. The higher animals such as fish, reptiles and birds followed. Man and the gods emerged with Ao, the cosmic day which spread light, both physical and mental, over the world.

The primal parents of man, gods and islands were Papa, the Earth Mother, and Wakea, the Sky Father. Like the gods of Greek mythology, Papa and Wakea had their domestic troubles, mainly because Wakea took other wives. However, the Earth Mother also had a lover.

Interpreted symbolically, the “Kumulipo” offers a poetic story of creation in advance of European acceptance of the idea of evolution in the natural world, and it taught the relatively late advent of mankind.

2 Hawaiian origins and navigational skills

WHO ARE THE HAWAIIANS AND WHERE DID THEY COME from? How did they find these islands? When did they find them? These questions Hawaiian scholars have asked themselves with varying answers. Captain Cook puzzled over them when he found the Hawaiians speaking the same tongue as the Polynesians below the equator.

The endeavors of archaeologists, particularly of the Bishop Museum, give us a picture of settlement, not yet complete, that affords a view of the main events. The comparative study of artifacts such as adzes and fishhooks in relation to Polynesian voyaging and other features of the culture suggest the first of Hawaii’s settlers came from the Marquesan Islands about the 7th century, followed by dominant, militaristic immigrants from the Society Islands about 500 years before Captain Cook’s introduction of Western culture in 1778-79.

Polynesian navigators had no instruments to determine longitude and latitude but they knew which stars stood over each island. Wind patterns, ocean currents, bird flight, cloud formations and, above all, stars guided their paths. Large sea-going canoes made voyages of settlement bearing men, women, children, hogs, dogs, chickens, tools, seeds, roots and cuttings.

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