First just a note-I have added some of the Vol. 16 Lahaina testimony to the Lahaina Awards in Google Earth, so you can download the update to that file.

As I slog through v. 16 (mixed Hawaiian/English) I come across small pieces that show what a complex world it was in the 1850s as the Mahele sorted out.  I’ve never seen a good analysis of the fact that all of the sudden the Poalima (land cultivated by maka’ainana for konohiki/chiefs) just ceased to exist, and to make it even more complicated, Poalima were apparently considered Govt. land, so all of the sudden little bits and pieces of lo’i and dryland, usually embedded in now privately-owned land, were frequently auctioned off.  I suspect a significant part of the ‘adverse possession’ claims which plagued maka’ainana through the 1930’s probably started here.  Also, I’m starting to realize (at least on Maui) that a significant number of Konohiki by the 1840’s were haole, some (like Gower) who became rather infamous for their abuse of power.  Also you get some evidence of the stress for maka’ainana in a system where they had no realistic recourse (such as a working legal system) by which they could fight abuses of power.

5176 B  Kaleo claimant    Koali Hana, Aug. 19, 1854

Claimant appeared in person before E. Bailey and said that the Konohiki had one Loi Poalima in his Mauka lot which Mr. Turner did not take out when he surveyed said lot, but it belongs to Mr. Whittlesey the Konohiki. (v. 16/106)

4838  Kaihe  claimant    Wananalua  Aug. 23, 1854

Claimant appeared in person before E. Bailey and said that did not willing by relinquish his claim to Kuakamauna the Konohiki, but that he was induced to do so by various threats of the Konohiki.

Decided it is not given up. (v. 16/107)

I have added two new files available for both viewing and download. The first is a useful listing of all the LCA claims for the moku of Lahaina from the Mahele index-while nothing new, it is searchable through Adobe so may prove useful to some. The second is a compilation of the various claims made by the Government to property both in Lahaina moku and Waititi moku, both for the government and also the various lands given to (or given up) by the various high chiefs in the Mahele. This has several interesting aspects, one being the patterns of claims by various chiefs. A minor puzzle is the large number of lands claimed by the Government as “Fort” lands in Waititi, which is somewhat odd given that the only true “fort” installations were around Honolulu harbor. Both of these files are in the Mahele land tab.

I have just completed adding the available testimony from LCA Foreign Test. v. 7 (West Maui) to our available LCA maps, which are limited to Lahaina and Olowalu. This is the “LCA Awards Lahaina District” kmz file which can be found in the Palolo-Waititi Project tab. As we go through related volumes we should be able to add more completed testimony to the map.

I have added the option of downloading zip files of the various parts of the Google Earth LCA project Waititi, Lahaina, Pearl Lochs) which might help those having trouble downloading the files directly.

I also have switched the LCA Foreign Testimony transcriptions into direct pdfs on the website, so they should be accessible both directly and also via download. Volume 7 (West Maui) which includes Olowalu-Lahaina-Wailuku is especially relevant as we all try to make sense of the past and future of much of Lahaina town.

Finally got around to updating the website to a more post-retirement format. The main change was updating the Foreign Testimony transcribed volumes (1 complete, 7 partial) and re-testing the links to files/folders. Hopefully now everything works as intended and you can download all the material available. (as of 7/2023)

We have been busy updating the Google Earth files for various parts of the Palolo-Waititi area, now including Manoa (which is part of the Ahupua’a of Waititi). Given the interest in mapping the LCA awards (when we could find good period maps) we have expanded to include two other areas critical to Kingdom-Territorial history: Pearl Lochs (now Pearl Harbor) and the other main Monarchy capital at Lahaina, Maui. These are still very preliminary but if you’re interested in downloading what we’ve completed to date they have been linked (kmz) files on the Google Earth Hawai’i Project page. We have also made some editorial updates to the Google Earth Hawai’i Project files. The Palolo files have been updated on the Palolo-Pukele Project page. As usual all files can be uploaded and shared. I recommend that you upload them into Google Earth one at a time, as many (especially the Palolo-Waititi kmz files) are large and if you open too many at once in Google Earth it may get unhappy with you and lock up. So upload them, check to make sure they show up, and then turn them off in display before going to the next one. Apparently Google Earth has graphic limitations which show up if you try to display to much info at once. We are currently working on entering in the Native Testimony Mahele material into the Palolo-Waititi files and entering in LCA awards/boundaries into the Lahaina files.

