Natural History

Alahe'e Haole, Mock Orange, Orange Jasmine
(Murraya paniculata.)

The scent of mock orange is strong and pervasive throughout the day and a blooming hedge is a delight to the eyes and especially to the nose. According to Hillebrande, mock orange was "common to gardens" between 1865 and 1872. A native of India, it wended its way through the Philippines and the East Indies where it continues to flourish and is one of the most-often used shrubs in tropical gardens. Hawaiians named it after the alahe'e or walahe'e (Canthium odoratum), a native forest plant with shiny green leaves and sprays of white, extremely fragrant flowers.

Mock orange has attractive, small, waxy, oval leaves that are composed of three to seven leaflets. It tolerates most conditions, and regularly produces clusters of small but strongly scented white five-parted flowers, followed by small bright red half-inch berries that appear during summer months and again in midwinter. Although it can grow into a 20-foot tree, most islanders keep the plants trimmed in hedges for homes, parks and other public places.

(This mock orange should not be confused with the genus Philadelphus that mainlanders call "mock orange.")

It is still a popular lei material. According to kumu Marie McDonald, the lei alahe'e haole was probably an invention of a kumu hula and her student dancers who were having difficulty finding lei materials during World War II, when the mountain areas of the islands where many of these materials grew were off-limits to civilians. They substituted the leaves and flower clusters of the mock orange for more traditional materials, like maile and alahe'e, and found them satisfactory. The lei alahe'e haole has since developed a popularity of its own.

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Arts & Culture

Ku'au Stories

Ku'au means "handle." It is the name of a point and of a small residential community on the Hana Highway about a mile away from Pai'a town. Ku'au Bay, to the west of the point, is primarily rocky with several interspersed pockets of white sand.

The most popular pocket of sand for beach-loving families is known as Kaulahao, "iron chain," which adjoins the left point of the bay. Kaulahao (often locally pronounced "Kalahao") is a small, wide, coral-rubble and white sand beach. Along its entire seaward edge it is fronted by a shelf of beach rock. Offshore the bottom is very rocky, with notoriously strong currents. Inshore of the shelf are small tidal pools which can accommodate children (as long as the ocean is calm and the surf is not washing over the rocks).

Another popular place in Ku'au Bay is a small cove that was called Lamalani, or "royal torch." (Some people say it means "beautiful light.") Lamalani is better known today as Tavares Bay. Antone Ferreira Tavares, a long-time Territorial legislator in the early 1900's, lived near the bay for many years. His family still does.

Tavares was a successful lawyer, businessman, and landowner who was born in the Azores in Portugal and whose parents immigrated to Hawaii as plantation workers in 1881. He became a naturalized citizen in 1890. According to records in the Library of Congress, beginning in 1911, he was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives and then re-elected to five consecutive terms. He was then elected to the Territorial Senate in 1920, and re-elected once. The beach at Tavares Bay is a tiny pocket of white sand fronted by rocks and backed by a concrete retaining wall. The primary attraction is the surf, and surfers and bodysurfers constitute the majority of those who frequent the area.

Another landmark named after a long-time resident is Ako Point. During the early 1900s on the rocky point where much of the Ku'au residential community is located stood the home of an elderly man named Ako. Apparently he was the oldest person living in the area, so the fisherman started calling the point by his name. Upon his death, Ako is said to have been buried on his property next to two other family graves. A channel through the offshore rocks at the middle of the point was naturally called "Ako Channel."

To the east of Ako Point is a pocket of white sand commonly called Ku'au Cove. The entire cove is fronted by a wide shelf of exposed reef, called a papa in Hawaiian. The ocean outside the natural barrier is deep, and there are strong currents and a riptide.

The inner edge of the papa provides several large tidal pools for children to get wet along this otherwise dangerous coastline. (The pools are safe except when heavy surf sweeps completely over the papa. In former times fishermen would leave their families here while they went diving in the reefs offshore).

Ku'au Cove is better known among local residents as "Father Jules Papa." Father Jules Verhaeghe was a Belgian Catholic priest who arrived in Ku'au in 1922 to take over the Holy Rosary Church, the Pai'a parish church which had been built about 1900. (The church was then located between Ku'au Store and the Catholic cemetery.) In 1928 Father Jules built the current Holy Rosary Church in Upper Pai'a above Skill Village (now famous because of its Father Damien memorial garden) and vacated the old building in Ku'au. However, the beach below the former church and the cemetery still retained Father Jules' name.

