Braided Waters. Wade Graham

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FIGURE 1. Fishpond in East Molokai. Photo by Kristina D. C. Hoeppner.

      WATER, LAND, AND SOCIETY

      In Hawai‘i, water is not only the critical variable in shaping the physical landscape, it is the basis of the social as well, structuring everything: production, reproduction, mythology, religion, and political economy. Its relationships and vocabulary extend into every facet of Hawaiian life. In the muddy water of the kalo field is the ‘oha (kalo sprout), which begets the ‘ohana (productive extended family). The ‘ohana members till the ka ‘āina (land, “that which feeds,” from the proto-Polynesian kaainga, an extended household group and its associated estate or productive landscape), making them ma ka‘āina na (living on the landers, na = substantive plural) and kama‘āina (children of the land).⁵⁰ In this relationship is the origin of the world: in the stone-lined, irrigated lo‘i (kalo paddy), the ‘oha grows from the makua (parent corm). This haloa (long kalo sprout, or “long stem”) was both the firstborn son of the creator, Wakea, who died and turned into a kalo plant, and his younger son, also named Haloa, the progenitor of people. People too, call their parents makua. The lo‘i is watered by wai (freshwater), carried from the stream in ‘auwai (ditches) and hawai (wooden flumes), often of bamboo stems (ha). Wai as the giver of life is associated with Kāne, the first god and giver of water: kāne ka wai ola. In prayers and mythic tales, it is the significant basis of the spiritual and of fertility. As an element, it is the basis of waiwai (wealth)—literally, much water.

      Wai provides the founding structure of the human community, physical and legal: Hawaiian law, called kānāwai, “of the water,” describes first the management of water, which is itself a literal map of the division and tenure of land, and from this, the rigid system of ranking and class that overlays the productive landscape—each level called papa (stone strata), the same as the walls and terraces that divide and guide and submit the stream waters to orderly production. The lo’i and its associated irrigation works, barrages, ‘auwai, headgates, and so on are constructed by laulima (community labor, “many, many hands”). Under the rule of the luna wai (water boss), each planter receives a share of water in proportion to the amount of labor contributed, both in construction and in maintenance, to keeping the ditches clean and clear. Each ‘ohana tends an ‘ili (a collection of productive spaces made up of lo‘i ponds), kuauna (the banks of ponds and ditches where banana, coconut, sugarcane, and other crops are planted), mo‘o (strips of kalo or ‘uala land), and pauku (yet smaller strips, “land cut off”). An ‘ili could be pa‘a (complete) or an ‘ili lele (jumping ‘ili), made up of various noncontiguous pieces and strips. It could be an ‘ili ‘āina, subject to the konohiki (chief’s man) who controls the environs, or an ‘ili kupono, paying tribute directly to the ruling chief. Within it were koele (plots) cultivated for the ali‘i, who were designated by what kuakua (portion) of the land they eat: the ali‘i ‘ai ‘ili, ali‘i ‘ai ahupua‘a, “the chief who eats the subdistrict,” and the ali‘i ‘ai moku, “the chief who eats the major district or island.” Koele were also called po-a-lima (fifth-day patches), as they were worked for the chiefs on Fridays. Next were haku (lord or overseer) one, plots for konohiki; mahina ‘ai, usually dry-farmed plots for the people; and kihapai, plots for the tenants.

      Together, all the ‘ili belong to an ahupua‘a, the basic political division in Hawai‘i.⁵¹ At the top of the ahupua‘a, generally organized as a single watershed demarcated by ridgelines, are the mountains and the uninhabited forested uplands, wao (wild, unpeopled), where wild foods and birds are gathered; next are the kula lands, where ‘uala and other dry crops are grown, where pili grass is gathered for thatching houses and where groves of kukui trees are harvested for their nuts for candles and food, and wauke (paper mulberry) trees are tended for their bark, which is pounded into kapa cloth. Then, the stream (kahawai) flows through the cultivated landscape (au) or the reticulate, irrigated pondfields to the beach (kahakai) and finally, to the sea (kai). Under the right conditions, rock-walled fishponds are built, either just inshore (loko wai) or offshore (loko kuapa), turning the space where the freshwater (wai), meets and mingles with the saltwater (kai), into fat fish, another kind of waiwai. Fishponds effectively encircled the sea, attaching it and assimilating it to the controlled relations of production of the land; they complete the linkage between the top of the watershed and the sea in both physical-environmental terms and political terms. Hawaiian space, bounded by the relation between water and land, is a fundamentally islanded space: the productive landscape is segmented and divided into ever-smaller pieces, each an island with its own water supply, isolated yet linked with others in a larger archipelago, which is itself surrounded by trackless, unproductive, uncontrolled wastes: the lo‘i and mo‘o within the ‘ili, the groves and patches within the kula, the stream surrounded by the wao of the forests; the ahupua‘a by the moku, the island surrounded by other islands, and they by the endless sea, where no chiefs claim rights. As physical space, land, and water is structured by environmental constraints, so too is it structured by the social hierarchy with its myriad subtle gradations, divisions, and constraints. And, vice versa, Hawaiian social space is fundamentally structured by the environment. The two are intimately grafted onto one another and are illegible as independent ideas (see map 2).