THE ECONOMIC SEAWEEDS OF HAWAII AND THEIR FOOD VALUE. 



By Minnie Reed, M. S., 

 Science Teacher, Kamehameha Manual, Training Schools, Honolulu, Hawaii. 



Hawaii has nearly a thousand miles of coast line; as a consequence 

 the native Hawaiians are skillful and daring fishermen and sailors, as 

 well as splendid swimmers. The Hawaiians, like the Japanese, are 

 fond of almost all the products of the sea, and, like them, prize the 

 seaweed very highly for food. Ancient Hawaiians probably seldom 

 ate a meal without some kind of limu" or seaweed, and even to-day no 

 Hawaiian feast is considered quite complete without several varieties 

 served as a relish with meats or poi.* 



Many tons of these seaweeds are gathered and eaten by the Hawaiians 

 annually, besides large quantities are imported from the Orient and 

 San Francisco for the consumption of both the Japanese and Chinese. 

 The seaweed sold in Honolulu alone amounts annually to thousands of 

 dollars. 



Before the coming of the white man to these islands the diet of the 

 poorer Hawaiians was largely poi, fish, and limu. Even poi was scarce 

 in times of war or famine, and then the poorer fishermen contented 

 themselves with only fish and limu. Sometimes for weeks no other 

 vegetable food could be obtained but limu, which can be gathered all 

 the year, except during very severe storms. Sweet potatoes, taro, 

 and bananas could only be grown in the good soil, where there was 

 plenty of rain or sufficient water for irrigation. Many of the fishing 

 villages had no fertile land near them, so these people were com- 

 pelled to go to the mountain valleys to secure all their food except 

 what they fished from the sea. Until the death of Kamehameha the 

 Great (1819) women suffered the death penalty if they ate bananas, 

 cocoanuts, turtles, pork, or certain fish, so that their diet was even 

 more limited than that of the men. They must have suffered greatly 

 during times of famine and war, when their only food came from the 



a Limu is the Hawaiian name generally applied to all water plants, and is equiva- 

 lent to our word algse. They sometimes include various pond weeds, or fresh-water 

 limu, as nitella, chara, etc. Usually limu means either fresh or salt water algee that 

 are edible. 



i Poi is a thick paste made from the root of the taro plant ( Colocasia escidenium), 

 and takes the place of rice or bread in the native diet. It is made by pounding the 

 moistened boiled or steamed roots with water to smooth paste, which is then slightly 

 fermented. 



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