Video
Changing Traditions in Hawaiian Rock Art: Examples From Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park
Transcript
Karen: We're going to move on to our next presentation by Stanley Bond. He's going to be talking about changing traditions in Hawaiian rock art, examples from Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park. I'll just introduce him very quickly.
After contact, Hawaiians very soon incorporated European goods into their material culture. Items that were especially sought after by the Hawaiian chiefs, or Ali'i, included weapons and ships to transport large numbers of warriors. These objects were described by native Hawaiian historians in their writings, and incorporated in both traditional and non-traditional ways into Hawa iian rock art. Analysis of specific images, such as ships, cannons, and muskets, and placing these images within the larger context of petroglyph panels in Hawaiian interpretation of their history provide insight into the cultural significance of these newly acquired European items.
Dr. Bond is the NPS Chief Archeologist, and he is also the Department of the Interior consulting archeologist. Bond has worked on prehistoric and historic archeological sites throughout the East, Southeast, Caribbean, and Hawaii. He was an archeologist for the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board, and the US Army Environmental Center. We are very pleased to have him in the Washington Office because he has field experience. He was integrated resource manager for Kaloko-Honokohau. He was also superintendent of Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, and superintendent of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Thanks very much for speaking with us today, Stan.
Stan: Aloha, everyone. Please feel free to ask questions on this presentation as I go through. I kind of feel like I should have had some laulau or lomi-lomi salmon and poi before I started this today, but it was a little hard to find in Washington, so I guess I'll have to do without it.
I wanted to start out, too, by thanking Ed and Diane Stasack, who were the recipients of the Donald Crabtree Award this year at the Society for American Archaeology for their work in recording petroglyphs. They did the petroglyph recordation at Kaloko, which is the basis of this paper. Also, to thank Victor Martin who was the archeologist at Kaloko-Honokohau who worked with the state sites at the time, and is now the archeologist at the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail.
I want to start with a quote from a native Hawaiian historian, Steven Desha. This quote comes from when Captain Cook came into Kealakekua Bay, and Kamehameha at the time was one of the first people that actually boarded Captain Cook's ship. Desha says of this, "It was not only the size of the ship that Kamehameha appreciated, but he compared the weapons of war aboard the foreign ship with their weapons. The long spear, the fighting staff, and some other war materials, and compared them with the great cannon, and the flashing swords of the foreigners, and the small guns which flashed like lightning. Therefore, Kamehameha and Kekuhaupi'o well understood how superior these foreign weapons were, and they became objects of desire. They were later acquired by him, and were a great assistance of his conquest of the kingdom."
For hundreds of years the Hawaiian Ali'i raised warrior armies and vied for dominance over each of the four major Hawaiian islands. At least by the 17th century, if not before, we also saw the development of inter-island warfare, where Ali'i on one island tried to conquer another.
By the arrival of Captain Cook in 1778, all of the four major Hawaiian islands, Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai were ruled by Ali'i nui, or paramount chiefs. Their armies remained large, however, to attack or defend during inter-island raids, and to keep rebellious chiefs in place.
While Cook's initial encounters with the Hawaiians were positive, eventually the Hawaiians tired of supplying Cook's ships, and Captain Cook was killed in a skirmish at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii. However, his voyage opened the Hawaiian islands to European expansion.
The arrival of Europeans tipped the technological balance of warfare, and allowed one chief, Kamehameha, to first take over as Ali'i nui of Hawaii island, and then complete the conquest of all of the Hawaiian islands by 1810, and establish the kingdom of Hawaii, which remained until the United States took over in the late 19th century.
