Kauai Trails. Kathy Morey
a lot of people. But look at the repeating letter group ale (ah-lay). See the word as “Wai/ale/ale.” So, two “a-le”s prefixed with a wai (the ai merges here)—that makes “wai/a-le/a-le.” Once you’ve identified the repeating groups, the rhythm of the word comes naturally. Try this approach for longer words, including the state fish: humuhumunukunukuapuaa: two “hu-mu”s, two “nu-ku”s, and an “a-pu-a-a.” Now try it: “hu-mu/hu-mu/nu-ku/nu-ku/a-pu-a-a.” …Very good!
Makai and mauka
In Hawaii, local people often give directions or describe the location of a place as makai (merge the ai), which means “toward the sea,” or mauka (merge the au), which means “toward the mountains; inland.” I had a terrible time remembering which was which until I came up with this mnemonic:
Go makai
Where sea meets sky,
and Tom Winnett came up with:
Mauka is toward the MAUntains.
However, I use the terms left, right, north, south, east, and west. I don’t often use mauka and makai in this book, although I find myself increasingly thinking in those terms!
Do your best, with respect
Approach the language with respect, and give it your best shot. Then be prepared to hear local people pronounce it differently. Learn from them. Maybe it’s part of our jobs as visitors to inadvertently provide a little comic relief for those living and working here as opposed to just vacationing here.
Instant Hawaiian (see Bibliography) is a useful booklet that’s a lot less frivolous than its title implies. It begins, “So you’d like to learn to speak Hawaiian—you should live so long!” I felt I’d come to the right place. Look for it when you get to Kauai.
*Remember that Hawaiian evolved as a spoken, not a written, language. Authentic written Hawaiian uses two special marks to indicate other variations on pronouncing vowels in spoken Hawaiian. Those variations change the meaning of a word. One is the glottal stop, indicated by a single quotation mark (‘). It indicates that you should make a complete break in your voice before sounding the vowel that follows it. There really isn’t an English equivalent, though the break in “uh-oh!” is close. Another is the macron mark, which is a straight line over a vowel. It indicates that you should pronounce a vowel as a long sound instead of a short sound. For example, the Hawaiian long-a sound is “ah,” and the Hawaiian short-a sound is “uh.” We have the same sounds in English but don’t use special marks to distinguish between them except in dictionaries. Road signs, topographic maps, and this book don’t use glottal stops or macron marks.
Geology and History, Natural and Human
First, the earth
According to the theory of plate tectonics, the earth consists of:
A rigid, rocky outer shell, the lithosphere (“rocky zone”)
Beneath the lithosphere, a hot, semifluid layer, the asthenosphere (“weak zone”)
A core that doesn’t play a part in this oversimplified discussion.
The lithosphere is broken into plates that move with respect to each other. Hot, fluid material, possibly from the asthenosphere or melted by contact with the asthenosphere, penetrates up through the lithosphere at three kinds of places:
Mid-oceanic ridges, where plates spread apart
Subduction zones, where plates collide and one dives under the other (subducts)
Hot spots, where a plume of molten material appears in the middle of a plate.
Next, the land
It’s believed that the Hawaiian Islands exist where the Pacific Plate, on which they ride, is moving northwest across a hot spot. An undersea volcano is built where the plate is over the hot spot. If the volcano gets big enough, it breaks the ocean’s surface to become an island. Eventually, the plate’s movement carries the island far enough away from the hot spot that volcanism ceases on that island. Erosion, which began the moment the new island appeared above the sea, tears the land down.
The Hawaiian Islands are successively older toward the northwest and younger toward the southeast. Northwestern islands, like Laysan, are hardly more than bits of volcanic rock now. Southeastern islands, including the major Hawaiian Islands, are still significant chunks of land. In geologically recent times, including today, the big island of Hawaii is the youngest and the farthest southeast of the major islands; Kauai is the oldest and the farthest northwest of the major islands.
The molten material—lava—characteristic of Hawaiian volcanoes is relatively fluid. The fluidity of the lava allows it to spread widely, and repeated eruptions produce broad-based, rounded volcanoes called “shield volcanoes.” The volcano expels not only flowing lava but volcanic fragments such as cinder and ash. Alternating layers of these materials build up during periods of volcanic activity. Erosion has sculpted the exotic landscapes we associate with tropical islands. Waves pound the volcano’s edges, undercutting them and, where the volcano slopes more steeply, forming cliffs like those of the Na Pali Coast. Streams take material from higher on the volcano, cutting valleys into its flanks and depositing the material they carry as alluvium, like the alluvial apron at the mouth of Kalalau Valley. New episodes of volcanism wholly or partly fill in those landscapes, and erosional forces immediately begin sculpting the new surface as well as the remaining older surface.
Earth began building the great shield volcano of Kauai about 6 million years ago, so Kauai is a mere infant in geological terms, compared to an Earth over 4 billion years old. Kauai’s initial period of activity, when the shield volcano was built, apparently ended about 3 million years ago. A quiescent period about 1.5 million years long followed; then a period of renewed volcanic activity began about 1.5 million years ago. New lavas then flowed over the eastern two-thirds of Kauai.
The last lava flow on Kauai is believed to have occurred on its southern shore near Poipu some 40,000 years ago. Erosion reigns now, changing the landscape constantly.
Life arrives
Living organisms colonize new land rapidly. In Hawaii, plants established themselves once there was a little soil for them. Seeds arrived on the air currents, too, or floated in from the sea, or hitched a ride on the feathers or in the guts of birds. Insects and spiders also took advantage of the air currents. Birds were certainly among the first visitors. Living things found little competition and quickly adapted to their new home, evolving into an astonishing variety of species many of which occur naturally only on the Hawaiian islands (“endemic to Hawaii”). The only mammals to arrive were the bat and the seal. Some birds became flightless—a fairly common adaptation on isolated islands with no ground predators.
Graceful palms along the shoreline
People arrive
It’s unlikely that the site of the very first human colony in the Hawaiian Islands will ever be found. Too much time has passed; too many destructive forces have been at work. However, recent archaeological work has established that people had settled in Hawaii by 300–400 A.D., earlier than had previously been thought. Linguistic studies and cultural artifacts recovered from sites of early colonization point to the Marquesas Islands as the colonizers’ home; the Marquesas themselves seem to have been colonized as early as 200 B.C.
The colonizers of Hawaii had to adapt the Marquesan technology to their new home. For example, the Marquesans made distinctive large, one-piece fishhooks from the large, strong pearl shells that abounded in Marquesan waters. There are no such large shells in Hawaiian waters, so the colonists developed two-piece fishhooks made of the weaker materials that were available in Hawaii (such as bone and wood). Over time, a uniquely Hawaiian material culture developed.
At one time, scholars