PALAAU FISHPOND
From
Kaunakakai to Palaau is a short distance, six miles at the most. The first
three miles are over a fairly good macadam highway. Then at three miles
from the highway to Palaau are rough, weary and often very dirty. There I
left the high way there was a padlocked gate to open and travel
thenceforth was by jeep. The old road, rutted and rocky, leads through a
gently sloping rocky plain for a couple of miles. Here and there are
scattered clumps of green kiawe in the dry season they look good. Off to
the right in the shallow eroded soil the kiawe are stunted. After bouncing
for a couple of miles I came to a break and went down into the spreading
area of Manawainue gulch. In dry weather it’s usually easier to go around
the bridge through the broad gulch bed.
One
day while on a range survey I looked over the area to the north and east
of the gulch. There I ran into a mess of sandburs that coated my pants and
pricked my skin. I ran into something else that surprised me; under the
kiawe tree over quite an area, say an acre, there were rock walls,
everywhere, three to four feet high, enclosing squares 6 to 8 feet square.
At the time I wondered why they were here. They have long been forgotten.
After cleaning the sandburs off my pants with a long knife, I got back
into the car and drove westward. In a short ways, I noticed off to my
right more stone walls, this time covering larger areas. To the left in a
pocket was a brackish spring area. Again I wondered who had once lived
here.
On a
ways farther, along the low lying area that was a fan of soil deposited
from the hills, I saw more rook walls, through a cattle coral, then
through a fenced windmill area, then another coral, and then into the
upper Palaau area I drove. Coveys of quail and dove constantly flew up
ahead of me. Some lucky hunter will have fine shooting late in the fall.
As I
drove along, the trees grew less luxuriant am I passed from the flat and
came closer to the fishpond area. Among the trees there were more rook
walls. Through dry creek beds I drove; these creek beds during the kona
rain season are raging torrents, grinding along the rocks, and coating the
area with mud. After a kona storm, a jeep stays out of the area until the
road is thoroughly dry. After more rough spots and I noticed the kiawe
was thinning out, then in a bend of the road, Palaau.
Palaau looking eastward is a desolate area. During high tide over most of
the area the water stands a few inches deep and often looks like a mirage.
At low tide the pond site is dry and each gust of wind raises clouds of
red dirt that are seen many miles away.
Palaau once enclosed over 500 acres of the sea. The water was from 2 to 8
feet deep. The outer walls on the seaward [side] were 3 miles long. There
were brackish springs along the hill break. At the head of Waiahewahewa
gulch, which now flows for a few short weeks into the west side of Palaau,
was a spring that flowed yearlong. Manawainue gulch flowed year long into
the center of Palaau. The soil surrounding the pond for the most part was
fertile, deep, and well suited for the growing of sweet potatoes. A
brackish species of taro grew here and from this the people could make
poi. A few coconut trees grew through the area, though a map drawn in 1877
shows only one coconut tree left and it was growing along aide of a trail.
I’ve been told that there was a fresh water spring in the area and this
was reserved for the chief’s use. Willows grew around this spring. Fish
and sweet potatoes grew, enough to feed a thousand or more people. Today
no one lives here. Why?
This
is my story of the fishpond of Palaau and its former importance and
decline will be sketched. The old Hawaiians had no written records. Much
of this story is deduced from the legends’ and the stories of the old
people and the evidences seen along the leeshore coastline of the island
of Molokai. Palaau, as it might once have been and as it is today, is a
stimulating story of man’s ingenuity, cruelty to his fellows, and of the
reaction to the impact of another race of people and their culture and
economy.
A
traveler to Molokai in the 1850’s wrote, "occasionally the traveler’s eye
rests on the ruined walls enclosing immense’ fishponds that were formed
several generations ago."
[2.Sandwich Island Notes by a Haole G.W.Bates Harper Bros. 1854].
In a
map made by M. D. Monsarrat in 1885 for the Hawaiian Government, Palaau
fishpond was mapped and the greater part of it was indicated as MUD, and
the walls were broken in places. Within 15 to 150 years an immense
fishpond was ruined and lost to the people of Molokai a very important
source of readily available meat.