This paper will focus on the incorporation of European weapons, and Europeans themselves, who were used as weapons trainers, into Hawaiian culture as seen through changing petroglyph images. Three sources will be used. The first is the he Histories written by native Hawaiians in the 19th and early 20th Century. Primarily, The histories written, "The Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii", written by Samuel Kamakau; "Kamehameha And His Warrior Kekuhaupi'o" by Stephen Desha; and "Fragments of Hawaiian History", by John Papai'i. The second source will be the documentation of several petroglyph fields located within Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, on the central west coast of the island of Hawaii. I don't know if you can… Can everybody see the pointer on here? If so, you can see Kaloko is right here, kind of in the middle of the Big Island on the west coast. This is the park itself. The petroglyph fields that we're talking about are down here at the south end of the park.
Karen: Stan, if you want to go down to the bottom of the screen, there's an arrow pointing to a red dot. That's your pointer.
Stan: Yeah.
Karen: You just click on that, and then you can move it around.
Stan: Okay. Here's Kaloko-Honokohau on the west coast. You can see kind of in the center of the west coast, and then here's the park itself. This is the area, the petroglyph field, we were working with. These fields depict European ships’ cannons, muskets, and associated Hawaiian words pecked onto the pahoehoe lava. While much recordation has been carried out by Ed and Diane Stasack, as well as earlier researchers, the dense vegetation within the park continues to cover many potential petroglyphs. Undoubtedly, more significant petroglyphs will discovered in the future. Then finally, for the third source, information gleaned from local native Hawaiian informants will fill in important cultural and linguistic details.
It is the contention of this paper that Hawaiian Ali'i, acting as agents of their own culture, incorporated European weapons, and a limited number of European trainers into their society to achieve Hawaiian conquest goals. The depiction of these objects as petroglyph images are an indication of their acceptance and incorporation into broader Hawaiian culture. Hawaiians were active players rather than passive participants in their interactions with Europeans in order to further Hawaiian aims and ambitions. I want to emphasize again that Hawaiians were not passive in this role in their interactions with Europeans. They were very active in all of those interactions, and in what it was that they wanted to acquire from the Europeans. Also within the trade networks that were eventually established.
Before, though, I get into the discussion of petroglyphs, I want to give some context to the Hawaiian islands geography and culture. The Hawaiian islands lie at the norther tip ... Up here ... Of what's known as the Polynesian triangle. You can see Hawaii up here, New Zealand at the south end, and Easter Island out at the far western tip of what's known as the Polynesian triangle, and all of these islands in between. It's a huge area in the Pacific. A vast ocean with relatively small land masses in between big distances. Hawaii lies, it's about 1,600 miles from the next inhabited island, and 2,500 miles from a continental land mass, which makes it one of the most isolated places in the world, and also one of the last places settled by humans.
The Hawaiian islands are geologically new. In their pre-settlement state, they contained few land animals or useful agricultural plants. To get to Hawaii, plants and animals had to either float, fly, or swim. Polynesian voyagers settled Hawaii over 1,000 years ago, crossing vast ocean distances in double hulled canoes, and bringing with them their language, culture, and plants and animals they needed to establish themselves on a new island. This occurred over and over again across the whole area of Polynesia.
The basic settlement pattern in Hawaii, and other parts of Polynesia, is the ahupua'a, which is a relatively thin slice of land that runs from the top of a volcano - top of the mountain - down to the coast, and takes in many environmental zones. A group of ahupua'a would be linked as a district and overseen by a minor chief. Districts would be incorporated into larger units ruled by an Ali'i nui, or a paramount chief. The Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park falls just within the coastal zone of, actually, two ahupua'a.
Geologically, the park surface contains three lava flows that originated from Hualalai Volcano. The earliest is a pahoehoe base, which is 10,000 years old, and contains most of the petroglyphs. You can see what pahoehoe lava looks like down here on the bottom of this slide. The other two are a'a flows that are 5,000 and 2,200 years old, respectively. The last eruption from Hualalai was in 1801, and its history of eruptions is that it erupts about every 500 years. You can see how rough and coarse the a'a is. I lost a lot of boots walking across a'a in this park.
The park contains a number of important cultural features, such as fish ponds. This is the Kaloko fishpond, which was in the process of restoration. It's now been completely restored.
