Rain-Fed Agriculture and Wealth

Hawaiian Archaeology ANTH 464

Wealth in Old Hawaiʻi and England

Do you know … what the trees say when the axe comes into the forest? … When the axe comes into the forest, the trees say: “Look! The handle is one of us!” — John Berger

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Logic of Archaeological Inquiry

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

This lecture is an inquiry into the link between rain-fed agricultural field development on Hawai`i Island and the creation of wealth-assets.

This inquiry, like any other inquiry, starts with acquisition of the background knowledge required to get a sense of how it might be possible to link field system development with wealth-asset creation.

We must be careful about acquiring this background knowledge. We want to make certain the concepts we use are meaningful cross-culturally. If we are not careful about the background knowledge we bring to the inquiry, we run the risk of reconstituting the present in the traditional Hawaiian past. In particular, it won’t do to define wealth casually, in a modern way. As we saw in the lecture on Old Hawai`i earlier this semester, English language concepts do not always map neatly to traditional Hawaiian concepts. It is worth the effort to define and use concepts that are cross-culturally valid.

Two Meanings of “Commons”

A common land or estate; the undivided land belonging to the members of a local community as a whole. Hence, often, the patch of unenclosed or “waste” land which remains to represent that.
The profit which a man has in the land or waters of another; as that of pasturing cattle (common of pasture), of fishing (common of piscary), of digging turf (common of turbary), and of cutting wood for fire or repairs (common of estovers).

These definitions of “commons” are taken from the Oxford English dictionary, which scholars refer to as the OED. The OED isn’t a normal dictionary of the English language that gives the definitions enjoyed by words today. Rather, it is an historical dictionary that attempts to track changes in word meanings over time, from their first published use in the English language down to the present.

We are starting with “commons” because the word isn’t used much today, but was extremely important in the English past. Arguably, the commons was important in old Hawai`i, too, as it was over most of the rest of the world.

The first part of the definition—a common land or estate—focuses on the commons as piece of land, one that belongs to a community rather than an individual. This is the usual modern meaning, and you can get a sense of how unimportant the word is today by the modern association of commons with waste land. The modern definition assumes that land that isn’t owned privately is a waste.

The second part of the definition touches on an older meaning of the commons, one that refers to activities, rather than to pieces of land. Most likely, you’ve never heard the English words for most of these different kinds of commons: although pasture is likely familiar to you, piscary, turbary, and estovers all belong to a distant English past and are rarely heard today outside of university history departments. I know the words were new to me when I first read them several years ago.

The Modern Meaning of “Right”

A legal, equitable, or moral title or claim to the possession of property or authority, the enjoyment of privileges or immunities, etc.; (by extension) an entitlement considered to arise through natural justice (whether or not enshrined in legislation) and which is applicable to all members of a particular group.

The OED gives this definition for the word “right” in its sense of a claim to use and enjoy something. Keep in mind that a “right” is a claim. It is a special kind of claim, because it is a claim that one expects will be recognized and honored by others.

The first part of the definition refers to a property right, which is a claim that one can deny others the use or enjoyment of something.

The second part of the definition, which starts with the parenthetical (by extension), refers to rights of person. A right of person is a claim that one can’t be denied use or enjoyment of something. A right of person refers to a social agreement among members of a group that everyone is free to use and enjoy something.

Note that rights of person are thought to arise through natural justice, which is a modern term that refers to a rule against bias.

The 17th Century Meaning of “Right”

The rights commonly proposed by thinkers of the 17th cent. were natural rights, i.e. powers of acting in conformity with natural law. As belief in natural law fell away, moral rights and human rights, such as to life and liberty, came to be recognized as universal and to follow from being human.

Hawaiian Possessive Pronouns

a-class: the possessor controls the relationship with the possessed; a right of property.
o-class: the possessor does not control the relationship with the possessed; a right of person.

Did Hawaiians recognize the distinction between property rights and rights of person? The evidence of possessive pronouns indicates that, yes, they did recognize the distinction.

A possessive pronoun is a word like “my”, “mine”, “yours”, “his”, “hers”, or “theirs” that associates a person or persons with a claim concerning the use or enjoyment of something.