In
1900 in a report by John N. Cobb, The pond at Palaau was no longer used,
it was listed simply as a "nameless extensive pond, in Pa-la-au, filled
with mud."
[3
The Commercial Fisheries of the Hawaiian Islands in 1903 John N. Cobb
-Government Printing Office 1905].
Palaau in Hawaiian means wooden fence. There is a fence across part of the
pond site but it is of recent vintage; the wire is barbed.
At
Palaau the rock walls can no longer be seen. The area is covered with 4 to
8 feet of the topsoil that should have remained in place on the
surrounding hills and plains. Today, Palaau is seldom visited by anyone
but the cowboy on his rounds or the bee man watching and working with his
apiaries. The area has been ruined and so far it is impossible to use the
land for any purpose, except that on the fringes of the pond grows the
kiawe tree whose flowers furnish the nectar for the bees.
There are a few trees out from the edge of the hills and into the pond.
These trees grew to considerable size but they are now dying. Wiliwili
trees once grew here and there on the east end of the pond but most of
these native pea flowered trees are dead, or are dying and stand gaunt,
ghostly, thorny and desolate. Here and there on a little pedestal of soil
grows a grass called beach-dropseed. Green this grass is but it hangs on
for dear life, and one kick of a cows hoof would dislodge the plant and it
would die. To the seaward where once was a great stone wall and where
ancient canoes came up, there is now a thin ragged strip of mangrove that
block all view of the sea. Here and there on a little hillock of soil is
growing a salt tolerant plant. Eastward akulikuli grows; this is a pale
green foot high pickleweed like plant. Akulikuli Kai is a 100-year-old
emigrant to the islands and grows better than the other plants on these
salty lands near the sea. In about the center, where it is not too salty
and where the water flows slowly seaward from semi-brackish springs,
rushes and sedges grow thickly and up to a couple feet high.
The
immense fishpond at Pa-la-au once covered about 512 acres within its sea
walls. It may be that the island center of population was in this area.
There is a channel through the reef at Palaau and in former times with
proper maintenance this channel was undoubtedly deeper than now; large
canoes could have traveled down this channel for trade and governmental
purposes. To the east at the break of the gently sloping hills near the
shore under the kiawe trees is an extensive area of rocked walls that once
in some way served many people. In the center of the area and hillward are
seen large walled areas that have been abandoned, these could have been
pens for pigs and walled vegetable gardens. Higher on the hills
surrounding Pa-la-au can be seen the remnants of old heiaus.
The
center of Pa-la-au is along the leeshore and about 4 miles west of the
little town of Kaunakakai. On the west and the northwest side of the pond
the land slopes gradually upward to the grass and brush covered slopes of
Moana Loa. To the center and to the north the land slopes gradually up to
the former pineapple fields, and to the east the land slopes upward to the
4,000 to 5,000 foot forested lands and hills.
The
excessive saltiness of this mud flat that was once Palaau pond is due to
the ebb and flow of the tide that brings the seawater to the surface in
many places. At high tide in the center of this former pond the water from
the high tide covers many acres a few inches to a foot deep. At low tide
in the dry part of the year a jeep can be driven over part of this area;
the driver must be careful in driving for the area is treacherous.
In
the barren area the soil is slick from the salt and dries out very rapidly
when the sea goes out. One to 4 feet underneath is a permanent water table
of salt water, formerly the high water mark at low tide. It is hard to
imagine anything that could grow in this soil condition with the sudden
changes of wet and dry; salt water from the sea, and muddy water from the
hills during the short rainy season.
There are a number of streams and gulches that empty into the area of
Palaau. Kamikani and Waihii flow only during the heavy rains and for only
a short period of each year. The water that runs down these gulches is
relatively clear for it comes from a well vegetated area which we call a
good condition range; there is lots of grass on the hill slope to stop the
erosive action of the heavy storms. To the west Manawainue stream
empties into Palaau. This stream collects its water from a large watershed
that reaches far into the highlands of Molokai. Its watershed must cover
at least 20 square miles. In the winter of 1950 this stream rolled muddily
seaward during the heavy rains and when the rains stopped within a matter
of hours the stream stopped rolling. The rains at that time had little
chance to seep into the soil and emerge elsewhere weeks later. Thousands
of tons of the soil of Molokai was carried down this stream and dumped
into Palaau. Yet 200 years ago this stream probably ran through most of
the year and carried little soil with it to the pond and into the sea.
