Did Hawaiians ever hunt whales?

[Brian Bigler]

Aloha kakou,
I've seen and read a bit about Hawaiian history, and no where have I
seen
any information on whether Hawaiians have ever consumed whales or seals.
The Bishop Museum has an impressive collection of antiquities, but I
have
not seen any artifacts analogous to the harpoons and such of the Pacific
Northwest and Alaska. Additionally, the Hawaiians portrayed so much in
petroglyphs, but no whales.

Anyone know about this?
--
Aloha pumehana,
Brian and Mary

[RI Kanaka]

"Brian Bigler" <***@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:1222049400-***@news.lava.net...
>
> Aloha kakou,
> I've seen and read a bit about Hawaiian history, and no where have I seen
> any information on whether Hawaiians have ever consumed whales or seals.
> The Bishop Museum has an impressive collection of antiquities, but I have
> not seen any artifacts analogous to the harpoons and such of the Pacific
> Northwest and Alaska. Additionally, the Hawaiians portrayed so much in
> petroglyphs, but no whales.
>
> Anyone know about this?
> --
> Aloha pumehana,
> Brian and Mary
>

Some links here with relevant info:

http://hawaiihumpbackwhale.noaa.gov/heritage/cultural_history.html

http://www.bluecoast.org/nonprofit/kanaloa/k24.html

[Alvin E. Toda]

Recall some speculation about this question as a kid.
Never got a good answer, but I think that the answer
might ly in the kapus in the ahapuaa. The Kahuna set
quotas and limitations on what the ancients could catch
and eat from the sea. The kapu insured sustainability
of the fish and not the depletion that happened in say
Easter Island where they cut down all the trees.

I'm also sure that whales might have been excluded from
killing because the ancients might have had a lot of
religious ideas about the whales that came to calf near
our islands. It would have been impractical
because the meat would rapidly rot in our tropical
weather. Such cold weather of the north makes for
assurance that the meat can be eaten or dried before it
rots. If you cut the meat-- even fish-- in thin enough
strips, then it can dry before it will rot. If you use
smoke, then you can dry even bigger chunks of meat.
Thus I can see how such a practice can get started in
the cold of winter and then be continued as a tradition
when the Indians moved further south. Hawaiians who
were used to consuming all that they caught in measured
ammount would probably not want to be so wastefull.
Finally, ancient Hawaiians were mostly agrarian
people-- even farming some fish species-- and were not
the heavy meat consumers that the eskimos are.

[Brian Bigler]

I've been contemplating this subject, and realized the same lack of
historical reference holds for the Hawaiian monk seals.

Two questions:
1) Did monk seals fall into the same kapu category as whales?
2) What other species fell under this kapu?
--
Aloha pumehana,
Brian and Mary
"Alvin E. Toda" <***@lava.net> wrote in message
news:1222199400-***@news.lava.net...
>
> Recall some speculation about this question as a kid.
> Never got a good answer, but I think that the answer
> might ly in the kapus in the ahapuaa. The Kahuna set
> quotas and limitations on what the ancients could catch
> and eat from the sea. The kapu insured sustainability
> of the fish and not the depletion that happened in say
> Easter Island where they cut down all the trees.
>
> I'm also sure that whales might have been excluded from
> killing because the ancients might have had a lot of
> religious ideas about the whales that came to calf near
> our islands. It would have been impractical
> because the meat would rapidly rot in our tropical
> weather. Such cold weather of the north makes for
> assurance that the meat can be eaten or dried before it
> rots. If you cut the meat-- even fish-- in thin enough
> strips, then it can dry before it will rot. If you use
> smoke, then you can dry even bigger chunks of meat.
> Thus I can see how such a practice can get started in
> the cold of winter and then be continued as a tradition
> when the Indians moved further south. Hawaiians who
> were used to consuming all that they caught in measured
> ammount would probably not want to be so wastefull.
> Finally, ancient Hawaiians were mostly agrarian
> people-- even farming some fish species-- and were not
> the heavy meat consumers that the eskimos are.
>