Hawaiian possessive pronouns are like possessive pronouns in other Polynesian languages, but unlike English possessive pronouns. Hawaiian and Polynesian possessive pronouns have two forms, which the linguists have named the a-class pronouns and the o-class pronouns. There are many facets to the distinction between a-class pronouns and o-class pronouns. Linguists typically characterize this distinction as between a relationship where an individual is in control of the thing that is possessed, and a relationship where the thing possessed is outside the control of the individual.

This is the crux of the distinction between property rights and rights of person.

We can conclude from this that Hawaiians, like other Polynesians, recognized the distinction between a right of property and a right of person. In fact, one might argue that the distinction was so important that it was encoded directly in the grammar of the language.

Cross-Cultural Criteria of Wealth-Assets

Growth: a capacity to grow in number, value, or size;
Consumption: generates consumption benefits to individuals with rights to them;
Marginal value: increases in size or value are “good”;
Indefinite life: exploitable over an indefinite time horizon.

An economic anthropologist named Duran Bell has set out the cross-cultural criteria that characterize wealth-assets. As you can see on the slide, there are four criteria.

Perhaps the best way to get to know these criteria is to apply them to a modern form of wealth–the savings account.

A savings account yields interest, so it satisfies the growth criterion.

A savings account can only be used by the owner, so it generates consumption benefits for the individual with this ownership right. Note especially that the consumption criterion is based on a property right, that is, a right to exclude others from the use and enjoyment of the money in the account.

An increase in the size of a savings account is “good” so a savings account meets the marginal value criterion. I’m reasonably confident that anyone attending this lecture would be thrilled to find out their savings account had just doubled in size and value.

Finally, a savings account is exploitable forever. If the account owner passes away, then the account is transferred to the legal beneficiary, who can use it just like the original owner.

Notice that the cross-cultural criteria do not specify that wealth is money. Our modern example used money, but for the concept to be properly cross-cultural it must work in situations, such as old Hawaiʻi, where the economy is not monetary.

Wealth in Old Hawaiʻi: Was There Any?

Oliver, Oceania: “Wealth (in Melanesia).”
Howard and Borofsky, Polynesian Ethnology: “Warfare; West.”
Malo (Chun), Hawaiian Antiquities: “Waiwai or treasures.”
Hommon, Ancient Hawaiian State: “Wealth (waiwai); prize of war; tax collectors; war and.”

This slide reproduces portions of the indexes of four books on Hawai`i. Oliver, Howard, and Borofsky wrote as anthropologists, Malo was a native Hawaiian historian, and Hommon is a neo-evolutionary archaeologist.

Note that the term “wealth” is either absent from an index, or has been given a restricted meaning. Oliver restricts wealth to Melanesia, where various kinds of indigenous money were known. He gives no consideration to wealth in Hawai`i or elsewhere in Polynesia, perhaps because Polynesian economies were not monetary.

The anthropologists Howard and Borofsky follow Oliver. They don’t index wealth at all in a book about Polynesian anthropology.

The native historian David Malo wrote about waiwai, which Chun translates as “treasures”. There is some question whether waiwai refers to wealth, because there are many treasures that don’t meet the growth criterion.

Finally, in a neo-evolutionary vein, Hommon associates wealth with war and with tax collectors, which seems to give the term a negative spin, without referring to its cross-cultural characteristics.

In all cases, it is safe to say that wealth isn’t a major topic when the discussion turns to Hawai`i, or to other Polynesian societies.

Every Society Has Some Form of Wealth

Although “property” should be recognized to have limited ethnographic applicability, wealth, if suitably characterized, is a term with nearly universal applicability. It can be shown to be foundational to the power of the dominant gender, social caste, or class in every society. — Duran Bell

This quote from the economic anthropologist Duran Bell indicates that wealth was important in every human society.

This lecture follows Bell’s lead to argue that wealth was not only present in old Hawai`i, but that it was an important concept whose development and growth might be tracked in the archaeological record.

The particular argument put forward in this lecture is that sweet potatoes were an integral part of wealth creation in old Hawai`i. The sweet potatoes themselves were consumables and not wealth-assets. Nevertheless, sweet potatoes are closely associated with a particular old Hawaiian wealth-asset—the pig herd. Sweet potatoes were a preferred pig food in old Hawai`i, as they were throughout Polynesia and the rest of Oceania. The amount of wealth that might be created by pig herds is directly related to how many sweet potatoes could be grown.

