Molokai Nui a Hina: A Bit of Old Hawaii

 
This past week, I returned yet again to Moloka'i (Hawaiian Islands), something that I now do recurrently after having bought some land in the ancient Koloko’eli Fishpond lagoon frontage of the Kamiloloa Heights section (east of Kaunakakai and just west of Hotel Molokai).

Measuring 10 miles by 38 miles, with a population of about 7000 people, Moloka'i is often referred to as 'The Friendly Island' by visitors (a name given to Molokai by the State of Hawaii’s Public Relations flacks back in the 40s), although the locals used to refer to it as ‘The Lonely Isle’;  even further back in recent history it was known as 'The Leper Isle' (due to Father Damien's colony for sufferers from Hansen's Disease on the north coast). Today, the people of Molokai prefer 'The Most Hawaiian Isle' as their descriptive term of choice, since Molokai has the highest percentage of people with native Hawaiian lineage (estimated at between 37% and 45%) of all the islands that comprise Captain Cook's 'Sandwich Islands' chain. A further 30% are of Filipino extraction, with the remainder being mostly white. While O'ahu, Maui, Hawai'i (the 'Big Island'), and Kaua'i have all been developed to excess, reeling from the ravages of real estate speculation run amok, overrun by tourism, and generally loved to death by visiting mainland haoles (das us honkies, bruddahs!), the lovely island of Moloka'i has nevertheless managed to retain almost all of its original low-key, traditional yesteryear flavor.

The modern name Moloka'i may be translated as "The land of gathering waters" (according to one source); it was traditionally known by native Hawaiians as "Moloka'i Pule-o'o" ("Moloka'i of the powerful prayers"), due to the island's purportedly potent evil spirits. Lying 8.5 miles northwest of Maui and 9 miles north of Lana'i, it is 5th largest of the Hawaiian Islands group (260 square miles only). Comprised of the outflux of two large volcanoes linked together by one smaller one, the higher, eastern end of Moloka'i rises to a height of nearly 5000 feet (Kamakou summit) and consists largely of lush tropical forest growing in profusion on the flanks of its heights. To the west, the older ancient volcano known as Mauna Loa (not to be confused with the ‘Big Island's’ famous and much higher Maunaloa volcano of a same name) rises to a more modest height of only 1380 feet and is an arid, ‘kona’ (dry) region that catches only a small fraction of the leeward eastern end of the island's substantial annual rainfall. The two chief polar volcanic protrusions are joined together by a connecting plain that is today the site of experimental farming projects and the communities of Ho'olehua (the island's airport, serviced by several inter-island carriers and air-charter companies, is located there) and Kualapu'u. The western third of the island was acquired by private interests (these holdings were granted by the Hawaiian King) that in 1895 established what has come to be known as The Moloka'i Ranch; this was an active cattle, horse, and sheep ranch for decades, although a large part of it was leased to Dole and Libby for pineapple cultivation until the 60s. In the 90s, Molokai Ranch Properties was sold to a New Zealand/Singapore based conglomerate  company.
 
The real centre of 'local' population is the small community of Kaunakakai, a former pineapple plantation settlement which is sited on the southern shore of the island, about midway from east to west coasts. This part of Moloka'i fronts what has been described as the longest and most spectacular extended reef outside of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. At low tide, the depth of the reef is only about 8 feet and a profusion of fish may be found there. Most of the island's population are clustered in the Kaunakaka'i area (about 4000 of the island’s total population of 7500, or so), in or around the town in several adjacent districts (Fish camp and Ranch Camp—former plantation housing). Back in the 1800s, there were as many as 10,000 native Hawaiians living on Molokai, but by the 1920s, that population had shrunk to a mere 1,270 or so, due to both diease and economic deprivations. Since then, the population has climbed back up to its present level (about 7000+ or so).

When in the Kaunakakai area (as I was, staying in a friend’s home in the Fish Camp district this time), one of the chief attractions on Ala Malana Street ('main street') in the town is the Kanemitsu Bakery. Started many years ago by a Japanese immigrant who contracted with the pineapple producers to provide baked goods to the island’s plantations, this great little bakery today still makes wonderful breads, cakes, sweets, and all sorts of other delicious pastry goods. Their items go fast in the early morning, however, so one has to get in ASAP after the store opens to be assured of getting the goods. There is also a ‘local style’, low-key cafe on the premises where locals enjoy a large island-type breakfast of eggs, SPAM, and two heaping scoops of white rice.