Another name for the cove is "Mama's" after the best-known landmark in the area today, Mama's Fish House, a popular upscale seafood restaurant. In 1973, Floyd Christenson bought a former nightclub, remodeled the building, and leased it to Hilda Costa, the original "Mama," who operated the restaurant as a family venture. Folks still drool at the memory of Hilda's poisson cru even though Hilda herself is gone now. After three years, the Costas left the restaurant, so Christenson himself took over its operation. (It has since been sold to other owners.)

There's surfer buzz about an exciting left barrel wave offshore that is usually ravaged by trades. When conditions are right, they call it the "Ku'au Pipeline" and only the serious surfers go there.

It is an amazing thing. Every cove, every point, every promontory, every landmark in each of Maui's communities is a story packed into a name, and sometimes the stories in the names can still be unpacked. Some of the stories have faded away. Why, for instance, was one beach called "the iron chain?" Why was the other one a "royal torch?" Always there are stories being lived in these places, and the folks living there or visiting there regularly come up with new names.

 
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Braddah-Nics Lexicon

STANDARD: What did you do?
BRADDAH-NICS: Whatchu wen' do?

* * * * * * * *

STANDARD: Well, if you insist, I do apologize....
BRADDAH-NICS: Ho! Sorry, den....

* * * * * * * *

STANDARD: They keep telling me we're "on the same page", but I'm not sure about that.
BRADDAH-NICS: Dey tell us "on da same page." Me, I t'ink dey nevah fin' the book

 

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Local Grinds

Chicken Hekka

Ingredients:

• 2 trays boneless, skinless chicken
• 2 pieces of garlic
• 1 small ginger
• 1 small carrot
• 1 round onion
• 1 small bunch green onion
• 1 package of long rice
• 3 cups of shoyu
• 6 tbsp of sugar
• Half a package of dried shitake mushrooms
• 1 can of button mushrooms
• 2 cans of bamboo shoots
• salt and pepper to preference

Procedure:

• Soak long rice in cold water for 20 minutes and soak the shitake mushrooms in cold water for 30 minutes until stems are softened
• Mince garlic and clean ginger
• Thinly slice the carrot, julienne style
• Slice round onion into thin slices
• Chop green onion
• Mix shoyu with sugar
• Add long rice to boiling water for 5 minutes. When finished, remove it and keep in a pot of cold water
• Chop chicken into bite sized pieces and cook in pot on high. Add in garlic and season with salt and pepper
• Add in half of the shoyu and sugar mix, carrots, round onions, and bamboo shoots. Let sit and simmer for 10 minutes
• Add ginger, shitake mushrooms and button mushrooms and let simmer for another 10 minutes
• Add in noodles and green onions, mix thoroughly and turn off stove

Cucumber Kim Chee

Ingredients:

• 2 cucumbers
• 1 cup Hawaiian salt
• 3 cups water
• 3 tbsp kim chee base

Procedure:

• Cut cucumbers in bite sized chunks
• Add into a mixing bowl along with salt and water, stir and leave in icebox for 30-45 minutes, or until it is tender
• When it is finished soaking to your preference, rinse to remove all salt.
• Add in kim chee base, stir thoroughly and let it sit in icebox for another half an hour

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Remember When . . .

Alexander House Settlement Church

The church shown in this photograph was part of the famous Alexander House Settlement in Wailuku. The Alexander House Settlement was established in 1901 in Wailuku to provide social, educational and religious programs for the Chinese community on Maui.

The complex was located at the corner of Maui and Market Street in Wailuku. The church stood behind the main Alexander House Settlement building and there was a school adjacent to it. The cost of building the church and school buildings was $2500. The money was raised by the Chinese community. Ah Mi, a prosperous merchant in Makawao, started the fundraising effort with a donation of $100.

The photograph was likely taken in the early 1900’s. The Alexander House Settlement was closed in 1950 and replaced by commercial buildings.

Photo from the archives of the Maui Historical Society/Bailey House Museum
Historical text by Fred Woodruff, Bailey House Volunteer

Visit the Maui Historical Society

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