Happy Birthday Ka'ahumanu and Kauikeaouli

As noted last week, today is birthday of Queen Ka'ahumanu, who was born in Hana in 1768. But today is also the day that Kauikeaouli -- better known by his royal title, Kamehameha III -- celebrated his official birthday. Kauikeaouli was born in August 1813 (though some think it was in June or July) but adopted March 17th as his official birthday because of his admiration for St. Patrick. (Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's day, too!)

On a completely different note, today is also another significant anniversary -- one year ago today the ill-fated Superferry stopped service between Maui and O'ahu. Will ferry service make a comeback? A bill was passed last month to explore the options of linking the major islands by boat. We shall see....

Celebrate Queen Ka'ahumanu's Birthday

This weekend the Queen Ka'ahumanu Center in Kahului is celebrating the birth of one of Hawaii's most revered queens -- and their namesake -- Ka'ahumanu. The queen was born on March 17, 1768, in Hana, Maui. Through her mother's lineage she was descended from the great chiefs of Maui, including Kekaulike, and on her father's side she was related (distantly) to Kamehameha I, to whom she was betrothed in 1781. She went on to be the king's favorite wife and, after Kamehameha's death, to be co-regent of the Kingdom of Hawaii with both Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III.

On Friday (March 12), opening ceremonies will be led at the mall by the 'Ahahui Ka'ahumanu Society beginning at 6:00 p.m. On Saturday (March 13) there will be musical entertainment in the queen's honor:

• 11:00am: Hulu Lindsey
• 12:00pm Derick Sebastian and Joshua Kahula
• 1:00pm George Kahumoku
• 2:00pm Jason Sedang and the men and women of Kealaokala, .

  The events are sponsored by radio station, KPOA.

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Ko'olau: A True Story of Kaua'i at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center

There are still tickets available for this Sunday's 5:00PM performance at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Ko'olau: A True Story of Kaua'i. This looks like it is going to be a fantastic show, a blending of Hawaiian history, puppetry, video projection, live music, and vivid storytelling.

The work is the brainchild of Hawaiian-born (and now New York-based) director Tom Lee; it tells the true story of Kaluaiko'olau, a native Hawaiian paniolo with Hansen's Disease, who resisted forced exile to Kalaupapa in the 1890s, hiding with his family in Kaua'i's Ko 'olau Valley.  Its text is taken from Francis Frazier's powerful, poetic translation from the original words of Pi'ilani, the wife of Kaluaiko'olau.

The New York Times called the show "beautifully conceived and performed. Tom Lee's production...not only reveals its lyrical beauty, but through its rich combination of music, film, and puppet animation, brings out the sadness and strength at its core."


Tickets are still available at MACC box office or on their website at https://www.mauiarts.org/tickets/. PLEASE NOTE: The show is general admission and is in the Castle Theater, so you may want to show up early to get good seats.

For more photos from the show, visit Tom Lee's website at http://www.tomleeprojects.com/gallery2/v/Koolau/.

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A Look Back at Hawai'ian Tsunamis

With this weekend’s small tsunami behind us, we thought it would be worth taking a look back at some of the other tidal waves that have hit Hawai’i over the past 200 years.

According to Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis’s in-depth tsunami page, a major, destructive tidal wave hits Hawai’i once every twelve years. So when the news media kept saying on Saturday that we are overdue for a “big” tsunami, they weren’t kidding. It’s been 50 years since the destructive 9.5 magnitude Chilean earthquake that created the tsunami that devastated Hilo – statistically, we should have had at least three or four destructive tidal waves since then.

(In 1975, a 7.2 earthquake off the coast of the Big Island generated a tsunami that swamped the Keauhou Landing area of the Puna coast of Hawai’i, killing two people, but the majority of destructive tsunamis are not locally produced. Most come from South America or Alaska.)

A number of minor tsunamis have also reached the islands since 1812 (the first historically recorded tidal wave), but since 1964, those have been relatively rare as well. Why the long drought (so to speak)? Does it mean we really are overdue for a cataclysmic tidal wave? Considering how many earthquakes happen each month around the so-called “ring of fire” in the Pacific, it does seem like it is only a matter of time until a major wave hits the islands. While things went well this weekend, let's hope that state and local agencies take a hard look at Saturday's evacuations and make the necessary changes to the system to ensure even greater compliance when the real thing eventually happens.

Another resource we found is the University of Hawai’i’s Center for Oral History. Check out their “ Tsunamis in Maui County: Oral Histories” page, which is full of reminiscences of the 1946 tsunami – generated by an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands – that slammed in the north shore of Maui and affected the island from Lahaina to Hamoa Bay. The memories of the survivors of that tsunami serve as a cautionary tale; as Barbara Cannon told the interviewers in 1999:

“On the horizon was like a big wall of water. We got in the car and we drove . . . we were caught between our home and the nurse’s cottage, when the car began to float. I said, ‘Willie, let’s leave, let’s get out, let’s get out,’ and he tried to open the door and he couldn’t. We kept bobbing along. And he said, ‘I can’t open the door.’ But as he said that he opened the window, and it released the pressure, so he was able to open the door, so we swam from the car.”

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