plate is over the hot spot. If the volcano gets big enough, it breaks the ocean’s surface to become an island. Eventually, the plate’s movement carries the island far enough away from the hot spot that volcanism ceases on that island. Erosion, which began the moment the new island appeared above the sea, tears the land down.
The Hawaiian Islands are successively older toward the northwest and younger toward the southeast. Northwestern islands, like Laysan, are hardly more than bits of volcanic rock now. Southeastern islands, including the major Hawaiian Islands, are still significant chunks of land. In geologically recent times, including today, the big island of Hawaii is the youngest and the farthest southeast of the major islands; Kauai is the oldest and the farthest northwest of the major islands.
The molten material—lava—characteristic of Hawaiian volcanoes is relatively fluid. The fluidity of the lava allows it to spread widely, and repeated eruptions produce broad-based, rounded volcanoes called “shield volcanoes.” The volcano expels not only flowing lava but volcanic fragments such as cinder and ash. Alternating layers of these materials build up during periods of volcanic activity. Erosion has sculpted the exotic landscapes we associate with tropical islands. Waves pound the volcano’s edges, undercutting them and, where the volcano slopes more steeply, forming cliffs like those of the Na Pali Coast. Streams take material from higher on the volcano, cutting valleys into its flanks and depositing the material they carry as alluvium, like the alluvial apron at the mouth of Kalalau Valley. New episodes of volcanism wholly or partly fill in those landscapes, and erosional forces immediately begin sculpting the new surface as well as the remaining older surface.
Earth began building the great shield volcano of Kauai about 6 million years ago, so Kauai is a mere infant in geological terms, compared to an Earth over 4 billion years old. Kauai’s initial period of activity, when the shield volcano was built, apparently ended about 3 million years ago. A quiescent period about 1.5 million years long followed; then a period of renewed volcanic activity began about 1.5 million years ago. New lavas then flowed over the eastern two-thirds of Kauai.
The last lava flow on Kauai is believed to have occurred on its southern shore near Poipu some 40,000 years ago. Erosion reigns now, changing the landscape constantly.
Life arrives
Living organisms colonize new land rapidly. In Hawaii, plants established themselves once there was a little soil for them. Seeds arrived on the air currents, too, or floated in from the sea, or hitched a ride on the feathers or in the guts of birds. Insects and spiders also took advantage of the air currents. Birds were certainly among the first visitors. Living things found little competition and quickly adapted to their new home, evolving into an astonishing variety of species many of which occur naturally only on the Hawaiian islands (“endemic to Hawaii”). The only mammals to arrive were the bat and the seal. Some birds became flightless—a fairly common adaptation on isolated islands with no ground predators.
Graceful palms along the shoreline
People arrive
It’s unlikely that the site of the very first human colony in the Hawaiian Islands will ever be found. Too much time has passed; too many destructive forces have been at work. However, recent archaeological work has established that people had settled in Hawaii by 300–400 A.D., earlier than had previously been thought. Linguistic studies and cultural artifacts recovered from sites of early colonization point to the Marquesas Islands as the colonizers’ home; the Marquesas themselves seem to have been colonized as early as 200 B.C.
The colonizers of Hawaii had to adapt the Marquesan technology to their new home. For example, the Marquesans made distinctive large, one-piece fishhooks from the large, strong pearl shells that abounded in Marquesan waters. There are no such large shells in Hawaiian waters, so the colonists developed two-piece fishhooks made of the weaker materials that were available in Hawaii (such as bone and wood). Over time, a uniquely Hawaiian material culture developed.
At one time, scholars believed that, as related in Hawaii’s oral traditions and genealogies, a later wave of colonizers from Tahiti swept in and conquered the earlier Hawaiians. Research does not support that theory. Instead, research has revealed that before European contact, Hawaiian material culture evolved steadily in patterns that suggest gradual and local, not abrupt and external, influences. The archaeological record hints that there may have been some Hawaiian-Tahitian contact in the twelfth century, but its influence was slight.
The Hawaiians profoundly altered the environment of the islands. They had brought with them the plants they had found most useful in the Marquesas Islands: taro, ti, the trees from which they made a bark cloth (kapa), sugarcane, ginger, gourd plants, yams, bamboo, turmeric, arrowroot, and the breadfruit tree. They also brought the small pigs of Polynesia, dogs, jungle fowl, and, probably as stowaways, rats. They used slash-and-burn technology to clear the native lowland forests for the crops they brought. Habitat loss together with competition for food with and predation by the newly introduced animals wrought havoc with the native animals, particularly birds. Many species of birds had already become extinct long before Europeans arrived.
On the eve of the Europeans’ accidentally stumbling across Hawaii, the major Hawaiian islands held substantial numbers of people of Polynesian descent. They had no written language, but their oral and musical traditions were ancient and rich.
Their technology apparently remained as static as their rigid social system. Commoners, or makaainana, lived in self-sufficient family groups and villages, farming and fishing for most necessities and trading for necessities they could not otherwise obtain. The land was divided among hereditary chiefs of the noble class (alii). Commoners paid part of their crops or catches as taxes to the chief who ruled the land-division they lived on; commoners served their chief as soldiers. Higher chiefs ruled over lower chiefs; the higher chiefs received taxes and commoners to serve as soldiers from the lower chiefs in turn. People especially gifted in healing, divination, or important crafts served the populace in those capacities (for example, as priests). There was also a class of untouchables, the kauwa. Most people were at death what they were at birth.
Strict laws defined what was forbidden, or kapu, and governed the conduct of kauwa toward everyone else, of commoners toward alii, of alii of a lower rank to alii of higher rank, and of men and women toward each other. Some of the laws seem irrationally harsh. For example, a commoner could be put to death if his shadow fell on an alii.
Chiefs frequently made war on each other. If the chiefs of one island were united under a high chief or a king, often that island would make war on the other islands.
The people of Kauai, like other Hawaiians, worshipped many gods and goddesses. The principal ones were Ku, Kane, Kanaloa, and Lono. Ku represented the male aspect of the natural world. Ku was also the god of war and demanded human sacrifice. Kane was the god of life, a benevolent god who was regarded as the Creator and the ancestor of all Hawaiians. The Kauaians worshipped Kane at many places. The high alii of Kauai, both men and women, made a difficult annual pilgrimage from Wailua to worship at Kane’s altar on the forbidding, stormy summit plateau of Kauai’s sacred mountain, Waialeale. Kanaloa ruled the dead and the dark aspects of life, and he was often linked with Kane in worship.
Lono was another benevolent god; he ruled clouds, rain, and harvests. The annual winter festival in Lono’s honor, Makahiki, ran from October to February. Makahiki was a time of harvest, celebration, fewer kapu, and sporting events. Images of Lono were carried around each island atop tall poles with crosspieces from which banners of white kapa flew. (Legend said Lono had sailed away from Hawaii long ago and would return in a floating heiau (temple) decked with poles flying long white banners from their crosspieces.) Chiefs and chiefesses met the image of Lono with ceremonies and gifts, and commoners came forward to pay their taxes.
Systems