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Waihewahewa gulch is different. This stream comes down through a very
eroded area and when it rains the steam is heavy with red soil. In places
along this stream the eroded gulches are 30 feet deep and yearly they are
working back into the better range areas of central Molokai. Fortunately
Waihewahewa gulch and stream runs only for a short period each year. At
one time it is said that there was a permanent spring near the head of
this stream and water flowed year long; this could be true for then the
area around Moana Loa was tree covered and the rains that fell were
trapped in the mulch on the ground and flowed slowly down into the soil
and emerged elsewhere. Today for the most, part the majority of the trees
are gone around Moana Loa, the mulch underneath the remaining trees is
trampled by the cattle, and the rains rapidly runoff and down into Palaau.
The stream of Waihewahewa gulch carries during the heavy rains thousands
of tone of the good red earth of Molokai. This mud is then dropped in the
flat area of the former fishpond at Palaau.
These are the streams that carried death to the pond in the 1800’s. These
streams in olden days carried a little silt for the people were yearly
gathered together to clean the pond of silt and also to tramp the bottom
of the pond hard; if the volume of soil had flowed down this stream that I
saw in 1950 the people could never have cleaned the pond.
Prior to the coming of Captain Cook (1790), Palaau may have been a very
thriving part of Molokai and the center of activities. Here, a thousand or
more people lived, building their houses and thatching them with the
abundant pili grass from the surrounding hills and living on the harvest
of the fish from the pond, and the products of the fertile soil
surrounding the area. Streams flowed into the area almost yearlong and the
people could water their crops. There were fresh water springs edging the
hill break and from these the people could get drinking water; today a few
of these springs still flow into the brackish stream that flows through
Palaau.
The
climate at Palaau is mild and throughout the year sweet potatoes and taro
could be grown with the rains and the available water from the streams. If
the weather became too hot in the summer months the people could walk from
4 to miles into the high lands where it is cool throughout the year. Life
at Palaau must have been pleasant for here there was adequate material for
building houses, there was plenty of fish in the pond, and agricultural
crops could be grown.
The
abandonment of the fishpond and communities around Palaau was many
factored. Wars, pestilence, soil erosion, change in diet, and the
breakdown of the feudal and cultural systems all forwarded the breakdown
of Palaau.
In
1887 the Pa-la-au fishpond was mainly a large mudflow and the pond wall
was broken in many places. The story of Palaau’s break down goes before
1887.
In
1900, there were only 1,000 people on Molokai outside of the leper colony.
Yet before 1778, it is believed that there were over 30,000 people on
Molokai. Captain Cook estimated the population of Lanai at 20,000 and
archaeologists today believe that he was about right. Molokai is a larger
and a more favorable island and could have supported 30,000 people through
its 2,000 acres of fishponds and outer sea fishing banks.
Shortly after the coming of Captain Cook, war started in its worst phase
in the islands. From Hawaii Kalaniopuu started to consolidate the islands
under one rule, though there were few people left after the wars on the
islands were over. In 1778 Lanai and Kahoolawe were overrun and nearly all
the people, were killed. The raids extended to Molokai and it could well
be that one half to three fourths of the people were killed. Menziess
wrote in 1792, that a native, Kualelo, returned to Molokai and made
enquiries after his relatives and friends and heard that few of them
survived a destructive war which had almost desolated the island since he
was last there.
[4.
Hawaii Nei, 128 years Ago by Archibald Menziess Honolulu, T.H. 1920]
The
people of the leeshore and the west end of the island were in the direct
path of such a war. The war in all likelihood decimated Palaau. From
30,000 people to 12,000 meant fewer people, to maintain the fishponds.
Especially was this true of Palaau, which needed a great many people to
maintain the pond. The numbers were no longer here and the pond started to
fall apart. Three miles of rock wall needed a lot of maintenance. Fewer
people needed less food.
