Kela a me Keia (This and That)

If someone asked you to name your favorite fish in Hawai‘i, it’s probably safe to say your list wouldn’t include ‘o‘opu, but these fresh water gobies were once a prized delicacy among native Hawaiians. When Liholiho (Kamehameha II) visited Kaua‘i in 1821, he was treated with great respect by Kaumuali‘i, the king of Kaua‘i, and one of the specialty items he was served was laulau ‘o‘opu. Kaua‘i with its many streams and rivers was famous for ‘o‘opu, and in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa of February 1, 1868, historian Samuel Kamakau made sure to mention them in the following article about Liholiho.

 

Kaumuali‘i abandoned his honor and high ali‘i status and he made himself a humble servant to serve the food of the King, and all the chiefs and royal families of Kaua‘i among them were servants of food and the armories of the chiefs and whatever the king wished to be provided; whether it be fire-starting sticks or coconut husks, all this was provided first without hindrance and it was as quick as the flash of lightning, so too was the speed of the fire from that side of Makaweli to this side of Waimea for the cooking pits for the pigs, the dogs, the bird laulau, the ‘o‘opu laulau, and the desserts of King Liholiho. July 22, A.D. 1821 was the day King Liholiho arrived at Kaua‘i.

 

‘O‘opu, endemic gobies once common in every river, stream, and estuary in Hawai‘i, are not seen very often today. To understand why their populations dropped so dramatically, we need to look at their unique life cycle. ‘O‘opu live and reproduce in fresh water, laying their eggs on rocks in stream beds. When the eggs hatch, the larvae ride the stream waters into the ocean where they spend up to six months developing into juvenile fish. The juveniles, known to Hawaiians as hinana, then school and return to the streams, swimming up-current and even climbing up waterfalls. Back in the day, schools of hinana numbered in the thousands, and they were just as highly prized for food as the adult ‘o‘opu. Easily caught with nets, hinana were soaked in salt water for three or four days, dried, and eaten.

 

During the early 1900s, historian Theodore Kelsey interviewed Annie Kamakakaulani Harris who was born in Manoa in 1874. Mrs. Harris recalled the running of the hinana from the beach at Waikiki to the upper reaches of Manoa Valley. Prior to the construction of the Ala Wai Canal (1921-28), three streams crossed Waikiki Beach: Kukaeunahi at Ohua Avenue and Kalakaua Avenue, ‘Apuakehau between the Moana and the Royal Hawaiian Hotels, and Pi‘inaio in Kalia, where the ‘Ilikai Hotel is today. The hinana reached Manoa Valley through ‘Apuakehau Sream.

 

In Manoa there is a rock for the fish observer to stand on. It’s name is Kukalia. It is here that a fish observer would watch for fish when fish entered ‘Apuakehau, a stream between the Moana and the Hawaiian Hotel. Then the fish observer would show this by waving a flag. This was to show that the fish were entering ‘Apuakehau. The flag was a white tapa on a stick.  One wave, the fish were entering into the ‘Apuakehau Stream. Two waves, the fish were moving upward as far as Mo‘ili‘ili. Three waves at Puahia below the University. Four waves, the fish were at Makawiliwili below St. Francis School. Then the fish were coming up to enter Kaumeke. This was five waves of the flag. Then the fish had come to Hipawai (six waves). It was here above Manoa [Housing] below the bridge. Then the fish would go up, mountainward, without being seen by the fish observer, but fishermen saw the fish going mountainward as far as Naniuapo.

 

Although it’s hard to imagine now, Waikiki was not only a great area for surfing, but a productive place for fishing with the annual runs of hinana as only one example of its wealth of marine life. In 1985, the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Hawaii at Manoa conducted oral history interviews with dozens of people who lived in Waikiki before the Ala Wai Canal was constructed. Written copies of their interviews are available in our public libraries, and the information that follows is a sample of their comments about the marine life that once existed in Waikiki.

 

Harold Minoru Aoki, whose family owned Aoki Store at the corner of Kalakaua Avenue and Ohua Avenue, was asked if there used to be lots of good fishing in Waikiki.

 

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Lots of. Because the water comes down, the food comes down from the mountain, eh? And where the food comes down, the fish come up from the ocean looking for that food, eh? Then when they covered that- when they made the Ala Wai Canal and covered all the rivers, the fish migrated somewhere else. Because nothing- no food come down.

 

• Ernest Steiner: All the mullet from Pearl Harbor would pass through Waikiki from December to February. 

 

• John Ernstberg: Limu manauea, limu lipoa, and limu wawaeiole, and big schools of manini were found at Kalia.

 

• Fumiko Nunotani: Aama crabs and black oopu were found in Kukaeunahi Stream. Opae and pipipi were found on the rocks at Kuhio Beach. My dad went night fishing for upapalu. He also caught haole crabs, lobsters, octopus, and big kala. There was plenty of ogo [limu manauea] by Fort DeRussy.

 

• Fred Paoa: We lived at Kalia, where my dad was a net fisherman. He caught kala, mullet, and weke. He also caught squid [octopus]. There was limu eleele where Pi‘inaio Stream entered the ocean. Towards Fort DeRussy there was limu manauea and limu huluhulu waena and a lot of wana. We caught lobsters using nets at night. We used to catch a lot of kala. Where the stream entered the ocean, there was a lot of mud, and there were clams in the mud. We caught opae and oopu in the stream. We fished for papio and white eels. We caught two types of crabs, aama and alamihi. On the reef my dad dived for uhu and kumu, and we did torch fishing at night for mullet, uhu, and kumu. I caught oio in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

 

• Nani Roxburgh: [At Kalia] we had the best limu eleele. People used to come from town to pick. We had ogo, too. We used to catch sand dabs [sand turtles] in the sand. Hawaiians called them paki‘i.

