Ancient Hawaiian Fish Ponds

I spent a weekend recently at the Fairmont Orchid at the Mauna Lani Resort, and learned that the Kalahuipua'a Fishponds are the spiritual center of the area.  Predating even the earliest Western contact, the ponds are from the days when the land and sea supported the Hawaiian Ali'i (royalty) -- the original inhabitants of the land.

The first true fishponds were probably built during the latter half of the fifteenth century.  And increasingly thereafter as chiefs could command the labor necessary to transport the tons of rock and coral used in the enclosing walls. These ponds, which yielded several hundred pounds of fish per acre annually, were not only feats of engineering technology, but reflected chiefly power and were a major symbol of the intensification of agricultural and aquacultural production. nps.gov

Auburn University

The Hawaiian people practiced the most advanced fish husbandry among the original peoples of the Pacific.  Fishponds (Hawaiian: loko I’a) were typically shallow areas of a reef flat surrounded by a low lava rock wall built out from the shore.  Several species of edible fish such as mullet thrived in such ponds, and methods were developed to make them easy to catch.  The Hawaiian fishpond was primarily a grazing area in which the fishpond keeper cultivated algae; much in the way a cattle rancher cultivates grass for his cattle.  Ponds were fed with cut grass, mussels, clams, seaweeds, and taro leaves. The porous lava walls let in seawater or sometimes fresh or brackish water but prevented the fish from escaping. servinghistory.com

zazzle.com

The ancient Hawaiians and their vast system of fish ponds are one of the foremost examples of successful fish farming in the world. Royal fishponds and ancient walled fish traps were part of the everyday landscape of old Hawaii.  When Captain James Cook reached Hawaii in 1778, there were approximately 360 fishponds producing almost two million pounds of fish per year. uhh.hawaii

The coastal fishponds and their resources were the exclusive property of the district chief and were not a major economic resource to the general population, who were prohibited by kapu from fishing, collecting seaweed, or polluting the pond. 

Joseph Farber

Commoners, especially women, were seldom in the vicinity of royal fishponds. There was little advantage for commoners to live near a pond for fear of breaking the kapu.  (Kapu means forbidden, though it also carries the meanings of sacred, consecrated, or holy.  In ancient Hawaii, kapu refers to the ancient system of laws and regulations.  An offense that was kapu was often a corporal offense, but also often denoted a threat to spiritual power, or theft of “mana.”  Kapus were strictly enforced. Breaking one, even unintentionally, often meant immediate death.)  Possibly after abandonment of the kapu system in the early nineteenth century did the population concentrate more around these ponds because the resources became available to them. www.nps.gov

By 1985 only seven ponds remained in use. It is estimated that the yields from the Hawaiian fishpond systems operating before the arrival of the Europeans would be on par with most contemporary extensive aquaculture systems; yet the traditional Hawaiian fishponds did not receive fertilization from animal or human wastes of any kind.  http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/Research/student_research/fishponds/

I have no idea how many fish ponds are in use today.  I did see notice of a recent study, supported by the National Science Foundation of a project at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, whose goals were “to improve upon current techniques and management practices for marine aquaculture, through a detailed study of historical techniques that were used successfully throughout the Hawaiian Islands.” http://cmbc.ucsd.edu/Research/student_research/fishponds/

nal.usda.gov

With the world's fish populations dwindling at an alarming rate, interest in aquaculture is on the rise.  From the ancient loko iʻa to the advanced aquaculture research facilities at UH Hilo, Hawaii has a long tradition of innovation in this field.  The reemergence of the use of fish ponds may one day be an important source of ecologically sound and sustainable fish production and an important export business for the people and state of Hawaii.

Mark Twain: “The Cherimoya is Deliciousness Itself.”

“We had an abundance of mangoes, papaias and bananas here, but the pride of the islands, the most delicious fruit known to men, cherimoya, was not in season. It has a soft pulp, like a pawpaw, and is eaten with a spoon.”  (Mark Twain, The Sacramento Daily Union, October 25, 1866, Kilauea, June, 1866.)

Ever since I read this quote by Mark Twain almost one year ago (see Monkey Pod Tree) I had been searching out the cherimoya.  We spent this past weekend in the Waipio Valley on the Big Island, considered one of the ten most beautiful valleys in the world, and home to the steepest county road in the nation, at a fund raiser for the Slow Food Organization -- and to my great pleasure, I was given two cherimoyas.

http://skysukai.net78.net/

The taste has been said to be indescribable, or a mixture of banana and pineapple, but to me it seemed slightly pear-like in its flavor.  The texture was of custard.  And, yes it was magnificent!

Even Purdue University had this to say, “Certainly the most esteemed of the fruits of the genus family annonaceae, also called the custard apple family, is the cherimoya.”

The family is comprised of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs or rarely lianas (vines).  With about 2300 to 2500 species and more than 130 genera, it is the largest family in Magnoliales (yes, like the magnolia tree). The family is concentrated in the tropics, with a few species found intemperate regions like the paw-paw in the Midwest of the U.S. which is the largest edible fruit native to America.

