Much of Hawaiian history before and after western contact includes the conflicts of greed and war that define of our species. But in many regards, Hawaiian culture respected and revered its intertwined destiny with the natural world, especially the mighty ocean. Strict laws (or ‘kapu’) traditionally forbade over-fishing, and relatively advanced conservation and harvesting practices, such as restricted fishing seasons, were employed. Slash-and-burn deforestation did traditionally occur in some areas, but cultivation of plants was a highly advanced and central aspect of life for many ancient Hawaiians. It is the lack of such recognition, rooted in a profound connection between the labor of providing one’s own sustenance and the land or sea itself, which allows “advanced” civilization to continue blindly poisoning and plundering the very resources upon which we depend.
In Hawai’i, I was searching for direction without realizing it – drifting, devoid of coherent guiding principles other than faith and a growing but general, environmental purpose. I didn’t expect a recalibration of my path. There were inevitable growing pains, including decisions that would irrevocably alter my relationship with Elizabeth. Central to my personal awakening was experiencing the oceans’ beauty and, consequently, an outside appreciation of the intertwined Hawaiian history, culture and nature. Through various fortunate and seemingly unconnected events, I began to relate the sea deeply and inexplicably.
~~~
The day we had arrived in Hawai’i, our local hosts invited us and the other exchange students to a traditional lua’u on Coconut Island, one of the reconstructed parks along the sea walk near downtown Hilo. It alternated rain and dripping sunshine as we dropped down from the campus to the water. The sweet, tropical aroma of flowers and fruit drenched the air, as heavily as the intermittent showers. Perhaps more than any other characteristic of above-water Hawai’i, intense fragrances are the most enchanting and visceral.
The van wound down Banyan Drive, a famous waterfront passage lined with broad-reaching trees planted by celebrities ranging from Babe Ruth to Amelia Aerhart and Franklin Roosevelt. The banyans were proud sentries, standing boldly as a reminder that they could withstand a mighty rush of water whereas buildings could not. Lining the bay that has brought both prosperity and hardship to Hilo, these trees, with their interlaced sinews, symbolized the resilience and diversity of its people.
A footbridge led to tiny Coconut Island. We arrived an hour before sunset as streaks of orange-red bent across the gentle sky as if beamed from the pinnacle of Mauna Kea. Deep cuts in her flanks were evident to the north, where wind and water had eroded lush valleys in relatively old rock of this dormant side of the shield volcano; we forgot the comfortable sense of the sunset as soon as they began serving food.
I had eaten tropical fruit before, but the freshness of the pineapples, passion fruit, mangoes, and breadfruit was remarkable. They served fresh guava juice, fat little popoulu bananas that reminded me of Cuban plantains, and juicy pentamorous, pear-tasting gems called star fruit. A teenage boy sliced fresh coconuts with a huge machete. Each was served with a straw so you could drink the milk through a small hole before the husk was peeled away and the nut crushed for the decadent meat. When the bonfire glinted in his blade rather than the red glare of the sunset we ran out of coconuts, but someone simply knocked a few out of a nearby tree. As much as I enjoyed the fruits, the various starch dishes (poi, sticky white rice, and salted sweet potatoes) were not to my taste. But I noticed that our hosts took copious quantities of these and loaded them up with gravy, so I took a little more of each.
I needed no such excuses when it came to the meat. They had roasted an entire pig in the ground, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked for a day until the meat fell from the bone into the dipping sauce of melted fat and sea salt. I’ve always been partial to pulled pork, but this buried swine took the cake. It was one of the most tender and memorable forms of barbequed meat I have ever eaten, which is saying a lot given the considerable exposure I have had in west Texas, Memphis, Kansas City, and Carolina.
Almost nothing could have topped that carnivorous experience, but the tastes of the sea gave it a run. There were a dozen different seafood dishes – boiled octopus, blackened grouper, raw silver perch from the lee side, and piles of little reef fish fried whole and stacked like thickly salted potato chips. But the highlight of the evening came at sunset.
Two native Hawaiians pulled their boat onto the sand and carried a cooler over to the fish table. They lifted two bonito tuna, each about three feet long, onto a long wooden board. They clipped the gills and let the blood drain into a glass bowl with soy sauce, sake, and wasabi paste. They masterfully removed the dorsal fins with long, narrow cuts. The impossibly tender, rich red sashimi was served as silver-dollar-sized morsels with the sauce, more wasabi, gari, and fresh pineapple.
I have never enjoyed such a fresh and delicious blending of tastes and textures. It was a remarkable introduction to Hilo Bay and Hawaiian culture, and a harbinger of remarkable things to come.
~~~
I did actually attend classes while in Hilo as an exchange student. Most memorable was simultaneously taking a graduate-level ichthyology course and an interactive cultural studies class called “Hawaiian Ethnozoology.” The former was an analysis of functional anatomy and evolutionary history in the >25,000 species of fish, with particular emphasis on the thousand or so found in the islands. The later was a unique interpretation of the varied ways in which marine life was integral to traditional society taught by a flamboyant native Hawaiian.
Similar subjects were often discussed in both classes with sometimes-complimentary, sometimes-contrasting viewpoints from scientific and socio-cultural perspectives. It was my initial introduction to the apparent conflict between reason and faith, between intellectual objectivity and human nature, and between theory and practicality. Some of the reasons why science has become marginalized in society, in part because of religion, became clearer to me, though the barriers between them began to seem less real.
The marine science curriculum steadily steered me toward the study of the ocean, but I tried to get off campus to the water as often as I could manage to actually see and live it. Most weekends, we would drag grumbling Tonka out for day trips on the eastern half of the island or to camp somewhere on the lee side. But I couldn’t go five full days on the Big Island without getting in that water, and so found a few local spots I could get to before, between, or occasionally instead of class.
Just a few miles from town, outside Blonde Reef and the breakwater that forms the eastern rim of Hilo Bay, is an under-appreciated beach called Onekāhakaha. I rarely saw anyone other than local kids boogie-boarding in the dozens of times I was there. After loosing some diving gear once while spear-fishing, I concluded it was wise to bring nothing but a towel and flip-flops. Hawaiian beaches can have their share of petty thieves, particularly the sort of out-of-the-way spots I prefer. One advantage of having a beater truck was the lack of concern about it being stripped while in the water.
Most of the times I clunked trusty Tonka down to the county park, I snorkeled alone, leaving him in the shade of Polynesian palms at the end of a half-paved road. Pine needles intermingled oddly with palm fronds on the path next to a surf shop with an old, blind bulldog that was fatter than he was long. The old asphalt morphed to packed dirt, sandier and looser by the step. The sea appeared level over a small dune held together with thin shrubs covered with light pink flowers that looked as if they had been cut in half. Warm red hibiscus flowers with vivid yellow stamen trumpeted toward the sun rising over the water, following it throughout the day and blaring toward the volcanoes at sunset.
Part of why the windward side of the Big Island is not known for its diving is that strong waves and currents, as well as sediments flowing from the rain-soaked land, make for murkier conditions than along the Kona and Kohala coasts.