12) Along with the omnipresent flowers and foliage, Hawaii is also filled with songbirds. Unfortunately few of these are native. In fact, Hawaii is one of the most threatened places on earth for loss of native flora and fauna. On the southernmost tip of the Big Island, we watched dozens of mongooses slithering across the roads, an introduced critter that has decimated local populations of birds. And the state bird, nene, an endangered and odd creature who most often appears only in the New York Times daily crossword puzzles, is the world's only goose with talon-like feet (all the better for running on the lava flows).
13) If you're like us, and spelling has always been a problem, we now know why. Hawaii is to blame. Secretly for the last few centuries the Hawaiian language has been stealing all the vowels. Take for example the major city of Molokai, Kaunakakai60 percent vowels! Or the island of Kauai, a word that is 80 percent vowels. Streets all over Hawaii are a mainlander's nightmare in trying to remember their names due to the profusion of vowels. It's no wonder I keep havng dffculties spllng.
14) Pineapples: now here is something that made us all feel like bumpkins from the sticks: we didn't have a clue how pineapples grew. When we first saw pineapple fields with their bushy, short pointed-leaf plants, we thought perhaps pineapples were dug up like potatoesthere just didn't seem to be any on the plants. When we finally stopped at the pineapple demonstration field in a triangular shaped patch at the junction of several roads, we saw that they grow like little torches being lifted from the center of the plant. According to one piece of literature, a pineapple plant will only produce two pineapples, the first taking two years to mature, the second maturing the year after. Some of our Hawaiian friends disagree, saying each pineapple takes two years.
15) Dance: the graceful dancing is reminiscent of the motion of the major island elementsthe sea and the wind. It is grace itself. It tells a story. It speaks of being Hawaiianremembering a way of life and the core values of Hawaiian life. It is a way of sharing in movement, joy , music and story. Since ancient times there have been several "schools" of dance, each unique. But what is shared by all is the fact that every part of the dancer's body is integral to telling the story: eyes, expressions, and finger tips.
At the Taro Festival many "sisters (or brothers) in hula" were called to the front to dance in their jeans and tees with the costumed dancers. Special dances and songs had been composed to honor dancers, teachers and legends of dance.
We wonder at the comparison between Alaskan Eskimo dancing with its firmly planted feet, rhythmic bounce, and sharp hand and arm movements timed with a skin head drum shaped like a large tambourine. Again, the dance tells a story. It reflects the environmentcold with the few resources available on the tundra. Dancing was traditionally done in small enclosed spaces where dancers and viewers were crowded together to keep warm. Small movements would have been necessary.
The first place we saw traditional Hawaiian dancing was at the Bishop Museum. We smelled the dancer before we saw her, decked out with fragrant Plumeria blossomsdelicate white with deep yellow centers, the first gentle assault on our senses. She floated onto the stage, and danced while "kumu" told the stories of the dance and explained the difference between the formal religious dance during which the dancer did not smile, and the dances for joy during which the dancer smiles as she told her story. Kumu played a ukulele (a Portuguese import) and a double chambered gourd drum that was slapped and hit on the ground to give different sounds, from the deep echo created by a thump on the ground, to the higher pitched slapum-pat, um-pat-pat.
She also told about "boat days" in the old days of elegant steamershappening as late as the '50's and '60's. People would paddle out to meet the ships at Diamond Head where steamship passengers would toss coins to boys in the water. Hawaiian dancers and musicians would climb on board and entertain until the ship reached the dock at Honolulu, and women would greet everyone with leis.
16) Ukulele: One can't think of Hawaii without thinking about the ukulele, which of course leads you to think about Tiny Tim, but that's getting way off track. The ukulele means literally "jumping flea" and is adapted from a Portuguese instrument called the braguinha that arrived on a ship in Hawaii in 1879.
17) Art: we noted that there were similarities in Southeast Alaskan Native art and Native Hawaiian art. We were most struck by a carved meat platter in the Bishop Museum from the early 19th century that had human forms at both ends. Its inlay work, big-eyed style on the humans, and shape are very similar to a huge potlatch bowl in the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.
18) Hawaiian Gods: ancient Hawaiians had many gods and goddesses. A few of these include: Kane, the creator of heaven, earth and the things that fill them. Ku, the god of war and human sacrifice. Lono, god of peace, agriculture, fertility and sports. Kanaloa, god of the ocean and ocean wind. Pele, the volcano god. Laka, god of the hula. Gods in total are called "akua." The temples built to honor these gods were called heiau, and were filled with god-images, or tikis, carved from local woods.
19) Houses: as a rule, Hawaiian houses have no insulation, no air conditioning. They are bare shelters from the elements with lots of screens and louvered glass windows for catching the cooling breezes that blow though. Everyone we visited had lots of vegetation around their homesbeautiful trees, bushes and other plants bearing flowers and fruit--avocados, bananas, coconuts, macadamias, breadfruit, the list is endless. They also come equipped with geckos, chameleons, ants and other small wildlife. Our friend Bill had a great defense for his sugar bowl: a water-filled moat!
20) Kauai is famous for its red dirt. Of all the islands, it seems to have the most pronounced supply of this ubiquitous stuff. It gets into everything, especially clothes, and never comes out. Some island entrepreneurs started the "Red Dirt Shirt Company" making red-dirt colored tee shirts to sell.
Kauai is known as the "Garden isle"it is the oldest of all the islands. But we were surprised to see that it has such a variety of climates that in truth, plant life ranges from cactus on the nearly desolate west side, to the lush rain forest trees and vines of the south. In between it's mostly cane and coffee fields--or grazing areas for cattle.
Kauai should also be famous for its wild chickensespecially its beautifully colored (but noisy and stupid) roosters. These guys not only crow at dawn, they crow at moonlight (and when the moon plays hide-and-seek with the clouds this is really fun) and headlights and porch lights. They roost in trees and hide under porches. They can be seen at the beach or backyards or in state parks.
We had one particularly 'ornery' fowl who liked to tip-talon up to our bedroom window and bellow out his morning chant at about 4 a.m. George and Samantha decided to fix him, so they chased him around the yard one morning, cornered him and scared the dickens out of his scrawny frame. The next morning he returned and got even by setting off his alarm at 3 a.m.
|