As for coffee, aside from the Moloka'i Estate Coffees (Coffees of Hawaii) plantation near Kualapu'u, there used to be two coffee shops in the town of Kaunakaka'i for the die-hard malihini caffeine freak (moi): the first was Stanley's Coffee Shop Gallery, which combines a coffeehouse on its first floor (with internet access) with a gallery upstairs that showcases local Moloka'ian artists. The other coffeehouse (which has now gone out of business) was located near the Moloka'i Pizza Cafe (a fairly new and modern cafe that serves a range of good things) and was run by a proselytizing Christian evangelical type who stocked 'bible-thumper tracts' in his store along with the capuccinos (I never bothered to try it, since Christ and coffee are a poor admixture for born-again atheists). There are a number of other, smaller, 'local' cafes here and there along Ala Malana Street and they all have to be tried, of course; they tend to come and go, however. Regrettably, several old and long time favorites have since folded. They include the ‘Midnight Inn’, the Pauhana Inn,  and the island’s only Chinese restaurant, which closed down about 15 years or more ago.

Kaunakaka'i has a small surf shop (surprise!), a fairly good Lanai-style (outdoor) restaurant at the beachfront Hotel Moloka'i, several energetic grocery and general stores, a few real estate offices (the enemy!), a post office, a Chevron gas station, a drug store (Molokai Drugs), an ice cream shop (surprise!), a condominium complex (Molokai Shores), and a rather good community hospital (Moloka'i General) with clinics and an emergency room (especially serious emergencies, however, are air-evac'ed to facilities on Oahu). There's even a gun shop, owned and operated by the brother-in-law of a local pake (Chinese) friend.
 
Small though it may be, Molokai has three small newspapers (The Moloka'i Dispatch, the  Moloka'i Advertiser News, and most recently The Molokai Island Times); the Molokai Advertiser News (an extremely right wing publication) is published on the East End of the island, while The Molokai Dispatch and The Molokai Island Times are more balanced in their outlooks and are both published in Kaunakakai Town.

To the north, the eastern end of the island's famed North Coast rises steeply from the ocean in immense, towering, sheer sea cliffs that soar almost 3000 or more feet (they are in fact the tallest such seacliffs in the entire world). With no reef to protect it, the ocean in that area is wild, restless, and endlessly pounds the volcanic shores with unceasing fury. The steep green cliffs, overgrown with lush tropical foliage, are so sheer that neither Sherpa nor mountain goat could hope to successfully negotiate their slopes. Although millions of gallons of fresh rain water drop daily into the sea from these cliffs (via spectacular waterfalls),  it is from this part of the island that most of the entire water supply of Moloka'i is channeled west (via a 5 mile long tunnel that penetrates the eastern mountain core to deliver the water to holding reservoirs at Kualapu'u). Despite this small scale aquaduct, water remains the island's principal concern, even through the present time.

The wind-swept western part of the island, including the area in and around the small plantation community of Mauna Loa Town, belongs mainly to the privately owned Moloka'i Ranch organisation, which has been engaged in contentious interaction with the indigenous peoples of the island for over a century. As might well be imagined, the local economy is very modest and barely viable, with the highest rates of unemployment to be found in the entire Hawaiian Islands chain. Thus, the native Hawaiians (‘locals’, as they prefer to be called—don’t call them ‘natives’ or get stink-eye!) are ever engaged in a love/hate relationship with Moloka'i Ranch (now largely owned by a Southeast Asian multinational investment firm). As oppressive as Moloka'i Ranch's presence may seem to be, the employment and water management rights which it controls are crucial for the local economy--a factual view many locals are extremely reluctant to acknowledge. The island's only large luxury resort complex, the Sheraton Kaluakoi Hotel, Golf & Tennis Club, shut down about 7 years ago (pending reorganisation by new owner, Moloka'i Ranch), but a large section of condominiums remain there (Kenani Kai), using the extensive Kaluakoi grounds and golf course. I stayed there some years ago (it had at that time a number of Japanese nationals who had come all the way from Japan to play the spectacular golf course) and was surprised to find the hotel now closed (this occurred in 2004). In Mauna Loa, Moloka'i Ranch has opened an expensive new development, known as the Moloka'i Ranch Inn, and has rebuilt that quaint old pineapple plantation town into a new urban development that attempts (but succeeds only partly, in my opinion) to capture a flavor of the old time plantation era. There, the island's only motion picture show plays the latest film hits from the mainland. The restaurant at the Inn provides Molokai’s sole ‘up-scale’ dining experience, if you’re into that sort of sniffy thing. From my observations and those of others, the new ‘Mauna Loa’ settlement does not seem to be too successful in attracting interest and is does seem to have a sort of Hollywood ‘false-front’ air about it.