Large household sites with massive household platforms. You can see this wall around this house site. This large platform here. There are other platforms, as well, that are located within this complex.
Heiau, which are basically temple platforms, and there are a number of heiau platforms within the park. This one is adjacent to A'iopio fishpond.
Burial crypts and cemeteries, this particular crypt has been, told us as being of the style that was used for burying warriors after a battle. It's very interesting, if you look at the stones that line the base of the crypt, they all are kind of pointed up almost with shoulders at the end of the stones themselves, or individuals, they might have been representative of individuals.
The park has a large, possibly would be considered a double, holua. Which is a rock slide that was used for competitions between ali'i. It'd take a little while to explain it. It was a pretty rough way to compete against another person.
There's a large trail system that runs through all of the ahupua'a, and trails went in two directions. They went up the mountain to the various environments that you can find within an ahupua'a. They also cut across ahupua'a to connect different ones, one to another.
To give you a little context, too, on petroglyphs, petroglyphs have a long history in Hawaii, and they show a general evolutionary trend over time, from linear torso figures here to fuller bodies - these are some forms that we actually found in the park that aren't found in a lot of other areas - eventually to these triangular shaped bodies. Often we find them with muscular arms and legs. In general, anthropomorphic figures are depicted much more frequently than material objects. We do have, of course, material objects, as well, but the tendency is to depict anthropomorphic figures more often.
Petroglyphs may be pecked, chipped, or ground into the surface where they are applied, and are found on flat pahoehoe surfaces, upright pahoehoe slabs, chilled lava surfaces, and in caves. It is not always clear how or why certain places were chosen to place petroglyphs. Petroglyph fields, at times, appear to be associated with political boundaries, or major trails, however, they may not necessarily represent boundaries or trail markers. Petroglyphs are a permanent record of Hawaiian culture. As well, petroglyphs reflect the values of the petroglyph maker at the time petroglyphs were made. I think it's something important that we have to keep in mind when we start to interpret petroglyphs, is that they represent the values of the petroglyph maker at the time that they were made. It makes it more difficult, then, for us to interpret. While this presentation mainly cites single petroglyph images, petroglyphs need to be studied in the context of the entire associated petroglyph field.
Now I want to start talking about these Historic Era petroglyphs, and I want to start with European ships. European ships have been documented at Kaloko-Honokohau from several locations, and they vary in detail, size, and style of the ship. I did have a maritime historian try to help me out, in terms of determining what the ship images might represent in terms of ship styles.
This is a very detailed petroglyph of a ship, which is probably a brig. You can see some of the internal compartments. You can see whoever did this petroglyph knew a little bit about ships, because they knew the mast went all the way down to the base. You can see the rudder. You can see sails, rigging, a whole variety of interesting details about this particular ship.
Here's another ship, which may be a brig or a sloop. This one has a topsail that you can see up here on the top. You can see the rudder.
Another image of a topsail sloop.
Again, another potential sloop. A little less detailed. An unidentified ship, again, a little bit less detail on this ship, but clearly a ship of European origin.
Then we have images of ships which are deconstructed. Here we have a ship's hull, and then we have kind of a deconstructed rigging above the ship.
As well, we have more complex ship images. Here we have a conflation of a ship, and anthropomorphic figure, and a papamu. Papamu were once thought to be game boards for the strategic game of konane. However, I believe they served a more complex function, and could be viewed in a way like graph paper, with coordinates that might represent spatial relationships. As well, it could be used to serve accounting function. You can clearly see here, up here in the rigging, the anthropomorphic figure.
Again, another conflation of a very detailed ship with a papamu. This is a really typical style papamu, and an anthropomorphic figure up here, where we might think that the figure head on a ship might be. Much more typical, though, of what a Hawaiian figure might be. Again, an interesting blending of both European objects and Hawaiian imagery, as well, and Hawaiian objects.
