PALOLO-WAITITI CULTURAL HISTORY SERVICE LEARNING PROJECT

R. Bordner, Anth/Geog, Chaminade Univ. of Honolulu

We are in the initial phase of a comprehensive historical, biological or cultural study conducted by Saint Louis School and Chaminade University of Honolulu on Palolo Valley. The only summative work work to date is a collection of student papers published in 1993 (A Study of Palolo Valley: Ethnicity, class, and spatial identity (Katharine Tehranian ed., UH Manoa’s Dept. of American Studies.)).

A key component of this project is the engagement of the local community. A central part of this will be this website where we will reporting on the work done to date and the state of the project research. We will be updating the website as new research becomes available. The eventual goal is to provide the Palolo-Pukele community with a repository for information reflecting on the past, present and future of Palolo Valley. As we complete various tasks final formal research reports will be generated reflecting the contributions students, staff, faculty and community members involved in the research.

PROJECT RATIONALE:

The campuses of Saint Louis School and Chaminade University of Honolulu are located on the slopes of Kalaepōhaku, within the area of Pālolo Valley, which is in the ahupua’a of Waititi. 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 and the larger community of the ahupua’a of Waititi, this will provide detailed documentation of the past and current conditions in Pālolo Valley and the rest of the ahupua’a. This project will be a valuable resource for contemporary and future discussions about land use and decision making throughout Waititi.

HERE ARE THE CURRENT PALOLO-WAITITI GOOGLE EARTH (kmz) FILES OF LAND COURT AWARDS: BOUNDARIES FOR THE ENTIRE AHUPUA’A OF WAITITI, INCLUDING ALL NAMED PLACES, BOUNDARIES AND STREAMS.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS ONLY WORKS PROPERLY IN GOOGLE EARTH. I HAVE ADDED THE GOOGLE MAPS (KML) FILE VERSIONS AT THE BOTTOM BUT MUCH OF THE FUNCTIONALITY IS LOST IN GOOGLE MAPS.

PALOLO-WAITITI PROJECT LAND COURT AWARD FILES:

These files below have been compiled from the Foreign Testimony volumes of the Mahele (Volumes 1-3 and 14, all the Waititi testimony) and the 1881 Bishop map for Waikiki and the 1881 Monsarrat map of Palolo (along with supplemental maps). We will start compiling Mahele Native Testimony for Waititi in the near future.

Palolo Project All: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oZJRi_DhvG2vY0OHj9SHeeLQN3bkhvhP/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi Place Names (from historic maps): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZIZA_T9pt_FIeYLiOqo__Hikp3hLzIaL/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi Historic Maps (warning very large file as scanned maps): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1na6uvjZYTottyKE9miUhpIyaXpfT2HVO/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi Land Court Award Boundaries (estimated-all boundaries approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r2hUk1SfEM7z7v1dB6gjtZHAKWwVcFgO/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi Land Court Awardees with their Foreign Testimony entered: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yueqliYG-JKh_n2vbfRZQGvmf4n2zcNp/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi Historic Streams, Auwa’i, Lo’i and Roads (estimated): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TfFxyDyYh5jTiejFDne-GwPxdPc_SZy_/view?usp=sharing

Lahaina Maui Land Court Award Material (partial as currently underway):

Maui-Lahaina LCA Project All: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sIusQLsJ1b9_IFw9EPPmwRN6VVxHhai8/view?usp=sharing

Maui-Lahaina Historic Maps (warning large file): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dBS480HPPx216VfgVdDbxqBgRaAvYpAj/view?usp=sharing

Lahaina Place Names (from historic maps): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bcctWvzZoKIQO0BOeg7smvtb4RU44tIE/view?usp=sharing

Lahaina Land Court Awards (approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/19VMdfLzLXUuwviRaGvQKbAnmAoD7h4lo/view?usp=sharing

Lahaina Land Court Award Boundaries (approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rybm84zyWdgXiM0VRsLJoL1fmcu1j9yu/view?usp=sharing

Lahaina Historic Streams-Roads (approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d7Wg46GN-D8wpLd1uzwaOOXJ41HFF5T1/view?usp=sharing

Lahaina Historic Buildings-Walls (approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kmXr0WNndlZ937K2CI0BhYXXeFTfo2r4/view?usp=sharing