One of the recent changes in the island relates to efforts to diversify the island's economy, a process that is still being studied and looked into by Molokai’s Community Advisory Council. Now that pineapples are no long a source of income (Dole and Libby used to have large plantations on Moloka'i that provided steady employment for locals, but the last plantation closed operations down in the late 80s), new sources of economic investment income are being sought. One of these is coffee; Moloka'i Estate Coffees has a plantation situated in Kualapu'u town that covers more than 500 acres. While the coffee plantation provides local employment, the coffee itself is excellent and some of the best I've had from Hawaii. In fact, I obtain my coffee beans from Moloka'i by mail order, sent to me in 5 pound bags. Two excellent types sold by Moloka'i Estate Coffees are their Island Espresso and their famous Muleskinner (a dark, strong roast made from hybrid Arabica beans that were introduced to Molokai over a century ago, on King Kamehameha V's request), but there are several other types, as well. If you are a genuine card-carrying, long-time coffee freak like myself (I began my habit back in the Berkeley coffee houses of the late 60s), you won't regret it! Molokai beans easily rival the vaunted ‘Kona’ Arabica bean of Hawaii, in my opinion. Despite the fact that you may never have heard of Muleskinner or Island Espresso, rest assured that the Japanese have; they remain the world’s largest consumers of Molokaiian coffees.

Farming is also big on Moloka'i, believe it or not; The University of Hawaii has several large experimental stations operating there and this effort is so successful that Moloka'i now supplies most of all the other islands' fruits and vegetables. The Moloka'i High School football team is known as the 'Moloka'i Farmers', a reflection of the role farming activity plays in the island’s economy (although I doubt the students much relish playing other Hawaiian Island teams with more dramatic names like the ‘Tiger Sharks’, ‘Morays’, etc.) In that part of the middle island area near Hoolehu'u where the experimental farms are operating, a number of small, native Hawaiian farms also operate under the aegis of the Native Hawaiian Homestead Act (this is land given at no cost to individuals with at least 50% Hawaiian blood who wish to cultivate the property) under statutes established back in the late 70s.

One very ingenious local enterprise is the brainchild of a local woman who has created a thriving international business from the sea-salts found on Molokai. While this is product just starting to be developed, the idea is exactly the sort of thing that Molokai needs: locally owned business that has a very substantial interest in the island and its peoples (and not the sort of corporate greed-motivated, mainland-owned enterprise that usually obtains in most places in the islands today). Update: The Molokai Salt Company was just recently sold to a larger interisland company, however, the local impact of which is never predictable in the long term. What Molokai needs most is local business that remains local.

Most of the higher eastern end of the island is now part of the Moloka'i National Park and Forest Reserve, as is the entire Makanalua Peninsula on the North Coast part of the island, site of the Father Damien's Kalaupapa colony for victims of Hanson's Disease (Leprosy). The settlement is now a monument to the tragic existence of those who were once condemned to live on Makanalua Peninsula in splendid, but fierce isolation from the rest of the world (prior to the discovery of Sulfonamid drugs in the early 40s, which enabled Leprosy to be arrested and essentially eradicated). On the east end of Moloka'i live a number of anti-establishment types, who shun the conveniences of modern society in austere, but invariably breathtakingly beautiful natural settings, but  the whole area of the North and Northeast Coast is so isolated that hardly anyone lives there. This is somewhat ironic, considering that 1200 years ago, the earliest Polynesian sea-farers first landed at that spot and for centuries afterwards its population at the Halawa Bay area was far greater than it is today on the entire rest of the island. Today’s beautiful Halawa Bay, where this first colony of Polynesian immigrants settled many centuries ago, is subject to occasional dangerous tidal waves, and it was one such huge Tsunami that all but wiped out this early settlement in 1946. The area is privately owned, but only a handful of kanaka maoli remain, where they cultivate the ancient Kalo plant (more commonly known to us as ‘Taro’).

