Canoe Plants and Kalo
Kalo (or taro) came to Hawaii in the canoes of Polynesian settlers and was cultivated as a staple of life, believed to have the greatest life force of all foods. They brought an estimated 12 varieties with them to the Hawaiian Islands and eventually cultivated hundreds of varieties of taro. They adapted it to different soil types and island climates, and cultivated it in the uplands as high as 4,000 feet, as well as in marshy lowlands irrigated by streams. Offshoots of a mature taro plant are known as ‘ohā, which grow in a circle around the parent plant. The ‘ohā eventually grow into mature taro plants producing their own circle of ‘ohā. This ever-widening circle of taro plants is the symbolism behind the Hawaiian family and the word ‘ohana.
Kalo (Colocasia esculenta) was the primary food of the Hawai`i people, supplemented by breadfruit (`ulu), sweet potato (`uala), greens, fruit, fish, and seaweed (limu). This plant can reach heights of more than 3 feet, and has large heart-shaped leaves (luau) that rise in a cluster from an underground corm, which is similar to a large potato. The taro plant’s large leaves usually grow to about 1 to 2 feet long by 8 to 18 inches wide, and are light green to dark green to purple, and sometimes streaked with white. The corm varies in color from bluish lavender, purple, red, white, or yellow, and in ancient Hawai‘i, red and purple poi were reserved for royalty (ali‘i).
Great farming skills were needed to terrace, cultivate, and irrigate the land along streams. Farmers of wetland taro built walls of earth reinforced with stone to enclose a lo`i (pond field). Then, using well-designed canals (‘auwai), water was diverted from the stream into the terraced areas where taro was grown, and channeled back into the stream. Along the banks of the lo`i they planted mai`a (banana), ko (sugarcane), ki (ti), and wauke (paper mulberry). In the ponds, several varieties of fish were grown, such as `awa, `ama`ama, o`opu, and aholehole. This concentrated effort meant an acre of wet lo`i could produce 3 to 5 tons of food per year.
All parts of this vital plant were eaten. The leaves (lu`au) are rich in vitamins A, B, C, as well as calcium, iron, phosphorus, thiamine, and riboflavin. The cooked corm and poi have fewer vitamins, but are an excellent source of carbohydrates. And the huli, or top of the corm, could be replanted making taro a recyclable plant. Kalo ‘apu is the Hawaiian term for taro used medicinally. Poi was used to settle the stomach, or mixed with noni fruit and applied topically for boils, or mixed with pia (arrowroot starch) and taken for diarrhea. Undiluted poi was sometimes used as a poultice on infected sores, or a piece of taro stem (haha) was touched to the skin for a sting, or to stop bleeding and begin the healing process. Taro is often fed to babies as their first whole and natural healthy food, as well as to the elderly, for its ease of digestion and high vitamin content.
Canoe Plants
Canoe plants are those plants brought by Polynesian voyagers to secure their survival and well-being once they reached Hawaii. These canoe plants represented the entire world of the original Hawaiians: their nourishment, their handicrafts, their medicines, and their spirit. Their entire culture came with them in the form of seeds, stalks, tubers, roots, and cuttings.
These are considered to be canoe plants of Hawaiʻi:
`Ape – elephant’s ear – Alocasia macrorrhiza
`Awa – kava – Piper methysticum
`Awapuhi – shampoo ginger – Zingiber zerumbet
Hau – hau – Hibiscus tiliaceus
Ipu – gourd – Lagenaria siceraria
Kalo – taro – Colocasia esculenta
Kamani – ballnut – Calophyllum inophyllum
Ki – ti – Cordyline fruticosa
Ko – sugar cane – Saccharum officinarum
Kou – kou – Cordia subcordata
Kukui – candlenut – Aleurites moluccana
Mai`a – banana – Musa
Milo – portia tree – Thespesia populnea
Niu – coconut – Cocos nucifera
Noni – Indian mulberry – Morinda citrifolia
`Ohe – bamboo – Schizostachyum glaucifolium
`Ohi`a `Ai – mountain apple – Syzygium malaccense
`Olena – turmeric – Curcuma domestica
Olona – olona – Touchardia latifolia
Pia – Polynesian arrowroot – Tacca leontopetaloides
`Uala – sweet potato – Ipomoea batatas
Uhi – yam – Dioscorea alata
`Ulu – breadfruit – Artocarpus altilis
Wauke – paper mulberry – Broussonetia papyrifera
These plants were considered so vital, so sacred, and so flexible in their applications that they brought the future existence of the people with them. These Polynesian seafarers in vovaging canoes managed to carry with them not only food for a 3,000-mile journey, but for the rest of their lives in Hawai‘i, along with their medicine, clothing, handicrafts, and the essence of their religion.
Kauai History and Poi
The Hawaiian word for health, as well as the word for life, is ola, as it was their belief that health and life were one and same. Ancient Hawaiians were strong farmers, fishermen, hunters, and gatherers who relied upon a diversity of foods to keep them physically, mentally, and spiritually fit. They cultivated crops, hunted birds and pigs, gathered vines and ferns, practiced net and deep sea fishing, collected shrimp, shellfish, and seaweed. And with taro being one of the most nutritious carbohydrates known, the traditional Hawaiian diet may have been one of the best in the world. It was a simple, high starch, high fiber, low saturated fat, low sodium, and low cholesterol diet.