The cherimoya is believed indigenous to the interandean valleys of Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia.   In 1790 the cherimoya was introduced into Hawaii by Don Francisco de Paulo Marin. It is still grown in the islands and naturalized in dry upland forests.  http://www.hort.purdue.edu

The flesh of the ripe cherimoya is most commonly eaten out of-hand or scooped with a spoon from the cut open fruit. It really needs no embellishment but some people in Mexico like to add a few drops of lime juice. The skin and seeds are not to be eaten.  Occasionally it is seeded and added to fruit salads or used for making sherbet or ice cream.  The seeds are often crushed and used as an insecticide.

I had read that it was probably apocryphal that Mark Twain really said on tasting his first cherimoya that it was “deliciousness itself,” but entering in Google the words “Mark Twain” and “deliciousness itself” yielded 916 results, and then on page two, I found it!

http://www.feedbooks.com/

“We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of course. Oranges, pine-apples, bananas, strawberries, lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, melons, and a rare and curious luxury called the cherimoya, which is deliciousness itself.”  (Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872)

Two famous botanists from the middle of the 19^th century had this to say about the cherimoya.

Thaddaeus Haenke, geographer and explorer in South America, called it a "masterpiece of nature.”

And, the famous fruit expert and botanist, Dr. Berthold Carl Seemann, who traveled widely and collected and described plants from the Pacific and South America. said, “The pinapple, the mangosteen and cherimoyas are considered the finest fruits in the world, and I have tasted them in the places where they are said to be at their best and reach their highest perfection--the pinapple in Milagro (Ecuador), the cherimoya on the slopes of the Andes and the mangosteen in the Indian Archipelago."  Dr. Seemann's unhesitating choice was reported to be, of course, the cherimoya.

I am not aware of any Hawaiian cherimoya mail order farms, but you can buy them from California growers.  One example is http://www.rain.org.  You indeed owe it to yourself!

Big Island = Big Cattle Ranch

http://www.honokaa.org/

You could probably win many bets on the mainland, especially in Texas, asking people to guess where the largest U.S. cattle ranch in the country’s history was located.  It certainly surprised me to learn that it was in Hawaii and, in fact, right here on the Big Island.

And it is still the largest ranch under a single private owner, and the fifth largest beef producing ranch in the nation.  It is also one of the country’s oldest ranches, with more than 160 years of history.

http://pica-org.org/

This is yet another story involving King Kamehameha I and his impact on Hawaii.  It began in 1809, a single generation after Captain James Cook first encountered the Hawaiian Islands (or the Sandwich Islands as he called them).  It also started very modestly when the British Captain George Vancouver presented Kamehameha with just one bull and five cows 21 years earlier in 1793.

From these animals released on the Big Island, which reportedly arrived in a very beat-up condition, they generated a huge heard of thousands of feral cattle roaming about the Big Island, causing untold problems for the subjects of the great King.  You may recall that David Douglas (for which the Douglas Fir tree is named) fell or was pushed into a “bullock pit” and died in 1834.

So it was that in 1809 King Kamehameha asked John Parker, a 19-year-old New England sailor from Boston (part of the family owning the Parker House Hotel), to round up the wild cows.  His story is fascinating as well --  Parker had jumped ship here in Hawaii and somehow soon came to the attention of King Kamehameha who, in turn, entrusted him with important assignments.  With the help of Hawaiian workers, Parker established a booming beef, tallow and hide business with visiting whalers and sandalwood trading ships.

http://www.bigisland.org/

Due mostly to Parker’s efforts, salt beef eventually replaced the increasingly scarce sandalwood as the island’s chief export. As the need for beef increased, so did his fortune and influence. And in 1815, Parker married Kipikane, the daughter of a high-ranking chief, who bore John a daughter and two sons, and the Parker dynasty began.  http://parkerranch.com/Parker-Ranch/161/history-of-parker-ranch

By 1832, Parker was desperate for help. He worked with King Kamehameha III to contract Mexican vaqueros, expert horsemen with plenty of cattle experience. They arrived with boots and saddles, a new language and a flamboyant new lifestyle for the island. Called “paniolo” (“espanol”) by Hawaiians, these cowboys trained local men to rope and ride 20-30 years before their American counterparts in the Wild West. Their contributions to local culture included the guitar, ukulele and slack key tuning, and a lifestyle of hard work, close-knit family ties and music that thrives to this day.

http://www.kakufm.org/

The beef business boomed and Parker Ranch was born. Over the next century it grew into the world’s largest privately-owned cattle ranch with 150,000 acres raising 30,000 head of prime Angus and Charolais beef cattle. (At its peak it spread over half a million acres.)  And until 1992 the ranch was controlled by a descendent of John Parker, after which the ranch has been governed by the Parker Ranch Foundation Trust.  http://www.bigisland.org/activities-cultural/464/history-of-paniolo-ranching-on-hawaiis-big-island

Today the Parker Ranch is a respected cattle ranch across some 175,000 acres of the Big Island and known for its quality beef, producing 10 million pounds of beef each year and ranking as the fifth largest cow-calf operation in the United States.  http://www.hawaii247.com/2010/06/24/parker-ranch-waives-admission-to-historic-homes-june-26/