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Published: March 5th 2009
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Hale Pa'i - House of Print
With termite infested wood replaced, the old structure is solid today. Maui is made up of two volcanos, a small one to the west up which the 'Iao Valley extends and a large one to the east, Hale'akala. The plain between them provides farm land for cattle and plantations. Through that plain is the highway between the two coasts, between Kahului and Lahaina. The actual narrows is about ten miles and then from there to Lahaina is another twenty miles or so.
Our first stop is at the Hale Pa'i o Lahainaluna. That's Hawai'ian for "house of printing" of Lahaina school. I think "luna" means school.
John Young impressed King Kamehameha one day by reading to him. Young said that he could share the thoughts of a man who was dead and had lived in Young's homeland, England. Kamehameha thought that was incredible and immediately saw the implications for making more precise the royal commands, his business decisions, and providing background information for those carrying out his orders. He learned English from John Young.
When the missionaries came to the islands and undertook the major project of taking a spoken language and making a printable/readable language out of it, Hawai'i's rulers were very supportive. Spread through the islands for
Lana'i
As seen from the Maui shore several months, the missionaries identified sounds that could be matched to letters used in the English language, five vowels and twelve consonants (though five of those were used interchangeably with others in some cases). Printing in Hawai'ian began in Honolulu almost immediately. The Lahaina school got a press in 1834 which went beyond what was being done on Oahu. The Hale Pa'i did everything from producing lessons to publishing books and a local newspaper to printing money to counterfeiting money! The latter scandal was quickly stopped and the mission continued as it intended.
The Lahaina house of printing was part of a seminary the missionaries had set up for Hawai'ians to be trained as missionaries, pastors. and teachers. That school continues today as the public high school, no longer tied the any denomination. The reconstructed print shop is on the grounds.
During their morning break, students filled the walks and driveways around Hale Pa'i. There were some Obama T-shirts warn by the kids. One of the more forward called me by my first name as I went toward the print shop. Given our experience with the families at a park where our maturity was deferred to, I looked
Moloka'i
Seen over Susan's shoulder, this is where the leprosy colony is. the boy right in the eye and said, "As a 'kahuna,' I strongly urge you to stay in school. go on to college, and follow in the footsteps of your fellow Hawai'ian, Barak Obama." He was as stunned by my attention as by misuse of the Hawai'ian word. But the horn sounded, breaking the moment and the kids headed off to class chattering as they went.
"Kahuna" is like a PhD, very highly trained in some special area, including leadership. "Kupuna" is the respected elderly person. I was not the boy's kahuna, which made my statement rather awkward to him. As a kupuna, acting like I knew something, the group around the boy had no idea how to take a ha ole like me.
I tried.
Our bus then took us up the coast past some of Maui's major resorts. (Our son has a time share in one of them.) We stopped at a beach where Susan gave us more history of the islands visible to us from that shore but to which our program did not go.
The Hawai'ian Islands have different kinds of sand beaches, all the way from coarse black granules that we
Statue honoring Fr. Damien
This Catholic priest who was chaplain to the colony of those with leprosy is up for sainthood. saw at Punalu'u on the Big Island to the mixed colored grains of Lahaina to finer lighter sand on Kaua'i (I got no close-up pictures of the Waikiki white sand beaches).
Since calling Maui the garden island in an earlier post, I have been reminded that it is the valley island and Kaua'i lays claim to the title of garden island. But Maui has a spectacular proteas farm. Proteas can last up to two weeks as cut flowers, long after anything else wilts. And our camera proved to be a blessing as it captured a number of blossoms.
We were then turned loose on Whaler's Village, a shopping mall. Ann and I spent most of our time in a cool "store front" museum watching videos about ocean wild life. We are not shoppers.
Let me add a little about what the whalers brought to Hawai'i: disease. STDs, small pox, and other illnesses for which the islanders had no immuno-defenses literally decimated the population over the decades following their coming. The number of natives went from well over a million to a little over 100,000. That was one of the main reasons for the plantation owners to contract
Black sand
The dime gives proportion. with so many foreign workers. And thanks to literacy and the printing press of the missionaries, plus medical missionaries, the decline was stopped.
Lunch, touring the historic Lahaina downtown, and riding the Lahaina Islander bus back to Kahului made up the rest of the day. After supper, Susan oriented us to a big adventure to follow. We were to go up to the 10,000 foot top of Kale'akela. Breathing was somewhat of a problem when Ann and I went to Kilaueia at 4,000 feet. Many years ago, we got altitude sickness when we went up to Pike's Peak. That was at 14,000 feet and we are considerably older now. I didn't like the prospects.
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