In ancient times, Moloka'i was regarded by the peoples of Hawaii as having very powerful mana (spiritual power) and its priests/kahunas were generally regarded with great respect as being formidable opponents, by the royalty of the other islands. One result was that despite all the frequent fighting that marked interactions among the island’s ancient peoples, Molokai remained largely untouched by those conflicts. Today, Moloka'i is still the most 'sacred' of the islands in terms of preserving the old cultural ways, with a large number of ancient religious sites ('Heiau',--a worship site or ‘temple grounds’). There is, for this reason, all the more resistance among locals to any modern development plans for the island by commercial interests. In fact, back in the late 70s and early 80s, this "most friendly of the islands" saw a substantial home-grown resistance movement gain strength among a coalition of locals and immigrant haoles. An article on Moloka'i appearing in a 1981 issue of National Geographic Magazine references vandalism of tourist rental cars, deliberate spiking of visitors' tires, and other expressions of antipathy to tourism development. In the 23 years that have passed since that time, the militant aspect of the resistance has toned itself down considerably, although there are still some very strong anti-growth undercurrents to be found everywhere among the local population. Although Moloka'i is still officially regarded as 'the friendly island', that attitude is tempered largely by the manner in which you treat the locals. Genuinely friendly, low-key, and culturally sensitive visitors who embrace the island's layback charm are most often welcomed warmly in the old manner, but those who are overly demanding, overbearing, condescending, in too much of a hurry, out to make a quick buck, or insensitive to the unique lifestyle that is found on Moloka'i are treated accordingly.

Any new visitor to the islands who is unfamiliar with the island customs is doubtless confounded by the supremely relaxed lifestyle affected by ‘local’ islanders, a feeling very often expressed simply with the hand-gesture known as the 'shaka' (you can easily visualise it if you think of a traditional western "thumbs-up" gesture performed with the pinky finger of the same hand extended). Popular among most youth today, the ‘shaka’ has become as commonly recognised as the ‘thumbs up’ sign was during the Second World War (or the ‘peace sign’ in Vietnam). Although many mainlanders are vaguely aware that the term ‘Hawaiian Time’ means ‘very relaxed and slow-paced’, in Moloka'i time slows down even further than it does on the other islands. The local speed limits are 35 mph (45 max on the single main road that connects the ends of the island), and being ‘on time’ in Moloka'i means arriving within a few hours of the intended hour (or perhaps not at all, if the fishing or surfing is good). The bottom line is that those who expect the sort of glitzy Las Vegas titillation of Waikiki or Honolulu’s nightlife will be grossly disappointed. The streets roll up promptly at 6PM, there are no stoplights on the island at all, and a traffic jam on Moloka'i typically occurs when two locals stop on the roadway to 'talk story' (enjoy some relaxed conversation). If, on the other hand, you absolutely hate the fast-paced fantasyland life most Americans now experience nearly every waking day of their lives, you'll love the island. Moloka'i has on its western shore (near Kapuhi Bay) one of the longest (3 miles in length), most spectacular and most beautiful white-sand beaches in the entire Pacific (known as Papohaku Beach). This beach is typically almost entirely empty--usually not a single footprint disturbs it. When the notorious rip-currents are not dangerously active (usually in summer months), it has some of the finest surfing to be found anywhere in the whole Pacific region, as well. Thanks to imported Axis Deer and wild pecories that have since overrun the island, there is excellent hunting to be found on Moloka'i, which is forever waging a running battle against these over-proliferating, non-native species (not that I am a hunter myself, but for those who are, the hunting here is astoundingly rewarding, so I have heard). It should be mentioned, however, that locals regard the Axis Deer as their special preserve and resent outsiders attempting to hunt on the island.