Taro was the backbone of the ancient diet and they ate it in several forms, but the most common way was as poi. As with all food preparation, men did the pounding. Sitting on the ground at one end of a pounding board, the pounder began with a pile of cooked taro and a bowl of water. Handfuls of water kept the board and stone pounder moist as taro was added to the board and pounded into a paste. If the paste (pa`i `ai) was to be stored or transported, it was made with very little water. When it was time to eat the pa`i `ai, a small quantity was mixed up into poi. Poi was then served in bowls and eaten with one or two fingers.
Poi was also made from breadfruit, sweet potato, or banana. Hawaiians also cooked a variety of foods in a pudding form made with coconut cream and shredded coconut meat. Adding different proportions of coconut to sweet potato or breadfruit, wrapping in ti leaves and cooking in an imu, produced firm, sweet, nutritious foods. After cooking, it was cooled and cut into slices that were then dried in the sun. Poi had great significance in the Hawaiian culture, and there was a great reverence for the presence of poi at the table. It was unforgivable to have a quarrel, argue, or haggle when poi was on the table.
Kauai History and Food Preparation
In Hawaiian society, it was the task of the men to prepare food and meals. Food preparation involved a variety of cooking methods including broiling, boiling, and roasting. Even though Hawaiians lacked metal utensils or ceramic containers, they used wooden bowls, gourds, stones, and the drying power of the sun with great skill.
Broiling food using hot coals (ko’ala) was a common way to cook a small amount of food that did not warrant use of a larger earth oven. Food was cooked by being spread out flat on a level bed of coals, or it was warmed over or near a fire and periodically turned. Breadfruit and unripe bananas could be broiled this way in their skins. Other foods that needed protection from burning and were wrapped in ti leaves (laulau).
Hawaiians boiled foods by dropping heated stones into a container filled with water rather than applying heat to the outside of the container. Food was placed in a bowl with water and the stones then added, or food and hot stones were placed in the container in alternating layers with the water added last. Many foods were cooked this way including greens, the tops of new taro leaves, or the tender ends of sweet potato vines.
Roasting was achieved in an earthen oven (imu). The process of cooking in the imu was called kalua. The imu consisted of a shallow pit dug in the ground filled with kindling, larger pieces of wood, and fist-sized stones arranged on top. When the fire was spent, the hot rocks were spread to create an even floor, and then covered with a layer of grass or leaves to prevent scorching of the food. Taro, breadfruit, sweet potatoes and other foods were arranged over the stones and covered with more ti leaves. On top of all this, a last layer of old mats and kapa was laid. Whole chickens, fowl, and pig were cooked whole with hot stones added to the abdominal cavities.
Kauai History and Taro
Taro became the mainstay of the Hawaiian diet and the spiritual center of Hawaiian society. So important was taro to their survival and prosperity that it was considered an elder sibling to the Hawaiian race.
Taro farming developed into a sophisticated system with the cultivation of approximately 300 varieties of taro adapted to grow in marshy land irrigated by streams or in the uplands as high as 4,000 feet. Wet taro planting required a ready source of flowing water that could be diverted through the taro terraces (lo’i). A new lo’i was first cleared of grass and weeds and allowed to absorb the nutrients from rotting hau and kukui leaves which were worked into the damp soil. The area was flooded for several days and mud was thrown along the border forming an embankment. Once they hit firm soil and the banks were built up, they stamped down the embankment sides with their feet. More soil and leaves from sugar cane and coconut were beaten into the surface preventing the banks from drying and cracking.
Taro cuttings (huli) were planted in the soft mud and the field was flooded. Once leaves unfurled, the lo’i was drained and left alone for two weeks. The terrace was then flooded again with slowly circulating water until the crop was pulled for harvest. The taro roots (corms) reached maturity when the leaves began to curl and yellow, but they could be left in the flooded lo’i for months longer without rotting. Taro generally matured in nine to twelve months, and farmers rarely harvested a whole lo’i at once, only pulling what was needed. The roots were worked free from the mud by hand or foot, the plant was pulled, the leaves were chopped off, the top portion of the corm was replanted, and old leaves were returned as fertilizer.
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Kauai History and Farming
The tropical climate provided plenty of sun, water, and rich soil, but the lack of metal tools or wheels meant planting and harvesting was done literally by hand. A farmer’s hands and feet were his best tools for clearing the soil, weeding, raking, and digging. Hawaiians also developed a variety of wood, shell, and stone tools for use in husking coconuts, harvesting breadfruit, harvesting taro, carrying objects, felling trees, and planting with the aid of an ‘o’o.
While the Hawaiian word for water is ‘wai’, the word for wealth is ‘waiwai’. Farming centered around taro which grew best with an abundant supply of fresh water. Water, therefore, became a symbol for abundance and prosperity. The importance of water shaped ancient laws, justice, property rights, and was an important resource to be protected and cared for. The water needs of taro spurred Hawaiians to some of their greatest engineering and construction achievements by developing sophisticated irrigation systems that kept taro terraces flooded with slowly circulating water.
The building of irrigation ditches or watercourses (‘auwai) required the labor and planning of a whole community. Irrigation ditch construction began at the lower elevation end of a stream and was dug upward, adding dams of rough stone in the stream that could be opened and closed by removing or replacing the large stones. Terraces were designed so that water from the ‘auwai flowed from one terrace to the next, moving slowly enough not to sweep away soil or young plant shoots, but moving quickly enough so that the water temperature remained cool. Farmers taking water from the ‘auwai followed a time schedule, and no single user was allowed to divert more than half the stream’s flow.
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