34 



CANOE WOOD. 



The ancient Hawaiians used koa wood for canoes, house tim- 

 bers, surf boards, paddles, and spears.. It was used more for 

 canoes than for house timbers, the thatched houses being gen- 

 erally framed with naio, uhiuhi, kauila, mamani, and kamani. 

 The longest surfboards, up to 16 feet in length, were made of 

 the koa, but the tree was preeminently prized in the early days 

 because it furnished the largest and most suitable wood for their 

 canoes, which were hollowed out of a single log. The wood of 

 the breadfruit, kukui, ohia-ha, and wiliwili was also used for 

 canoes, but in limited quantities. Ellis records having seen one 

 koa canoe "upwards of sixty feet long and between two and three 

 feet deep," but as a rule they seldom exceeded fifty feet in length. 



The building of a canoe was an affair of religion. A sound 

 koa tree suitable for a canoe was decided upon by the aid of a 

 kahuna's visions. The canoe builder also trusted to Lea, a pa- 

 troness of the canoe, who was supposed to appear in the form 

 of the friendly elepaio, who indicated a proper tree, neither 

 worm-eaten nor decayed, and whose movements when she walked 

 upon the newly- felled tree were attentively observed, and were 

 ominous of good, or ill, luck. After the koa tree was felled by 

 the use of stone adzes, it was rudely shaped and then hauled by 

 means of strong ropes, made of hau bark, to the ocean, where 

 the body was finished, the additional trimmings lashed on, and 

 the steadying outrigger adjusted. The latter consisted of the 

 iako, two arched hau sticks, which held the ama, or parallel float, 

 made usually of wiliwili wood. Often two canoes were rigged 

 together and made the very seaworthy double canoe, or kau-lua. 

 The canoe, with its furniture, was considered a valuable posses- 

 sion, of service both to the people and to the chiefs, and if it 

 had not been for the fine large koa trees which supplied the 

 main body for the canoe, the early natives would have been 

 without proper means of ocean travel and would have been handi- 

 capped in their fishing operations and their wonderful trading 

 voyages to other lands. 



Very few koa canoes are made today, and the large trees suit- 

 able for their construction have almost entirely disappeared. 



PRESENT VALUE. 



The chief present value of the koa tree today is not as a lum- 

 ber producer, but is in the form of a forest which acts as a bene- 

 ficial cover on our mountain slopes to prevent erosion and to 

 hold the rainfall. The extensive koa forests of the early days 

 have been greatly reduced by the ravages of man, cattle, and 

 fire, and good stands are now found only in the more inaccessible 

 regions where they have received protection. Elsewhere the koa 

 occurs in open groves and as surviving individuals. 



