Off to Kauai

After the morning rituals that have started every day so far, we packed up and said goodbye, leaving my aunt and uncle some peace for a week. We went to the Bishop Museum, the State Museum of Cultural and Natural History. All of us have been there multiple times before but it keeps changing and it is just the sort of museum we like. We didn't leave ourselves much time there and we ended up spending most of it on a tour led by a short Hawaiian guy that reminded me of Uncle Norman. He had plenty to say about anything that came into his mind. As Jon said, he assumed we had much more context than we did, so he just rattled off historical names and political opinions while showing us a model of a house of sacrifice or a statue to one of the 3000 gods.

This is just my thought, and I don't think I have ever taken an anthropology class so it is deeply unsophisticated, certainly. But this society that developed out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, all alone with no outside influences for centuries (?) was a unique example of humans coming up with their own theology, social strata, responses to human problems, music, language. It must tell us something about human nature, although not every isolated group would come up with the same culture due to a myriad of factors including climate, geography and ancestry. They had limited resources (whatever was here: trees, rocks, birds, coconuts, not so very much) and their tools and buildings and art all came out of those materials. They were a warrior people, they had royalty and a middle class and a lowest class (if I remember that right, that could be wrong, but they certainly had royalty). They sacrificed humans to the gods. According to the guide, the royalty was responsive to requests and complaints, so it wasn't a dictatorship. The rules of religion were strict and it was easy to get killed for doing things wrong. All of this is actually more interesting to me than the incredible amount of work and care they put into making the robes for the king (they caught special birds and pulled special feathers out, rubbed oil on the birds and let them go, since they were sacred) out of millions and millions of feathers, tied on with super resilient rope made from trees. 

The end of the story is sad and inevitable, as people arrived from other places, bringing disease and other theologies and raw materials. It only took less than one lifetime for the population to go from around 800,000 to 140,000 -- and this was without any intentional killing of people, just attrition through disease, mostly. Hawaii had no immunity. The same is true for all these endemic plants and animals. If they are unique, they don't have the resistance to survive outside influences. Jon's reasoned observation is that societies and cultures that have met and merged (start with ancient history and explorers/marauders) have ended up stronger and more resilient, with better ideas. While isolation creates a unique set of responses it doesn't create resilience.

This is what happens when you give us just a tiny bit of knowledge. Or when we go to museums of culture around the world and try to remember what we learned but can't remember the specifics.

According to the story boards in the room with all the stuff about kings since King Kamehameha, the Hawaiian people decided at the end of the last queen's reign that they didn't want a monarchy anymore. And there is no person or family that is designated as the next royal person, even if somehow they changed their minds. But according to the guide there is still a sentiment amongst some Hawaiians, wishing for the return of Hawaiian sovereignty. It would not be the same in any way, as there are so few of them left.  

We then returned to the world of travel rigmarole: returned our car, got on a little plane, took half an hour in the air to get to Kauai. As we were departing, the ground crew lined up to wave and smile at us and as we landed, the next crew (of one) stood outside and waved and smiled.  The airport in Kauai has all the trappings of a real airport but it is just so cute and small scale. Looks like a strip mall. 

First stop was an afternoon farmers market in Poipu where we found almost everything we needed: organic beets and arugula and bok choi, duck eggs since they were out of chicken eggs, pomelo, apple bananas, papayas, even organic beef. The market was set up in a tourist mall and all the farmers had small tables under the same kind of red umbrella.  It was a real market, very busy.  We didn't talk to anyone but all the produce was beautiful. Prices were amazingly familiar, and sometimes lower than ours.

Second stop was at an independent supermarket in Waimea that Laura remembered from her last trip here. We bought poke (raw, marinated tuna) and tons of other stuff, assuming (correctly) that there was nothing in the kitchen of our rental house. Jon bought ingredients to start the process of learning to make the new salad dressing (but we forgot sugar so it ended up being rather tart).

Our abode is within 2 minutes walk of a beach with real sand and real waves. Our house is tucked behind another larger house that is right on the main road (two lanes, no lines) so we can't hear the traffic but we can hear the waves. This beach looks great for sunsets but I am not planning to swim in that surf -- too much sand in those waves. Just a little further north we can see a wider beach with swimmers and a lifeguard.

If Laura had not brought some of that chocolate from Auntie Annette's collection, our dinner would have been the healthiest meal in months. Rice and vegetables and fish and fruit. Rescued by chocolate.