In the last week we have become part of a change in the world system.  The world of the last half of the 20^th century, which was based largely on dialog due to the shock of two world wars in less than 30 years, saw explicit military aggression as the last resort.  We have now moved back into the realpolitik of the centuries before, where military aggression is seen as a legitimate means to an end.  It is also illustrating that the United Nations has become as irrelevant to keeping world peace as the League of Nations was in the 1930’s.  As of now countries and groups will see military action and violence as a logical and easy path to achieve their goals. 

In many ways Putin has studied Hitler and the Ukraine looks a lot like the Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia operation Hitler conducted in 1938 with exactly the same rhetoric: “Unifying the Volk [ethnic Germans]” is exactly the same phrase as Putin’s “Unifying Ethnic Russians”.  And of course by 1939 all of Czechoslovakia was part of Germany, and of course Poland was next…

The siloing of group, the shrinking of the collective down to the group that reflects your specific values and attitudes (and then labeling it “ethnic”), while discarding of the moral ethic of sacrifice to the needs of the greater whole has now come back to roost.  We see it globally, especially here in the United States.

I predict that we will see China invade Taiwan before the end of March using the same logic as the Russian Federation. 

I also predict that the Russian Federation will pause in conquest until early 2023, at which point they will recover other areas (such as Moldova) that they feel should be part of their Federation.

Our world has changed and it is a result of our individual and collective attitudes and values.  It will not stop in distant areas but will become immediate and visible to all of us within the next several years.

THE YOUTUBE INFLUENCERS GENERATION AND SKILLSHARE AS DIRECT COMPETITION TO TRADITIONAL ACADEMIA

Back in 2018 while investigating mini-course design for several of the majors in the Behavioral Sciences Division, I started to look more closely at YouTube as an educational platform.  Major YouTube presenters are labeled “Influencers” which accurately reflects their ability to motivae and shape their audience, a classic example of the parasocial bond in the digital 21^st century.  A fact which appears to be intentionally avoided by traditional academic entities is that these influencers frequently have 1 million subscribers—not just people that watch an occasional YouTube post, but who have voluntarily subscribed to see all of the posts.  The key is that a global voluntary audience is choosing to consume material presented by a single individual, usually on a specific theme or topic.  Given that a significant proportion of YouTube videos have some sort of learning/training component, this shows that millions of viewers see specific YouTube influencers as sources of knowledge and information, in other words educators.  The generation now coming into higher education has been raised on this free-to-choice pool of educators and their view of quality education has been shaped by this experience.  It is worth noting that with the widespread adoption of revenue platforms such as Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/] YouTube influencers can develop significant revenue streams.

To better understand how YouTube Influencers effectively educate I conducted a selective text analysis on 18 in-depth interviews on the YouTube channel “Video Influencers Site” in 2018.  A number of the top influencers have been interviewed by the hosts and provide insight into what makes a successful YouTube channel.  There was a striking pattern of very similar responses from the various influencers even though their channels cover a wide range of topics.  While some of these key points have been used in traditional higher education, others have been lacking as part of institutional strategies.

Key Points repeated throughout the various interviews:

• Effective Influencers are Experiential—you must base your work on what motivates and drives you.  Artificiality will immediately be picked up by the audience, and they will leave.  Posting your experiences= authenticity.  Vloggers are perfect cases in point [Ben Brown/Casey Neistat vlogs as examples].
• Success is due to a combination of effort/time put in, being true to your passion [internal honesty] and serendipity/fortuitous (though most downplay the last).  Influencers like the view that if you put the time/effort/authenticity in, then success is given or at least you are self-rewarded.
• They strongly believe that everyone has something unique worth sharing and of interest to others—validated and defined by deep emotional instincts.  Viewers want conviction and emotional motivation.
• Emotions rule on YouTube, not training/knowledge/credentials—those only support the opinions/material driven by emotional commitment.
• Passion Rules.  Viewers respond directly to perceived passion–again experiential, personalized.  For example you’re not an archaeologist, you are Mortimer Wheeler who loves being an archaeologist and doing archaeology and wants to share his/her passion.
• Training is driven and motivated by Passion, so training is passion-specific.
• Presenters only need skills linked to passion, not on certification/credentials.
• Audience “can feel/sense/respond” to Passion.
• Content is driven/filtered by Passion (emotional not intellectual).
• Knowledge is background support that adds to the Passion but knowledge has no abstract relevance.  Many of the Influencers noted that terms like “you will eventually need this” or ”Lifelong Learning” is not relevant on YouTube unless it is grounded in your Passion.  Knowledge acquisition is based on unique personalized set of criteria and interests.
• Influencers have a very Calvinist value set—you must work hard-put your time in, due diligence, pay your dues.  Effort is rewarded and only effort counts.  Note again the dominance of emotion-passion-commitment and the lack of relevance of knowledge, training or certification.
• In many ways YouTube Influencers are the opposite of Japanese concepts of ikigai and it’s socially driven model.  YouTube Influencers don’t operate within a network of constraints [do you have the training/certification to make these statements].  Emotion-passion justifies the material and is specifically grounded in a me/self-first orientation.  Obligation and responsibility towards others are only filtered within the context of self-defined goals and need satisfaction.  Frequent use of slogans like “follow your dreams”, “discover yourself” and “self gifting” by Influencers is common.  Emotion and passion legitimize content.