Pearl Lochs Area Land Court Award Material (partial as currently underway):

Pearl Lochs Place Names (from historic maps): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kf9JgH2ZEmR0YjutN5V8bj74JQJrs39z/view?usp=sharing

Pearl Lochs 1850 LCA: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1__XODk3HYmJUfqDzdX5Q7wjZ6rhfV3Kq/view?usp=sharing

Pearl Lochs Land Use 1894 (from historic maps-approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LWCCyjNUtrIJ43mb0pCO-LRwGHMKUeLR/view?usp=sharing

Pearl Lochs Streams-Road-Rail 1894 (from historic maps-approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-FhpaPIoTi2zCAL6ZgmPNQBCnDaqIx0-/view?usp=sharing

HOW TO USE THE GOOGLE EARTH FILES:

Google Earth uses a unique file format called kmz files. These allow efficient compression of text and locational data for sharing with other users.

To Use kmz Files

download the kmz file(s) you want to view
open a copy of Google Earth (which is free)
In Google Earth, go to the upper left hand corner, click on files, and go down to the ‘Open’ option.
find the kmz file you downloaded and click for it to be opened.
Google Earth will load the file information into your copy of Google Earth.
If you have multiple platforms or copies of Google Earth, you will have to load the kmz file(s) into each copy.
To make life easier, you should probably go back and place all the new kmz files under a new topic heading such as Waititi or Palolo files.
When you go to close Google Earth, it will ask you if you want to save the ‘Temporary’ files [which is where it stored your downloaded files]. Click yes, otherwise when you open up Google Earth next time the new files will have disappeared and you will have to reload them.
As we update the kmz files for various categories or locations, we would recommend that you delete any older version of that file you have in Google Earth and replace it with the more recent version, otherwise you will end up with multiple sets of material.

Palolo was an ili in the ahupua’a of Waititi, moku of Kona, island of O’ahu in the pre-European 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 Hawaiian land units were 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 controlled use rights (usufruct rights) to individual land ownership (now called fee simple ownership).

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 tiers and new immigrant families than in neighboring Kaimuki or Manoa. In the 1960-70s drug and gang activity centered around public housing led the media to give the valley the stereotype of a “tough” neighborhood, and real estate values are still somewhat lower in Palolo than Kaimuki or Manoa (as of late 2021).

FUTURE PROJECT PLANS:

We will be expanding our Palolo-Pukele work into the following interrelated themes in the future:

LCA-BIOGRAPHICAL-GENEOLOGICAL THEME: This will be based on the Land Court Award claims (LCA) from the Mahele for all of the ahupua’a of Waititi (now Waikiki) of which Palolo-Pukele was part of. To date (12/2021) the Foreign Testimony volume information has been entered into the Google Earth Palolo-Waititi files (kmz) and are available for download (see above). We have also entered in all the place names and physical features (such as streams and auwa’i from the 1881 Bishop Waikiki map, 1881 Monsarrat Palolo map and supplemental sources. This is also part of the download set seen above.

Remaining Specific Tasks

Transcribe, translate and enter in the Native Testimony material for all of the ahupua’a of Waititi. Expand the project to transcribe and enter in the Foreign Testimony for other sections of islands, especially those areas that were key to the Monarchy and aspects of change in the 1830-1860 period such as Lahaina.

GOOGLE MAPS VERSIONS OF FILES (kml):

Palolo-Waititi Place Names: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NtEDnuczOFsQ-OQN755B_3zOPLKgAXQs/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi LCA Boundaries (approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q18G27ndzL2IQQrnmVRPrNBRqzK2ubIv/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi LCA Awards-Names: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MZY35K3EYtJf2-gt3fixEGJopgv5fl1H/view?usp=sharing

Palolo-Waititi Streams-Roads (approximate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hYHriD9szVxTYtYTL1lWcdzsfa9u0w8-/view?usp=sharing

Maui-Lahaina LCA Project (approximate-partial-underway): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lIBXVkldL_bgH-QpXIQS9wwRmwRy1NNe/view?usp=sharing

Pearl Lochs 1850 LCA Project (approximate-partial-underway): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rJF6u3bTOE9PCNH3H4kqkHGr60wN_F5K/view?usp=sharing

To load files into Google Maps you need to: