Hawaiian Koʻi

Hawaiian Archaeology ANTH 464

Archaeological Inquiry

acquisition: basic data table
structuration: abstraction of a quality used to classify and/or measure the acquired materials in order to find structure in the basic data
reconstitution: a reason for the structure found in the basic data

Aloha and welcome to another lecture in Anthropology 464, Hawaiian Archaeology. My name is Tom Dye.

This lecture is about the Hawaiian Ko`i, or stone adze, which was an important tool in the kit of most families. Different kinds of ko`i were used to clear brush in gardens, cut down trees in forests, cut timber for houses, shape canoe hulls and bowls, and carve images of the gods.

In this lecture, we’ll discuss where good adze rock was found, how different kinds of raw material were worked to produce an adze, the various styles of adzes made in the islands, and how the form of the adze indicates the function it was intended to fill.

As this slide suggests, the lecture is concerned with structuration, about the distinctions to make when looking at an adze, and the reasons the distinctions might be important.

The lecture also contains a link to a YouTube video I strongly recommend you watch. The typical Hawaiian adze is quadrangular in cross section–a shape that is very difficult to make. The video shows a quadrangular adze being made from a cobble. To my knowledge, it is the first successful replication of a Hawaiian adze in the modern era.

Te Rangi Hiroa

Buck’s Adze Terminology

Buck’s work with Hawaiian and other Polynesian adzes uses a standard terminology to describe the parts of the adze. This is an indispensable part of artifact study that makes it possible for researchers to communicate with one another. It not only makes it possible for us to talk with one another in class, but it enables us to understand what Buck and his colleagues were describing in their work with adzes many decades ago.

Buck distinguishes the adze blade and its cutting edge from the butt, which was lashed to the haft, or handle. The transition from blade to butt is the shoulder of the adze. The front is the side of the blade that runs all the way to the edge, and which faces the material when the adze is at work. The bevel that creates the edge is on the back of the adze.

The butt of the adze might or might not have a tang. When present, the tang helps keep the lashing from being damaged while the adze is in use.

Buck also identifies “lugs”. These are bumps that are formed by pecking, which was a technique that Hawaiian adze makers didn’t often employ. Lugs are not found on Hawaiian adzes.

Hafted Adze

How an Adze Attacks the Work

Factors in the Force of an Adze Blow

Adze Measuring Guide

Hawaiian Adze Names

iwiole
alaheʻe
hao
kūpā ʻai keʻe
lopu
pākīkō
kikoni
etc.

How Archaeologists Classify Adzes

Cross Sections and Hawaiian Adzes

Here is a graph that charts shoulder width at the front and the back of more than 800 complete Hawaiian adzes at Bishop Museum. At the upper left, where front width is much greater than back width, are reversed-triangular section adzes. At the bottom right, where back width is much greater than front width, are triangular section adzes. There are relatively few triangular adzes in this Hawaiian collection. Instead, the very great majority fall into the center bin, which are the rectangular section adzes, or in the adjacent bin above and to the left of it, which are reversed trapezoidal section adzes.

The extreme dominance of rectangular section adzes is a characteristic of Hawai`i that sets its adzes apart from the adzes of other Polynesian island groups, which typically show a wider range of cross sections, without such an extreme dominance of one shape.

Adze cross section is a useful structuration for an inquiry that compares Hawaiian adzes with adzes from other places in Polynesia. The Hawaiian adze assemblage stands out from the other island groups in this structuration.

However, cross section isn’t a very good way to structure an inquiry that is confined to Hawaiian adzes. From the point of view of cross section, almost all of them look alike! Cross section does not get at the diversity of adzes recognized by Hawaiian craftsman and reflected in the large number of Hawaiian words for adzes discussed earlier in the lecture.

Turner’s Functional Taxonomy

Here is a different structuration for adzes, one that might get the archaeologist closer to the distinctions encoded by the Hawaiian words for adzes discussed earlier in the lecture.