Skillshare and related educational-training platforms:

Running parallel to (and often directly linked in comments) to YouTube educational channels are short-term/limited content sites such as Skillshare [https://www.skillshare.com/] which market themselves and an alternative to traditional teaching.  In this model revenue streams are controlled by the platform (Skillshare) which also vets the teacher and acts as a quality-control monitor.  The “Skillshare Teacher Handbook” offers valuable insight both into trends in contemporary education and also clarifies the direction traditional Higher Education has to move towards:

“All classes on Skillshare need to meet the following criteria.  If they don’t, they may be removed by our curation team.

• Faster Learning for the Sake of Learning: We support authentic, inspired learning: all classes on Skillshare are, first and foremost, educational.  Classes help students to expand their knowledge, flex their creative muscles, and have genuine interactions in the community…
• Meet Standards for A/V Quality: The audio in your class must be clear and easy to understand…video must be steady and high resolution…
• Must Be Project-Based: We believe in learning by doing…all Skillshare classes are project-based…
• Minimum Standards for Length: Classes must be at least 10 minutes long…
• Include Introduction Videos…
• Include Well-Organized Content: Great instruction requires great structure…
• Vary Visual Presentation: You class should contain varied visuals throughout…
• Share Value: You should impart expertise through tips, best practices, frameworks, concepts, theory, and/or examples…
• Teach Clearly: Your teaching should be clear, professional, authentic, and engaging.”

Specifics for Individual Classes:

“Excellent classes are also:

• Demystifying: The class is insightful and accurate, not superficial.  The teacher has a high subject matter expertise.  A variety of information is presented.  The teacher speaks to audience with warmth and respect…uses references to personal experiences and/or examples.
• Actionable: The teacher situates insights in a wider context.  Students are empowered with strategies, not a step-by-step. They learn how to do a new kind of thing.  The class emphasizes a technique for framework to empower students.  Lessons include examples… There is a clear and engaging project prompt.
• Well-Organized: The class contains clear signals and sequences.  The pace matches the level.  The class includes clear lesson titles.  ‘Concept Bookends’ frame sections with intros and recaps.  Lesson sequences demonstrate progress.
• Clear Value Proposition: The class includes clear titles, takeaways, and target audiences.  A clear class title, description, and intro that identify who the class is for.  The class delivers what it promises…
• Compelling: The class is visually dynamic and inspiring.  The class includes regular visual changes.  The class has a motivational style.  Lessons are cohesive and inspiring. (From Skillshare [https://www.skillshare.com/] Teacher Handbook 12/3/20).

Skillshare and the related educational platforms postdate YouTube’s growth of popularity and have built on it.  But they also share many key elements for success, as all require voluntary investment from students rather than depending on social-group pressure underlying traditional Higher Education. 

These new educational platforms are part of a new wave of challenges facing the traditional Higher Education system and specific academic programs such as our Behavioral Science Program which we will need to embrace and respond to grow in the near future.  We have to apply much of this pedagogical model to the concepts and topics central to our courses, to act as a lure to draw in potential new students.  The key advantage to the YouTube and Skillshare approaches is that almost the entire cost is upfront, as once the videos are posted they run on various digital platforms, so other than tweaking to improve presentation there are limited additional expenses to reach a potential audience of billions.

I’ve just completed two short videos on basic meditation techniques to my YouTube channel.

The first is on basic Tactile Meditation Techniques:

The second on basic Visual-Audial Meditation Techniques:

Both are intended for our students as part of helping them develop their critical thinking skills.

We have just started a new project (at least as of January 2020) examining the past and present cultural patterns in Palolo Valley, with emphasis on the Pukele Stream area. This is a spin-off of the agricultural planting project started by our colleagues at St. Louis School.