Archaeological Record of Sweet Potato

Sweet Potato, ʻUala

Rain-fed Agricultural Fields in Hawaiʻi

Sweet potato might be the perfect agricultural complement to taro, which was the staple crop preferred throughout Hawai`i. Taro grows best when it is irrigated, but sweet potato grows best in open fields watered by the rain.

This map shows the distribution of irrigated taro fields and rain-fed sweet potato fields throughout the islands. The distribution of sweet potato fields is a mirror image of the taro fields. In the north, on the old island of Kaua`i, irrigated taro fields dominate and environments suited to sweet potato cultivation are limited. In the south, on the young island of Hawai`i, irrigated taro pond fields were restricted to the narrow valleys of Hamakua and the low-lying valleys of windward Kohala. Vast areas of leeward Kohala, Kona, Ka`u, and Hamakua were suited to sweet potato cultivation.

When the sweet potato was introduced, the productive capacity of Hawai`i Island tripled, and that of Maui Island doubled. The effect on the older northern islands was not so dramatic. There, sweet potato augmented highly productive taro pond fields, but its yields did not approach the yield of taro.

The Leeward Kohala Field System

A View South from Puʻu Kehena

Field System Traces in Pasture Lands

The Mahele division of lands in <small>AD</small> 1848–1850, which recognized claims of property rights to land in Hawai`i, made it possible to remove mahi`ai farmers from their sweet potato gardens and paved the way for leeward Kohala to become a cattle ranch. The British Royal Navy officer George Vancouver brought cattle for Kamehameha in 1793 and for many years the herd grew rapidly under a kapu that reserved cattle for high-ranking chiefs. During this time, mahiʻai farmers suffered the consequences of cattle’s introduction. Farmers complained in correspondence to Hawaiian language newspapers that feral cattle ate the thatch off the walls of their homes. They also began to enclose their sweet potato fields with rock walls to protect them from the cattle. The Mahele was the final step in the process of enclosing the field system so cattle ranches could be established.

Despite more than 150 years of use as cattle pasture, the field system walls and the trails through the field system show up clearly on Google Earth imagery.

Three Periods of Development

Field System Structure

Age Relationships

One way to structure our observations to maximize the chances of learning about the history of field system development focuses on the relative age information revealed at each intersection of a trail and an agricultural wall.

In the left panel of this figure is a sketch map showing agricultural walls A, B and C, and their relationship to trail T1. You can see that agricultural wall C is older than trail T1, because the trail runs through the middle of the wall, dividing it in two. In the hypothetical example, agricultural walls A and B are both younger than trail T1 because the trail must have existed as a boundary when the walls were built to abut the pre-existing trail.

By noting these relationships in a table similar to the one shown in the center panel, computer software is able to determine relative age relations for all of the walls and trail intersections in the Kohala field system. The software uses a directed graph like the one on the right, where nodes represent walls and trails and the arrows point from an older feature to a younger one.

Two Maps of the Field System

Paul Rosendahl’s Map of Upland Lapakahi

Upland Lapakahi Ahupuaʻa

The First Agricultural Walls and Trails

The Second Phase of Development

The Third Phase of Development

Two Maps of the Field System

Upland Pāhinahina and Kahuā 1

The First Agricultural Walls and Trails

The Second Phase of Development

The Third Phase of Development

The Development Timetable

This series of graphs was developed from radiocarbon dates on materials collected from the soil beneath agricultural walls and beneath the curb stones that line many of the trails through the field system. These dates can be used to estimate when the walls and trails were established.

The vertical pink bars indicate the approximate reigns of two important Hawai`i Island kings. The bar on the left represents the reign of `Umi a Liloa in the early 17th century. `Umi’s story shares many parallels with the rise of Kamehameha, and he figures prominently in the traditions of the Kamehameha dynasty that we have today. The bar on the right represents Kalani`opu`u, who was king of Hawai`i Island in the 1770’s, when Cook visited.

The first phase of field system development is represented by the Group 1 walls and the Group 2 trails. The Group 1 walls were constructed in the late 1600’s and the Group 2 trails date to the early 1700’s. This first phase of field system development started about a century before Cook’s visit.

The second phase of development is represented by the Group 3 walls and the Group 4 trails. This is the phase of development that was in full swing when Kalani`opu`u reigned over Hawai`i Island.

The third phase of development, which was relatively minor at Lapakahi and at Pahinahina and Kahua, took place in the historic era, before the mahi`ai were moved off the land by the Mahele and cattle ranching.