After the wars pestilence came In with the white man. Measles, smallpox,
and other diseases reduced the remnant population by another half.
Missionaries in 1833 estimated the population of Molokai at 6,000, with
3,000 on the lee shore and most of those along the east shore. In 1833
there was a small church and school at Palaau. With less than 3,000 people
scattered along the lee shore, a few small fishponds and some reef fishing
would be sufficient for the needs of the people. More of the fishponds
were left untended and more of the walls broke down, there was no one to
rebuild the ponds and few who cared.
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From
the 1820’s to the 1850’s the search for and the harvesting of the
sandalwood occupied most of the time of the people. Much of the sandalwood
was in the higher mountains and the people by the ponds had to leave to
harvest the wood for the chiefs and kings. Today in the mountains can be
seen a pit dug to the dimensions of a ship. This was the measure for the
sandalwood logs. Traders contracted with the chiefs for the wood, and then
the people had to harvest the sandalwood, carry it to the shore and to the
ships and then return for I more. It was during this period that most of
the sandalwood was taken off the island of Molokai.
The
time spent in harvesting the sandalwood in turn meant less time for the
care of the fishponds. Further neglect of the fishponds meant a more rapid
breakdown of the walls.
The
fishponds needed constant care by a great many people. Each winter’s storm
caused some soil to flow down from the hills and into the pond. The people
once or twice each year had to go out into the pond and with coconut
halves scoop the mud out. At the same time the pond was firmed on the
bottom creating a better bed for the fish plants and the fish food. Trees
and grass kept the heavy rains from causing much movement of soil until
the white man’s animals came in and were allowed to roam at will.
In
1833(?) there were estimated to be 200 head of cattle on Molokai. The
Polynesian in 1852 figured a yearly increase in cattle at 30 per cent. A
simple problem in compound interest from a herd of 200 head of cattle
would result in a herd of 200 head of cattle would result in a herd of
2,780 in 10 years - or by 1843, in 1853 there would have been 38,010 head,
and in 1863 528,500 head.
At a
more conservative figure of 20 per cent, the results in herd counts would
be 59,760 head in 30 years. Fortunately the cattle on Molokai never
reached the 50,000 mark but unfortunately they became numerous enough to
cause a great deal of damage.
Sheep, goats, deer, and horses were turned loose after the cattle were
introduced.
The
chiefs placed a tabu on the slaughter of all livestock and they increased
in about the proportion of the compound interest figure of 20 or 30 per
cent. For instance, at Kawela, a rock wall was built above the town in
order to keep out the damaging raids of the cattle on the people’s gardens
and fields. Cattle, sheep, goats, deer, all were new to the islands and
the island vegetation.
Palaau could have easily been the early center of the livestock industry,
if it can be called an industry. There were springs along the breaks in
the hills, at Moana Lea the stream ran almost throughout the year. There
was much grass on the plains and the grass was easy to walk to. Here was
ample grass and water for an expanding herd up to a point; shelter was not
needed and there were no carnivorous animals to keep the herds in check.
A few coyotes introduced at this time would have been hard on the
livestock but they may have helped keep the hills grassy and tree covered.
In the first few years after introduction the cattle would not range far
from Palaau; as the herd increased there would be less grass after grazing
and the cattle would have to range farther out. As the herds continued to
increase the stock had to move farther and farther from Palaau in order to
find enough grass and weeds to keep alive. Close to Palaau all the food
would be grazed out. As time elapsed, the trees around Moana Loa were
either trampled out or eaten, and they died out. The vegetative cover on
the highlands to the northeast was eaten and trampled out by the
increasing herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and deer.
As
the herd increased and the cover of vegetation decreased, the rains that
fell became less effective. Mud started to roll into Palaau from the hills
chose to the pond and then from the denuded hills and lands farther away.
On a
well-managed range yearly there is left enough grass and other plant
residue to form a protective cover for the soil. This protective cover of
plant residue breaks the impact of the raindrop, which on bare ground
tends to splash the soil about, sealing up the soils pores, and as a
result little rainwater can enter the soil body. A protective cover of
plant residue causes the water to seep into the ground so it can either be
stored for the plants later use or else go into the substratum and emerge
from springs far down the slopes. Leaving some of the grass also tends to
help the plants develop stronger roots which in turn produce more grass
which in turn provides more feed for the cattle and cover for the soil.