This classification resulted from a collaboration between a New Zealand archaeologist, MaryAnne Turner, and Dante Bonica, senior lecturer in Maori arts at the University of Auckland. They used Maori stone adzes to craft a variety of products, including a canoe, bowls, and the like. During this work, they learned which adze shapes were best for each task.

Their work came up with this key, which distinguishes seven types of adze, where each type is suited for a particular function.

To use the key to classify an adze, one enters at the top. The first distinction made by the key is between an adze hafted longitudinally like an axe and an adze hafted laterally, like a proper adze. Adzes hafted longitudinally are classified as Type 5.

If the adze was hafted laterally, then the next distinction is whether the edge is straight or curved. Laterally hafted adzes with curved edges are classified as Type 3.

If the adze was hafted laterally and has a straight edge, then the next distinction is whether it is small or large. Small, laterally hafted adzes with straight edges are classified as Type 7.

If the adze was hafted laterally, has a straight edge, and is large, then if the blade is thin, the adze is classified as Type 2. If the blade is thick and wide, then the adze is classified as Type 1. If the blade is thick and narrow, then the adze is classified as Type 4.

Hawaiian Type 5 Axes

Hawaiian Type 3 Adzes

Hawaiian Type 7 Small Adzes

This graphic shows it is possible to distinguish large and small adzes in the Bishop Museum collection. Here the bimodal distribution of weight, indicated by the green line, can be used to distinguish small Type 7 adzes from large adzes. The dividing line between the two comes where the green line reaches the bottom of the valley between the two peaks. Note that the x axis is plotted with a log scale–the dividing line between small and large adzes is a bit heavier than 200 grams, or about 1/2 pound. Thus, in old Hawai`i, a small adze weighed a half pound or less and a large adze weighed more than a half pound.

This slide and the last two give a glimpse into an unfinished inquiry that indicates there is reason to believe Hawaiian adzes can be classified functionally, along the lines set out by Turner and Bonica in New Zealand.

Raw Material Form

This diagram shows how to make a quadrangular section adze out of a cobble, a flake removed from a boulder, and from a tabular block. Hawaiian adze makers were able to fashion quadrangular section adzes from all of these raw materials.

Considerable skill is required to do this because an acute angle is needed to remove a flake and the 90 degree angles of a finished quadrangular adze can very easily become obtuse and impossible to flake. One estimate is that an apprenticeship of two years is required for someone to develop the skill required to make a quadrangular section adze from this variety of material.

Where would the adze maker find these raw materials for adze manufacture?

Cobbles were commonly taken from stream channels.
Flakes were removed from boulder outcrops wherever these occurred. One common place is along fault scarps, which are cliffs that were formed by movement of rock along a fault line.
Tabular pieces are not common. Most of them are found on Mauna Kea, where lava that erupted under a glacier formed flows with a tabular, blocky structure.

Mauna Kea Adze Quarry

Because quadrangular adzes are so difficult to make, Hawaiian adze quarries typically have a lot of waste material. The waste material includes flakes and partially finished adzes that were rejected because it was no longer possible to make them into a quadrangular section adze.

At locations where the finest rock was found, the waste material accumulated in large piles that are easily visible from a space satellite.

This Google Earth image shows a portion of Mauna Kea on Hawai`i Island. The adze rock here is the highest quality in the Hawaiian Islands. Lava erupted under a glacier cooled very quickly, yielding a rock that is very fine-grained and isotropic, two qualities that greatly improve its flaking characteristics.

In the Google Earth Image there are several quarry locations. The largest of them is just to the right and below the dark cone at the bottom left. The waste material stands out because of its gray color.

The white-roofed structure at the right is the Mauna Kea visitor’s center. The paved road to the summit runs between the visitor’s center and the adze quarry. The green spot near the top left is Lake Waiau, which once filled the light colored basin surrounding it.

Chris Clarkson Makes a Quadrangular Adze

YouTube video of Chris Clarkson

Quiz

Check it out!

(Press ? for help, n and p for next and previous slide)