The campuses of Saint Louis School and Chaminade University of Honolulu are located on the slopes of Kalaepōhaku, within the area of Pālolo Valley. While the campus (then of Saint Louis School) moved to Pālolo in 1927-28, there has never been any comprehensive historical, biological or cultural study done of Pālolo Valley. In 1993 a series of papers by graduate students in American Studies at Univ. of Hawai’I Manoa looking at various aspects of Palolo was published, edited by Katherine Tehranian (1993 A Study of Palolo Valley: Ethnicity, Class, and Social Identity).  A historical survey of Kaimukī was published by John Takasaki in 1979 (Hawaii Journal of History) which mentions some sections of Pālolo, but that is the extent of overall survey material to date.

As Saint Louis School and Chaminade University both seek to more closely align their academic goals with engagement with the local (Pālolo) community, the need for a comprehensive study of the past and present cultural landscape of Pālolo has become clear.

From the academic perspective, this allows faculty to engage students in meaningful place-based learning, which is central to the Native Hawaiian educational logic we support and encourage. This also provides a venue for faculty to engage in advanced research, based on their areas of expertise within a common research topic.

From the student’s perspective (at both secondary and university levels), this project is an opportunity to relate academic subjects and concepts to real-world scenarios based in their local community.

For the Pālolo community, this will provide detailed documentation of the past and current conditions in Pālolo Valley. This project will be a valuable resource for contemporary and future discussions about land use and decision making in Pālolo.

Social History:

Palolo was an ili in the ahupua’a of Waititi, moku of Honoruru, island of O’ahu in the pre-Contact period, usually under control of the Ali’I ai Moku (the last independent one being Kalanikupule).  In traditional Hawaiian land use the ili  was a specialized area within the ahupua’a which was the basic bounded land unit, one that provided most sustainable needs for the resident population.  This makes traditional Hawaiian land boundaries somewhat unique from those found in Eurasia or the Americas as it was based on resource and sustainability, a very practical environmentally-driven way to divide up the land.  Palolo was one of the areas contributing the food and resources of the population living in the ahupua’a of Waititi. 

This system started to change in the early Monarchy by the 1820’s with the depopulation of most areas due to disease and outmigration.  The most dramatic single change occurred with the application of the Mahele (1850s) which shifted control of land from ali’i to individual land owners. 

During the Mahele 32 Land Claim Awards (L.C.A.) were given within the ‘ili of Palolo.  By the late 1800’s the makai part of the valley had become a suburb of Honolulu with low-cost housing for those moving away from the plantation-based workplace into urban living in Honolulu.  The mauka portion of the valley (the Pukele side) was converted into “truck farming” providing produce to the growing Honolulu urban population. 

According to Jarrett Middle School, the first public golf course on Oahu was opened in the 1920s, was converted to War Emergency Housing in WWII as part of an airfield complex and eventually become Palolo Valley Homes.   With introduction of public housing along with new subdivisions such as the Carlos Long subdivision Palolo evolved into a complex multi-ethnic neighborhood with a very different ethos than that found in surrounding sections of Honolulu, with a higher population of lower socio-economic and new immigrant families than in neighboring Kaimuki or Manoa.  In the 1960-70s drug and gang activity centered around public housing gave the valley a stereotype of a “tough” neighborhood, and real estate values are lower in Palolo than Kaimuki or Manoa even in 2020.

CURRENT GOALS:

We are in the initial phase of a comprehensive historical, biological or cultural study done of Palolo Valley.  We have located A Study of Palolo Valley: Ethnicity, class, and spatial identity (Katharine Tehranian ed.) from 1993, published by UH Manoa’s Dept. of American Studies (Center for Arts & Humanities Occas. Paper No. 1), which consists of a series of papers by UHM students as part of 1990 graduate seminar.  This is the only summative work we have been able to locate to date, though the search is on-going As mentioned in the Project description there are a number of interrelated components to be examined.  One of our issues is avoiding repetition in the archival research, so that everyone is working collaboratively vs. at cross purposes.

Here are the Archival Themes we have identified to date:

GEOLOGY-GEOMORPHOLOGY-ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS THEME:

A detailed geological analysis of Palolo, with some emphasis on the very complex geology of the secondary Honolulu Volcanic Sequence, specifically the Kaau volcanics event(s) and Kaimuki-Kaau Rift.  We also need details on all past modifications to Palolo Stream.  Hopefully the USACE (Corps of Engineers) would have this as part of the EIS for the Ala Wai Flood Control project or maybe somewhere else.  The Honolulu Board of Water Supply may also have this and other information, hopefully with maps.  We also need the detailed Soil Conservation Service soil maps for the valley.  Any material on Palolo-Pukele Stream is central to our study.