The
opposite effect is noted on depleted or overgrazed ranges; the rains no
longer drop on a blotter, instead they hit the ground, sealing up the
surface of the soil, and while doing this the water picks up in volume it
also picks up more soil, tearing it loose, rolling it along until the
stream becomes so heavy with suspended soils particles it can hardly move.
When this muddy water hits a level area it stops and spreads out and drops
its load of soil particles. Palaau was a perfect trap for the silt-laden
water. The thousands of tons of soil were dropped here. In the headlands
gullies were formed, less grass grew each year for the increasing herds,
and Palaau quickly filled with mud and it usefulness was destroyed by
1857, or within a span of about 40 years.
An
interesting bit of news happened in 1853 at Palaau. Mr. Meyer, who lived
at Kalae and had married the high chiefess Kalama, was in charge of the
cattle for one of the chiefs of one of the large ahupua’a (land divisions)
on Molokai. He noticed that the numbers of cattle were decreasing and
wondered why. The people at Palaau no longer needed the fish in the pond;
instead they had come to like beef so well that they were in the cattle
rustling business. They ate the meat and then buried the hides and bones
in caves. The men were apprehended and a trial was held. Fortunately for
these men they were not living in the western part of the United States
for than the trial would have been short, ending with a necktie party. All
the men of the villages were found guilty of rustling cattle and were
sentenced to a term of 5 years in the jail at Honolulu. The men were taken
to Honolulu and their families left with them. At one stroke Palaau was
depopulated. Since that time no one has lived at Palaau.
From
the files of the Honolulu Advertiser in 1877 this note was carried: "A
recent visitor to Molokai informs us that the upper plateau of that island
containing an area of say 100,000 acres and formerly well wooded,
constituting a natural reservoir for springs and streams, has become a
barren waste through the herds of cattle that have been allowed to run at
large there. The situation on that naturally fertile island is a sad one
to contemplate, and furnishes a suggestion to the future of the entire
group, if some legal enactment is not taken against this cattle plague."
[5.Honolulu Advertiser, Friday Dec. 26, 1947 " History from Our Files".]
In
1899 the denuded lands in back of Palaau were plowed, and then abandoned
for the wells that were to supply the land with fresh water were found to
be salty. These lands left alone with no cover added more soil to the pond
at Palaau.
In
about 1900 the Molokai Ranch assumed control of the west end and the
central part of Molokai. The large numbers of poor cattle were reduced,
better breeds were brought in, new plants were introduced, deer in the
highlands were shot, but all this was not drastic enough. More soil
continued to flow into Palaau and into the ocean. At the headwaters of
Moana Loa, 17,000 head of sheep caused so much damage around 1910 that the
gullies some of which are 40 feet deep can still be seen by the traveler
on the road to the west end pineapple fields.
Sometime in the 1800s the feudal system of the Hawaiians broke down. With
the breakdown there was no central authority left to bring the people
together for the tasks that benefited chiefly the rulers and secondarily
the people. There was no one left to bring together the groups of people
and fix the rock walls...and no one was left to clean the silt from the
pond. Though after the cattle and the sheep came in and the way they were
managed, the yearly silt load dropped in the pond would have been
impossible to handle without modern machinery.
Palaau was completely ruined and each year more soil has flowed into the
area and out to sea. Sometimes the flow of red mud was so heavy that the
sea was colored red for a mile from the shore, the waves white topped
would be red, and in the slow moving ocean streams the red mud would
travel far out to sea. It could be that in time with the mangrove front
the loss of soil from the hills would lay down so thick a mantle that the
pond could be used for agricultural crops if fresh water was available.
But to do this much of Molokai would be ruined.
A Survey was made in the early
part of World War II to determine the possibility of rehabilitating Palaau
and the other ponds. At the time the Islanders were not sure that they
would be able to ship enough food in from the mainland. Yet even in time
of war, it was found that the coast of rehabilitating these ponds would be
so high that the whole project was dropped as uneconomical.
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