Early in the period of European contact, ships were sometimes captured or commandeered. Kamakau stated that - this was a very famous capture of a specific ship, the capture of the sloop, 'Fair American' - was made this way, "They went on board and killed the five men of the crew, and wounded Captain Davis. Among the things obtained from the sloop was a cannon, which the natives call Laupaka, and a number of musket swords, axes, powder, and clothing. These things were taken before Kamehameha, together with the prisoner, and Kamehameha made Isaac Davis his friend, as he had John Young. Great with his joy to find himself provided not only with foreign implements of war, but with the men to use them."
Isaac Davis was brought into Hawaiian society, but was eventually poisoned by a group of lesser Ali'i. John Young, on the other hand, was a bit more politically astute, and he eventually received a large piece of land from Kamehameha. It's house site sits within the boundaries of Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site. Kamehameha actually gave one of his nieces to John Young as a wife, and John Young's granddaughter was Queen Emma, the wife of Kamehameha IV. She was also a potential heir to the throne of the Hawaiian kingdom. You can see how influential, even as a European, he became in Hawaiian society.
Later, European ships were obtained through trade, purchase, or construction by Hawaiians. John Papai'i says that "The Hawaiians had already begun to build ships like those of the foreigners, for they were superior to canoes. The idea was a good one, and their ships were well built, but they lacked the skills to sail them in the ocean."
Hawaiians' ownership of ships allowed the Ali'i to participate in trade activities, such as sandalwood trade with China, and the fur industry along the American Northwest coast. Again, Hawaiians became not passive consumers but active participants in world commerce at this time. Part of their problem was that they didn't have experts to be able to sail the ships, and they often had to hire European ship captains.
European ships became critical in taking large numbers of warriors and weapons on inter-island wars of conquest. I have two quotes from Desha. "Kalanikupule immediately began preparing himself. He sent two ships equipped with foreign weapons. These ships were Jackall, [which in Hawaiian was ‘Kekalaka’] and Prince Lee Boo, [or ‘Pelinikapeo’] under Captain Brown, Kalanikupule's foreign friend."
All of these Ali'i were looking at picking up these foreigners to help them. "The ships had large guns, and there were warriors on board who had been instructed in the use of muskets by Captain Brown."
Then, later, about Kamehameha, "Before his idea of taking war to Kauai, Kamehameha had gotten a very large ship named 'Lily Bird', on which were mounted 20 large cannons."
These ships became very important in the ability of Hawaiian chiefs to spread their warriors, and take their war to other islands. Cannons were another object that became very important within the context of warfare and conquest in the Hawaiian islands. Again, from Desha, "A valuable object was gotten from this little two masted schooner [which he's talking about the Fair American], which was a large cannon, which was afterwards named Lopaka."
Again, notice that they're naming the objects. "... And was one of the famous guns used later in Kamehameha's conquest."
Kamakau states, as well, "The Kauai forces where Wahiawa, where a fort had been hastily erected in a single cannon named Humehume, mounted as a feeble attempt to hold back the enemy."
Again, I want to stress the fact that they're taking these objects, and they're giving them names as if they're more than objects. Although it seems that in warfare, we often name artillery pieces so we can …not only Hawaiians, but military men all over the world.
One petroglyph field at Kaloko-Honokohau contains five images of cannons.
In this field, one cannon is associated with a ship, pretty clearly laying on the back of a ship.
Another cannon, here, is associated with a possible lele , or an altar. This is, potentially, a lele that Hawaiians constructed adjacent to their heiaus. Then, a third cannon shows a blast pattern, that you can kind of see - this blast pattern. See what might be smoke or something coming out of the cannon in this blast pattern, on it, as well, some other associated, maybe, petroglyphs along with it.
Then this petroglyph, this cannon has been anthropomorphized, which is, to me, just amazing. You know, we've talked about how they named their cannons, and here's a cannon that's actually been given human features, with the warrior-style muscled arms and muscled legs. To note, from ... Having cannons and men to operate them gave a critical advantage to the chief who could amass the most weapons. Desha states "The large cannons, under the command of Isaac Davis and John Young, were turned to a place to where those Maui people were attempting to save their lives by climbing the Iao pali." A pali is a cliff.