Field System Development and Wealth-Assets

The Sweet Potato, Ipomoea batatas

One of the striking facts about development of the leeward Kohala field system is that it was built primarily to cultivate this plant, the sweet potato, a South American plant introduced to Hawai`i more than a century after the islands were discovered and settled.

The Polynesian farmers who settled Hawai`i knew very well how to cultivate taro and the other Southeast Asian crop plants that they brought to the islands. As the first settlers explored the islands, they were certainly noting good spots for taro lo`i. They knew what to expect from the taro plant and had long since completed the basic inquiries required to master taro production in a new land.

Sweet potato was different. Hawaiian farmers had likely never seen the plant before it was introduced to the islands. Lacking a tradition of sweet potato cultivation, they had no choice but to experiment with the new plant, working carefully with the plants they had to inquire about its response to soil, water, temperature, and cultivation techniques.

The vast infrastructure developed in leeward Kohala starting the late 17th century, is one fruit of that inquiry, a testament to generations of practical inquiry and a scientific tradition that passed learning and expertise from one generation of farmers to the next.

Captain James King

There can be little doubt that the practical inquiry carried out by generations of Hawaiian sweet potato farmers was successful. Captain James King and other officers who were with Cook in Hawai`i spoke admirably of the finest sweet potatoes they had ever seen, “as big as a man’s head” is how they described them.

And they testified many times to another product of this success–Cook and his officers all agreed that Hawaiian pig herds were by far the largest they had encountered on their travels throughout the Pacific. Pigs in Hawai`i, as elsewhere in the Pacific, were fed sweet potatoes–the tubers, the leaves, and whatever remained in the fields after harvest. The large herds were proof that the Hawaiian mahi`ai had mastered sweet potato cultivation, and that the vast infrastructure developed in Kohala and elsewhere on the younger southern islands, was a resounding success.

Pigs as Consumables

Pig Herds as Wealth-Assets

Growth: limited by the natural growth rate of a pig population;
Consumption: pigs eaten only by aliʻi men;
Marginal value: offered as gifts to Captain Cook;
Indefinite life: Kamehameha inherited pig herds from Kalaniʻōpuʻu.

Individual pigs are consumables, but herds of pigs can be managed as wealth-assets. Let’s see how.

First, a pig herd can grow as fast as the pigs can breed and sufficient food for them can be raised. The intensification of sweet potato production in leeward Kohala starting in the late 17th century could have been put in the service of supporting larger and larger herds of pigs. The archaeological record here yields evidence of a growing wealth-asset.

Second, pigs were eaten by high ranking males and were forbidden to women. This is clear evidence of a wealth asset providing a consumption benefit to a group of people able to exercise a property right claim to pork.

Third, pork was highly valued in old Hawai`i, so we can be sure that more of it would be considered a “good” thing. One good piece of evidence that this was so is the fact that kanaka maoli offered pigs to Captain Cook from the first moment they had contact on Kaua`i. The pigs were offered well before kanaka maoli learned that Cook desired pork to salt for his voyage and the gifts of pigs continued long after Cooks stores were full of salt pork.

Finally, pig herds have an indefinite life. As long as sweet potato grows and farmers choose to feed part of the harvest to the pigs, then the herd might be a constant feature of the landscape. And we know that control over the pig herds passed from one king to the next. When Vancouver returned to Hawai`i after Kalani`opu`u had passed away and Kamehameha had become king, Kamehameha came out to greet his British friend dressed in a jacket that Cook had given to Kalani`opu`u 15 years earlier, and he gave Vancouver more than 90 pigs as a gift.

By this account, there can be little doubt that pig herds were managed by Hawaiian kings as wealth-assets.

Development of Heiau in the Field System

An interesting question has to do with whether the pig herds were managed as wealth assets from the start, or whether they became wealth assets sometime after the field system was under development.

One way to inquire about this is to track the development of temples in the field system. We know from several sources that one of the ways men legitimized and protected their claim to the consumption benefits yielded by the pig herds is they often feasted on pork at temples where women were denied access.

This graph shows the tempo of temple construction in the field system. You can see that, on present evidence, the first temple was constructed by the late seventeenth century, which is the same time the first agricultural walls were built at Pahinahina and Kahua. Hawaiian men were building the temples where they might consume pork on their own at the same time they were working to intensify sweet potato production.

On this evidence, development of the field system was coincident with the development of pig herds as wealth assets.