Moloka'i's most noteworthy characteristic, aside from its desire to remain undeveloped and easy-going, is its strong emphasis on community that traditionally characterised ancient Hawaiian society. Since most of Moloka'i's inhabitants have intermarried extensively over the past decades, virtually all of the locals are related--either directly, or indirectly. That is, as we shall see, both a good and a bad thing. Therefore, the communal spirit is particularly strong on Moloka'i--part of the reason why development and commercialisation interests most often run aground when they try to sweep in, to buy up land and build new resorts, etc. The island's airport at Hoolehu'a receives all the inter-island carriers, and flights to and from the other islands are easy to catch--usually in small carrier (Island Air) connections with Aloha Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines flights to and from the mainland.

In a recent revisit to the island, I was unhappy (but not too surprised) to find that land values have skyrocketed since 1990, with simple condominiums going for starting rates of $375,000 and most 2 bedroom, modern homes on prime (ocean view) sites selling for closer to a million and up. A particularly disturbing development over the past 10 years is the growing adolescent use of drugs and a particularly severe problem with substance abuse among high school age kids, who have discovered the 'cool' drug-culture of the mainland (‘Ice’, or crystal methamphetamine, abuses are most particularly severe). Complicating the problem is the fact that due to the high rates of intermarriage among local islanders, individuals are extremely reluctant to report substance abuse to the authorities, since most everyone is related. Recent reports in the 'Dispatch', published in Mauna Loa, indicate that at just about every other street has at least one or more well known 'drug houses'. One of the local women I talked with in Stanley's Coffee Shop Gallery confided that she has 6 drug-using members in her immediate family alone--several others of whom are in recovery status. She expressed shame and regret over this fact, but again restated the awkward fact that because everyone is 'family', it is nearly impossible to get people to report the abusers to public authorities. This is a tricky problem to sort out, to say the least, since the ancient concept of respecting and caring for ‘ohana (extended family) is virtually the foundation of traditional Hawaiian life.

Among its many distinctive cultural charms, Moloka'i has the singular honor of being the birthplace of the Hula. Each year this indigenous and beautiful story-telling art form is celebrated in a festival held at Papohaku Beach (in May). Although the typical clueless mainlander still thinks of 'hula girls' dressed in scanty grass skirts and little else, the truth is that Hula is more often performed wearing voluminous dresses (like the Mu'umu'u) that all but obscure the female figure entirely. We have the zealous Christian evangelical missionaries of the 1800s to thank for that, since traditionally Hawaiian women went about bare breasted--a condition those staunch conservative religious proselytizers found absolutely scandalous! An old song still sung today says it best..."watch the hands, not the lovely hula hips"...since in hula, the hands are almost as expressive as the human voice in ‘telling story’ and it is therein that are told the non-verbal ancient tales, set to drums and other simple instruments.

Pure blooded Hawaiians tend to be large individuals as a group and it is as common to find that older Hawaiian women are rather heavy-set. I have to admit I wondered about this a bit until I sampled local Moloka'ian fare. A typical Moloka'i meal has about twice the portions of food most mainlanders are used to. A typical side-dish includes two large scoops of rice, breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Loads of carbs, needless to say. The average Moloka'ian woman therefore tends to be large (not quite as large as Samoans, however!) and quite the antithesis of that lovely little stereotypical wisp of a Polynesian girl that is a fixture of most mainlander male fantasies about the South Seas. Actually, it is those women in Hawaii who tend to have a stronger admixture of different races (non-native Hawaiian) in their blood that tend to be slender and often stunningly beautiful; more often pure-blooded Hawaiian women are large and heavy-set, with full-boned frames. While this has nothing to do with their inner qualities, (they are typically warm, friendly, extremely generous, and good-hearted), it does tend to dash mainlander stereotypes rather quickly. My own personal observations have yielded the surmise that those Hawaiian women who have large amounts of Chinese, Japanese, and or Filipino blood in their family are more often among the seriously beautiful ones to be found--whether on Moloka'i or one of the other islands. Lithe slenderness is not, so my observations would suggest, an indigenous Hawaiian (or pure Polynesian) trait (unfortunately!).