 

• Wilbur Craw: When Apuakehau Stream was flowing, moi, oama, mullet and even manini would come into the stream. There was a lot of limu there, too: manauea, lipoa, huluhuluwaena, wawaeiole, and kala. Waikiki was very famous for it limu and it brought in all kinds of fish, kala and even big ulua.

 

• Rebecca Kapule: We got black oopu and alamihi crabs from Kukaeunahi Stream.

 

• Mary Paoa Clarke: Outside the Ilikai Hotel was noted for akule. My dad had a canoe and surround nets to catch them. We picked limu palahalaha and caught kuhonu (white crabs) and alamihi (black crabs).

 

• Mervin Richards: The area around Paoakalani Avenue was all rocks. We used to get pipipi and alamihi crabs there. We got limu eleele near the Queen’s home and limu lipoa was common. On a full moon we’d hook menpachi.

 

• Lemon Wond “Rusty” Holt, Sr.: My grandmother and Queen Lili‘uokalani were great friends, close friends. Occasionally, Lili‘uokalani came to visit my grandmother. And when she came, it meant climb a couple of trees, get the haohao coconuts down. You know what that is? Haohao? Means a coconut with meat just right that you can eat it with a spoon. That’s haohao. I got to be an expert. Anyway, she liked the coconuts from two trees, and nobody dared touch those two trees. It had to stay there so that when she came, there would be coconuts for her. Well, I had to husk the outer wrapping, and give it to her. Also, I had to go out to the stone wall, in the front of the stone wall at Kuhio Beach, dive and catch three or four, or five or six manini. You know what a manini fish is? She liked manini. She ate them raw. I also had to go out to near Queen’s Surf and dive for wana there, bring that home and then go back to Queen’s Surf and dive for lipoa, limu. She liked lipoa!  And my grandmother in the meantime would be cooking Hawaiian stew.

 

When we had the Kona storms, and they were really big storms, it used to bring in, at that time, schools of fish. That’s when the mullet came from Pearl Harbor, ran along Waikiki, Diamond Head, and out to spawn. That’s also when the papios, about, oh, four-inch sized papios, also came in schools. That fish, the papio, the young ones, liked brackish water. When they came along Waikiki, they went up into the streams. Makee Island streamwater emptied into the ocean. A fellow by the name of Henry Kia and I used to fish, if you can call it that, for papios. What we did was we took buckets and made holes in the bottom, tied (a) rope on top and let that bucket down, pulled it up, the water would pass through, and inside that bucket would be all the fish you wanted.

 

• Louis Kahanamoku: Mullet was the main one [fish at Kalia]. Mullet and ‘o‘opu. We call it ‘o‘opu way back. That was good. Yeah. They was the two Hawaiian fishes.

 

• Emma Kaawakauo: That part of Waikiki [off Ohua Avenue] you could get either squid or wana or lots of limu because there was a reef all through there.

 

• Sadao Hikida: The ‘Apuakehau Stream flowed past our back and front yards and emptied into the ocean between the Moana Hotel and Outrigger Canoe Club. The banks of the river were lined with hau groves and palm trees. The river was abundant with shrimp and fishes such as mullet, ‘a‘awa, aholehole, papio, manini, and ‘o‘opu. I spent many happy, relaxing hours fishing from the banks of the river or from the bridge which spanned the river.

 

Fishes and crabs were plentiful in the ocean even along the shoreline. There were also edible seaweeds. During the moili‘i season one could see thousands of them and with every wave that washed toward shore, many times they were stranded on the beach and we could pick them up.

 

There were also two piers which protruded from shore about 250-300 feet- one the Queen Lili‘uokalani, or Kuhio, Pier, and the other the Moana Pier. I spent many happy hours fishing from both piers, and used to dive for coins from the Moana Pier as the visitors tossed coins into the ocean from the pier.

 

The dredged material of mud and coral [from the Ala Wai Canal] was used to fill up hundreds of acres of ponds, fields and marshlands in Waikiki, Mo‘ili‘ili, McCully, Kapahulu, and Kapi‘olani Park. They also filled up the ‘Apuakehau, the Kukaeunahi and other small streams.

 

Construction of the Ala Wai Canal in the 1920s completely changed the dynamics of the fresh water flowing into Waikiki by trapping the stream runoff from Manoa, Palolo, and Makiki Valleys and channeling it into the ocean at the west end of Waikiki. Since the completion of the canal, ‘o‘opu larvae going into the ocean and hinana returning to the valleys have had to pass through the canal, and over the years that single, polluted route has contributed to a severe drop in the ‘o‘opu populations. Stopping the fresh water runoff into Waikiki also impacted all the other marine species that were once so abundant, including the fish and seaweed that the kupuna from Waikiki knew as children.

 

While no other canals like the Ala Wai have been built in Hawai‘i, irrigation ditches and other projects have reduced stream water running into the ocean in many areas, impacting other ‘o‘opu populations and marine species. In recent years, community groups have formed to clean watersheds, while others have lobbied for the return of mauka waters to our streams. Perhaps with the success of their efforts, we will be able to say again:

 ‘Ai wale i ka hinana, ka i‘a kaulana o ka ‘aina.

Eat readily of the hinana, the famous fish of the land.

 

 

 

Enoch Wood Perry, Jr. (1831-1915) BISHOP MUSEUM archives

 

Photo credit: State of Hawaii, DLNR-DAR