"Those large cannons in the hands of those foreign favorites of Kamehameha were what created the great slaughter among the fleeing Maui people, so that they fell from the pali, and their bodies landed in the famous stream of Iao. The famous cannon Lopaka" - again here the same cannon just turns up all the time - "... was dragged and set up in a place called Kawelowelo, and from there was fired into the Iao valley and turned to fire at the cliffs where the Maui people were attempting to flee. The thundering sound of Lopaka cannon caused absolute terror amongst the Maui warriors, and some of them met their death by the weapons of the foreigners. They were horribly slaughtered below the pali."
There was a suggestion by one of our informants that this anthropomorphized image is John Young or Isaac Davis, the men who used the cannon, while another suggested it could be Lopaka itself, the cannon itself. Of course, other interpretations were under discussion with other informants, and it's an interpretation that we'll never know exactly what the meaning is, I think, here, but very interesting. After the battle of Iao Valley, the island of Maui did surrender to Kamehameha.
The third object that we looked at were muskets and, as well, words that are found above the muskets. There are muskets in four different petroglyph fields in Kaloko-Honokohau. The largest field has been subsiding, and this is covered by wetland grass and water much of the time. You can see this upper photograph here is the way it looks today. You can see where we had to cut back the grasses and the peat that had formed over the top of this petroglyph field. Here's that same petroglyph field taken in 1915, and you can see that it's completely clear. This was taken by one of the ministers in the church here at Honokohau. He's chalked in these musket drawings, and here's a map of that same field.
While varying in size and detail, many of the musket petroglyphs are life-sized, and show all of the primary elements of a musket, which would be the trigger, the trigger guard, and the flint-lock mechanism.
Two quotes from Desha on muskets. "Also, Olohana [who was John Young] and Aikake [who was Isaac Davis] had taught the chieftesses so that they became very accomplished and accurate in shooting muskets."
I think this part of it's very interesting, that the women became participant as warriors now with these new technologies. His second quote, which is similar, "In the beginning of battle, the female Ali'i on Kamehameha's side used their muskets, firing bullets amongst the warriors amongst Kalanikupule's side. Those on Kamehameha's side were better skilled with muskets, and perhaps these warriors furnished with the foreign weapons were electrified by seeing the fearlessness of these Ali'i wahini." Wahini is a female in Hawaiian.
Two recorded muskets appear to have words, possibly names, associated with them. One has the word “haakua” over the musket. Which would literally be translated as “the breath of God.” It was translated by one of our informants to mean “the thunder of God,” which would be appropriate for a musket.
The other has the word “kekuha” over the top of the musket that may be translated to mean “the repeller.” It is still, however, unclear if any of these names are for the muskets, the musket owners, or whether they have some other meaning within this context of the petroglyph field. Every Hawaiian speaking consultant has a different interpretation for these words, and discussion continues with all of them about it may mean. Other Hawaiian words and phrases are present in this and other petroglyph fields in the park, which remain under discussion with those people that do speak fluent Hawaiian.
To conclude, prior to European contact, Hawaiian petroglyph makers seemed to have carved powerful cultural items, be they individuals, objects, scenes, or mythic figures. That tradition was carried on after European contact, with the inclusion of ships, cannons, muskets, and Hawaiian words into the palette of objects that are being carved. Certainly these items are viewed as powerful, for they allowed the inter-island conquest of all the Hawaiian islands by a single chief, and the establishment of a unified Hawaiian kingdom. Historic era petroglyphs at Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park stand as evidence to their incorporation into the Hawaiian society for Hawaiian ends, and their re-definition as powerful Hawaiian cultural objects.
Mahalo nui loa, and a hui ho kakou malama pono to everybody that managed to hang in for this paper. I'll be happy to take any questions.