Before anyone concludes that I seek to dishonor or detract from the many admirable qualities of native Hawaiian women with what might be misconstrued as irresponsible sexist disdain, be assured that I am merely making observations; what you make of them is entirely your own business. For myself, I have always preferred slender, smaller women, and am generally not attracted physically by larger, robust, or overweight females; that's just my personal preference, which I, of course, am perfectly entitled to (after all, I'm just as much a 'shallow Hal' as the next guy, as regards certain subjects...). Above all, my observations are not intended to be a slam against pure-blooded Hawaiian women, since as we all know, every culture is vastly different in terms of its values, diet, lifestyle, and levels of physical activity. In fact, generalized obesity is a problem throughout the United States that has only been recognised for the serious health threat it has, in fact, always been. In Hawaii, today’s easy-going lifestyle, large food intake, and lack of vigorous exercise undoubtedly all contribute greatly to the problem of island-wide obesity, however.

On my recent return to Moloka'i, two aspects of island culture not unique to Moloka'i, but certainly concentrated there, were the practices of ancient traditional Hawaiian religion and the traditional Hawaiian fighting art known as 'Ku'ia-lua' (or simply 'Lua'). Hawaiian adepts in Lua were reputed to be extremely strong and skilled in the art of killing by many methods. Lacking iron weapons, such as were common in 'civilised' western society, Hawaiian warriors developed a number of very physical techniques to kill their opponents with wooden and stone weapons, but they were especially skilled at subduing enemy warriors in hand-to-hand combat. The powerful strength required of many of the techniques used required much training under the instruction of special kahunas (priests/magicians/sages). So strong were some of these warriors that it has been recorded that they could pull out an enemy's intestines through his anus (Auwe! Now THAT’S gotta hurt!)! While that fact takes some imagining to fully appreciate, the strength required to do this does also. One must remember that the most recent period of traditional pagan Hawaiian religion (under the Polynesian priest Pa'ao) required human sacrifice, so a recent resurgence of interest in the Hawaiian martial art of 'Lua' has occasionally prompted mild concerns over the darker aspects of the custom. There is today a small but devoted following of the ancient traditional Hawaiian religion that the Christian missionaries were so dedicated to eliminating, but these theoretical anxieties are mostly academic: the ancient art of Lua helps remind native Hawaiians of their origins and of that part of their culture that the invasion of Christianity has hastened to eliminate.

The island of Moloka'i is known, as mentioned before, as a place of great 'mana' (spiritual power') among the islands and there are a great many sacred sites and other archeological sites in which to take an interest for those who show appropriate respect. Native Moloka'ians do not encourage non-locals to take serious interest in these parts of their culture, understandably being concerned about careless desecration of ancestral burial sites and religious heiau (temples/holy grounds) by outsiders. Among the many strange things that can not be easily explained away by western logic or reason are the ghostly processions of 'night marchers' that occur frequently on the southeast shore of the island (between mile 8 and mile 20, close to the ancient Kawela Battleground and not too far from the Ili'ili'opae Heiau). People who have experienced these unearthly processions of ghostly warriors late at night, on certain nights of the lunar month, include highly respected and academically credentialed holders of PhDs, so the old stories that are so frequently repeated cannot be dismissed easily.

[The Kawela Battleground was the site of a ghastly slaughter in 1736, when the numerically superior forces of invading O'ahu chieftains were routed by the powerful mana of Moloka'i kahuna. Ili'ili'opae Heiau was the site of a feared school that taught kahunas in the dark powers of the Molokaiian mana; it is reported to be one of the more notorious sites of human sacrifice (although not all agree on this) and may be visited on foot, providing permission to pass has first been obtained from the private land-owner ('Aunty Pearl') on whose lands it exists. Further east and not that far from the Ili'ili-opae Heiau is the grove of sacred Kukui trees in which the most powerful Hawaiian kahuna of ancient times was buried (Lanikalua). The grove is fenced in today (it is enclosed on private property), as terrible things have happened to those who have desecrated the site in the past. Molokai'ian locals are not anxious for malihini (strangers) to poke around at any of the traditional sites of island mana, least of all this one!]

