Digging Deeper into the Ahupua'a

Recently Jeanne Rubin and I had some interesting back porch conversations with Jonathan Scheuer and Halena Kapuna-Reynolds—about Hawai’i of course, but mainly about the state of agriculture and water in the Islands.

For a number of years now Jonathan has been working with the National Park Service to protect groundwater flow in and through Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park to protect ecological functioning and water dependent traditional and customary practices there. He was in Colorado to meet with his NPS colleagues at Fort Collins and to attend a water conference at the Denver University. We took advantage of his presence in Denver and recruited him (actually, he volunteered) to lead the discussion following our March 9^th screening of Kalo Pa‘a o Waiāhole – Hard Taro of Waiāhole at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

A week or so later we had Halena over for a farewell dinner and some “talk story.” He’s returning to Hawai’i for doctoral studies at the University of Hawai’i Manoa in May which gave us a good excuse to enjoy his company. He’s one of the few guys around who can talk about museology and the role of culture, virtual reality, computers, and artificial intelligence in the future museum.

But as I stated earlier, the conversations were primarily about agriculture and water.  And if you’re talking agriculture and water in Hawai’i then you’re certainly going to be having discussion of ahupua’a—the subject of this particular rant.

Here’s one of the problems I have with so many of the recent films and writings on ahupua’a. Generally they get the fundamental notion right. What we see or hear are variants of the late, great anthropologist Marion Kelly’s description of ahupua’a as wedge-shaped land divisions which radiate from the interior uplands, claim a deep valley, and extend seaward past the shoreline. But the devil is in the details and it’s in the details that film-makers and writers get it wrong. For example, a statement such as: “Each ahupua`a contained the resources the human community needed, from fish and salt, to fertile land for farming taro or sweet potato, to koa and other trees growing in upslope areas” is correct—up to a point. But it’s wrong on several other levels.

For example, although the ahupua'a provided a certain level of general resource self- sufficiency, the system also allowed for the development and regional and interisland commerce in specialized terroir- or natural resource-based products and skills as canoes, adzes, fish lines, salt, timber, and fine mats.

My sense is that the focus on the geographical, geopolitical, and economic aspects of ahupua’a presents an oversimplified and incomplete picture of these systems.  Ahupua’a should not be simply thought of as land divisions but as complex systems—systems that were designed with a long-term vision of soil and water conservation with planting cycles guided by intimate understanding of, among other things, local society, climate, rainfall patterns, and soil characteristics. Planting schedules were guided by attention to seasons and moon phases and specific plants were placed in microenvironments within these complexes most suitable for their growth. These systems also incorporate agricultural technologies such as walls, terraces, ditches, fish ponds, and kuaiwi. Stated this way, it becomes more readily apparent that these complex systems depend on the kind of knowledge systems that incorporate astronomy, hydrology, engineering, plant breeding, and a host of other specialties.

These are major public works which suggest sophisticated administrative, management, and logistical systems as well. I am not suggesting that Hawai’i was a Wittfogelian hydraulic society but it seems obvious to me the design, planning, and construction of these agricultural technologies required substantial and centralized control. As Samuel M. Kamakau points out that “one can see that they were built as government projects by chiefs, for it was a very big task to build one, (and) commoners could not have done it (singly, or without co-ordination.)” Chiefs had the power to command a labor force large enough to transport the tons of rock required and to construct such great walls.

I think we ought to also view ahupua`a as manifestations of the elements of Hawaiian spirituality into the natural landscape. Amidst a belief system that emphasized the interrelationship of elements and beings, the ahupua`a contained those interrelationships in the activities of daily and seasonal life. 

So it’s okay to think of ahupua’a as political or economic land divisions. And it’s not wrong to take lessons from ahupu’a that are generally technocratic and cite design, construction techniques, construction materials, and similar elements. But for me a deeper understanding of the complexities of these systems is much more rewarding. For example:

• How do traditional knowledge systems and institutions integrate knowledge into the values, customary practices, and identity of the Hawaiian people?
• How was knowledge production encouraged? And how was such knowledge assessed and adopted?
• How were specialized knowledge and resources peculiar to a small area shared among other ahupua`a. 
• Similarly, what organizational systems are required to construct, operate, and maintain terraces, fish ponds, and canals?
• How did the kapu system operate through konohiki and kahuna to exercise stewardship over land, water, and natural resources? Over the social interactions? Over community spirituality?
• And finally, how do we contextualize the ahupua’a system for 21^st Century Hawaiian agriculture?