Karen: Do people have questions for Stan?
Pei-Lin: This is Pei-Lin. Stan, I was wondering, what's the challenge of keeping the vegetation somewhat free of these petroglyphs.
Stan: I think so long as the area is dry, once we go in and get rid of the invasive ... It's mainly invasive species that are covering them up ... That we can keep them open. In areas where - well, the whole park is subsiding - In areas that are really close to the water, like the sets of muskets and other petroglyphs that are in there, it's really difficult to keep it opened up because not only do the grasses grow back, but then you get algae that grows on it and things like that. We tried to do as good a recording as possible in that area while it was open before they were covered up again.
Pei-Lin: I actually have a follow-on question, I guess it's sort of follow-on. I was thinking that in other areas of the United States, we've had some luck with using LiDAR techniques to sort of uncover petroglyphs that are no longer really visible to the naked eye. Have you tried that there at Kaloko-Honokohau?
Stan: Well, I can tell you they are getting ready to do LiDAR on the petroglyph fields here.
Pei-Lin: Neat.
Stan: Yeah, that is going to be happening at that site. I think LiDAR was an incredibly new technology back when I first worked on this project.
Karen: Stan, could you give us a time frame for the time that the women were using musketry? That was really a striking event.
Stan: It would have been in the late 1790s to around 1800, and beyond. Kamehameha united all of the Hawaiian islands by 1810. I don't think there were any other really major battles after that.
Karen: Oh, okay. This is way before the breakdown of the Kapu system.
Stan: Yes, which is very interesting that they were trained ... That they allowed them to take these new technologies, and in some ways almost like the warriors were fighting, in some ways, closer hand-to-hand type of combat. With thrusting spears, and with clubs, and objects that had sharp pieces embedded in them. It was more hand-to-hand. It almost seemed like oh, well, this can kill somebody from a distance, so not really, maybe it's not as manly as we'd like, so we'll let the women use these things.
Karen: That's an interesting take on it.
Stan: Ultimately, on Oahu, the male warriors ultimately kind of just took and pushed the warriors from Oahu just off of the Nu'uano pali, which is like 1,000 foot drop. I mean, they just surrounded them and either killed them with the spears, or just forced them back off of the edge of pali. I think about 400 warriors went off the edge of that pali.
Karen: Wow.
Stan: That ended the conquest of Oahu. The paramount chief was captured and sacrificed, and many of the other lesser chiefs were killed in that battle.
Karen: Well, there's a lot there to think about.
Stan: I think that the whole Hawaiian concepts of mana and power, you know, how do you interpret something like a petroglyph, something that takes a lot of time. I've seen people take pahoehoe and try to chip a petroglyph into it. It's not very easy. These are pretty well defined, pretty deeply chipped, or cut into the rock. It took a lot of time, it took a lot of work, and it took a specialist to do it. They had to be very important objects for somebody to do that. Now, did they see these objects as somehow imbibed with mana, with power, with a spirit, differently than we would see them as simple objects? Were they putting those images out there, almost like as a request almost, like a cargo cult, you know, “Hey, I want a ship, I want a musket, I want a cannon.” The idea that giving them names must imply some kind of spiritual power, maybe, that the objects themselves have. I don't know. I think there's a lot of potential and very interesting interpretation about these objects, and how they relate to Hawaiian society.
Karen: The interpretation of that one cannon, the anthropomorphized cannon, was Lopaka would suggest they had a commemorative element to them, too.
Stan: I mean, I think if you give something a name, that you've given it to a specific object, so like those muskets must have been not just like here's what we would call a musket. I'm sure that if they were giving to an object, they gave it to a specific object. It may have been the person who owned the object, we just don't know.
Karen: Well, thank you very much for that very interesting talk.
Description
Stan Bond, NPS, 5/23/2013, ArcheoThursday
Duration
37 minutes, 44 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
05/23/2013
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