ORAL TRADITION THEME:

Detailed Hawaiian oral traditions based in Palolo or linked to Palolo.  A Kaau crater hiking web blog mentions “It’s named Ka’au Crater after a supernatural chicken, Ka’auhelemoa, that once lived in the valley. Legend has it that the demigod Maui insisted on joining all the islands of Hawai’i together. From Ka’ena Point he threw his mighty hook toward the island of Kaua’i, ensnaring the island only briefly, after which a mighty tug caused the hook to free itself and sail back over his head, landing in the valley and creating the indentation of Ka’au Crater;” from  https://www.outdoorproject.com/united-states/hawaii/kaau-crater-hike.  We need to locate where this comes from, relate this story to any others and also other noted features such as Mau’umae. 

We also need to comb the newspapers for any more recent oral legends linked to Palolo, such as 19-20c ghost stories.  This will likely come from the various newspaper archives.

SOCIAL HISTORY THEME:

Compile a social history of Palolo-Pukele including any events that have taken place in the valley.  This will largely come from the various newspaper archives mentioned below.  This should include any movers-shakers in the valley, and probably should include the various developers of different areas including the “Kaimukl Land Company” [Wilhelmina Rise]—who were these guys, what was their history, what impact did they have?

LCA-BIOGRAPHICAL-GENEOLOGICAL THEME:

This will likely start with the LCA (Land Court Awards from the Mahele) claims for Palolo-Pukele, but should include their other claims and history outside of just Palolo-Pukele.  There are references to the Cooke family in the back of Palolo and later G. Tongg (a famous architect).  Who else?  What about the families that settled in the makai portion of the valley in the early subdivisions?  The families who settled the Carlos Long subdivision in 1940-50s?  Can we find any info on why they moved to Palolo, and maybe from where?

LAND USE AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN PALOLO VALLEY THEME:

Past and contemporary land use in Palolo-Pukele, with emphasis on past and contemporary agricultural use along Palolo-Pukele Stream.  This would include all available text and any photos.  We should consider including material related to production systems such as traditional dryland/wetfield systems and 19^-20c truck farming in kona areas even if not Palolo-specific [though probably O’ahu only?] as I don’t remember seeing any major work discussing historic-period agricultural practices in stream-based kona areas.  Is there some for Manoa or Nuuanu?  This should include past-present economically successful species and why.  For this we need input from contemporary farmers in Pukele and maybe neighboring valleys.  This ties specifically back into the SLS/CUH planting project on our campus.

NEIGHBORHOODS IN PALOLO THEME:

Tehranian’s 1993 book has several chapters on differing aspects of vernacular architecture in Palolo.  Given the availability of the Google Earth and Zillow we want to expand this study and look at the relationship (if any) between built environment and perceived value of property.  The real estate website Zillow [https://www.zillow.com/homes/Palolo,-Honolulu,-HI/] includes the estimated values of all properties (I assume based on assessed property tax data), along with basic data such as lot size and number of bedrooms.  I still have to work out a analysis data form for this theme, but we want to compare the structure and visible area to assessed value, and then compare different sections of Palolo to see what patterns emerge in Palolo’s built environment.  We will add the Palolo side of Maunalani Heights-Wilhelmina Rise to get a comparison to see what impact elevation and viewplane have on value.  This will also include background research in just how assessed value is arrived at—how does the C&C of Honolulu assess values.  There should be standardized templates that assessors use to standardize the process and minimize bias.

RELIGION AND BELIEF IN PALOLO THEME:

Past and contemporary religious use in Palolo-Pukele.  Tehranian’s 1993 work has a chapter on the then-controversial Korean Buddhist temple that was built in Waiomao as an example.  We want to ask what belief systems to we see in Palolo and how do the religious institutions reflect perceptions of Palolo.  What changes have there been in religious practices in Palolo and how do these reflect changing ethnic residential patterns?  Some of the less mainstream may require additional research to elicit the beliefs and world view of the members.

TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY MEDICAL-HEALING PRACTICES IN PALOLO THEME:

Past and contemporary healing and medical practices in Palolo.  This will include formal and informal medical-healing practices with emphasis on their place in the Palolo community, especially as they relate to the various ethnic groups in Palolo (past and present).  This will include some analysis into patterns of changes in practices and how these reflect changing values and attitudes in Palolo and surrounding communities. Some of the less mainstream will require additional research to clarify the beliefs and world view of the practitioners and their clients.