( 273 ) 



HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



(See Plan, p. 140.) 



THE FISH AND FISHERIES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



THE Hawaiian Archipelago, otherwise Sandwich Islands a portion of the great Polynesian 

 area are eight in number, not reckoning some small rocky islets. They lie between 18 55' 

 and 22 15' N. lat., and 154 42' and 160 32' W. long. Their origin is volcanic, and they rise 

 from an elevated plateau in the Pacific, having a depth of 1000 fathoms of water above 

 its floor. Their shores are frequented by numerous species of fish aud marine animals, and 

 were formerly visited by whales. Sharks abound, and are caught in numbers by the bold and 

 ingenious natives, whose habits are very amphibious. They seek the shark in coves and caves 

 below- water, whilst the gorged fish sleeps with its head forced into the sides of its resting- 

 place. The diver slips a noose round the tail of the shark, which is then hauled up and 

 despatched. A kanaka has been known to secure in this manner six or eight sharks in a 

 day. The oil extracted from them is valuable and of good quality. The fish used for diet 

 consist principally of the mullet, the most delicate of all, the albicore, the bonito, the flying- 

 fish, the eel, a species of mackarel, and the cuttle-fish. The two curious inhabitants of those 

 deeps, the Chalcedon imperator and the Zeus ciliaris, are figured by Lady Brassey in her 

 ' Voyage in the Sunbeam.' Of crustaceans there are crabs, prawns and shrimps ; and of 

 molluscs, the pearl-oyster, or rather My a, and various shell-fish, but the common oyster is 

 not found there. There was formerly some trade in pearls, but they were not of large size, 

 or fine quality, and the search for them now is almost or quite given up. To a people whose 

 diet consisted principally of vegetable substances, fruit and fish, the preservation of the last 

 alive, after capture, was an important object. The double canoes, in old times so common, had 

 between them a vessel or basket for containing the living fish. Fish-ponds enclosed from the 

 sea by a wall, somewhat similar to the viviers on the French coasts, abounded, some of them, 

 being of very great size. Numbers of such ponds still exist in the estuary or mouth of the 

 Pearl River. The fish-ponds formed by some of the Hawaiian kings were really gigantic 

 works. Of other marine creatures, large quantities were taken of the beche-de-la-mer 

 (Holothuria, or sea-slug). When dried it formed an article of export, the Chinese being 

 its principal consumers. The Hawaiians are not now so greatly dependent on the sea for 

 food, since the introduction of cereals and foreign articles of consumption ; nevertheless, in 

 places near the sea, poi and fish the latter often eaten raw form the staple of their diet. 

 To an essentially littoral people " the agriculture of the sea " is a subject of very great im- 

 portance. Lady Brassey remarks ('Voyage of the Sunbeam'), that "almost everybody they 

 saw had half-a-dozen or more brilliant members of the finny tribe, wrapped up in fresh green 

 banana leaves ready to carry home." The piscary laws and customs were severe and rather 

 complex. The absolute despotism of the kings, the arbitrary power of the chiefs, and the 

 extraordinary effect of tabu, pressed heavily on all Hawaiians, and especially those who dwelt 

 on or near the coasts. Yet there was a certain degree of reason in those laws and the manner 

 in which they were used. The king had universal rights in his feudal dominions, and was lord 

 of the land and sea ; but he did not always and everywhere exercise those rights, and the 

 customary laws were not altogether unfitted for the state of society then prevailing. As the 

 Hawaiian people, early in the present century, emerged into the light of civilisation, the 

 monarch generously put aside hia feudal rights, and fashioned his government on the consti- 

 tutional pattern. In 1839 he signed a bill of rights, and in 1840 conferred a constitution on 

 his people. Statute laws soon followed; the first volume which contains them is dated in 

 1846. The regulations relating to fisheries are very precise. To the king were reserved 

 certain royal fish, wherever they were caught ; some had limitations. Thus the bonito was his 

 if taken off any part of the coast of the island of Lanai ; the albicore, off Hawaii ; the mullet, 

 off Huleia ; the squid and freshwater fish at Mana on Kauai. Many other fish are specified 

 in the prerogative, but as only their native names are catalogued, they fail to be recognised 