The 'night marchers' are often preceded by the sound of drums and nose-flutes, but sometimes they are not. This apparition takes form in the shape of rows of ghostly warriors marching from the high slopes of the cliffs rising on the Kamakou headlands down to the shore; one person who witnessed such a procession stated that the long lines of warriors included both men and women, with 6 of each gender abreast of each other, and stretching back up into the hills. It is said that they march from the burial sites of the 'Ali'i' (royalty), which are hidden high up on the sheer faces, to their ghostly outriggers on the shore, and any living person who is found in their way is subject to being killed outright. Traditional custom, upon being unlucky enough to encounter night marchers in their processions, is for the person thus unwillingly confronted to tear off all his clothing and lie prone on the ground until the night marchers have passed (although he still may or may not be killed, according to the whim of the long-dead chief whose phantom warriors are passing by). People who live in isolated dwellings in this part of the island's coast are accustomed to the activities of the night marchers, but don't discount them any less for that fact. Some have even witnessed these phantasms passing through their back yards or through their homes. The strange goings-on of the night marchers is but one of many such anomalies on the sacred island of Moloka'i Pule-o'o.

My trips to lovely, old fashioned Moloka'i end all too soon and I usually find myself intensely regretting having to embark on the flight back to that state of semi-crazed 'civilisation' that is modern California. Frequently, I bring back many new books on the Hawaiian culture for my reference library, but most importantly I am always able to experience the perfect peacefulness that is the Moloka'ian way of life once again, albeit for only several weeks at a time. It is my hope to finally retire on the island, a place where one may forget all about the increasingly insane activities and daily violence that Californians' today resignedly accept as 'normal life' at home.

All that having been shared, I should say that no pasty-white skinned haole malihini (honkie mainlander) will ever be fully accepted by the locals on an equal basis. I have talked to a number of haole kamainas (white long-time residents) who, although they manage to get along reasonably well with ‘blooded locals’ (kanaka maoli, or ‘native Hawaiians’), still feel a bit ‘outside’ the local circles after 20 years in permanent residence. In the local schools there remains a lot of adolescent bias against haole kids, making it sometimes very tough for them to gain acceptance among the darker skinned local teens. And that isn’t to mention an endearing local Hawaiian custom at the end of the school year called ‘Killahaole Day’.

On Kilahaole Day, it’s pretty much open season on any white skinned kid, regardless of whether he is hapa (half-White) or not. The lingering vague animousity against white mainlanders who came to Hawaii and essentially stole the land from under the Hawaiian people remains in no small part. Mindful of that ineradicable fact, being a mainland kid in a Molokai school is no party. Getting along and fitting in for haole kids is best achieved by a delicate balancing act between hanging tough and being unassuming and humble. Above all, one must learn as much as one can about Hawaiian customs and social etiquette (there's a great book on this I highly recommend, titled Culture Shock: Hawaii, by Brent Massey--available at Amazon Books, ISBN 0761424989 and 978-0761424987) before relocating to Molokai (or any of the islands).

This isn’t to say that problems with local bias against ‘outsiders’ and the growing epidemic of substance abuse that presently has a substantial grip on Molokai (and all the other islands) cannot be dealt with or at least partly overcome with positive results, but despite the fact that Molokai is as close to paradise as it gets on the islands, even paradise has its liabilities and ‘dirty little secrets’. The trick is, as always, to try to remain positive, friendly, uncritical, and relaxed, cultivate friendships with locals, live the true spirit of ‘Ahoha’(giving of self to others), actively show that you respect the ‘ohana traditions of the islands, and always be willing to share and contribute to the greater good of everyone without expectation of return. A smile will get you anywhere on Molokai faster than a dozen slick mainland lawyers and all their legalistic trickery.

It is a great place to retire, mindful of the above caveats, and about as serenely languorous as any South Pacific island paradise can be! For writers, there's no finer place to find peace, serenity, and the perfect environment in which to pander to one's muse (we have Sam Clemens' and Robert L. Stevenson's examples to look to, for an early precedent). Toward that end, I will be spending more wonderful moments in future on the island that is (in my opinion) by far the best of the entire Hawaiian chain. As Clemens famously observed (pardon my paraphrase), "Molokai is the finest little island anchored in the South Seas."

"Ukuli'i ka pua, onaona i ka mau'u". ("Tiny is the flower, yet it scents the grasses all around).

Aloha kaua, hoalo'ha!