FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL – Pineapples, Lava, &c
Hawaii was first populated principally by Polynesian pineapples. All the islands were covered with pineapples. Everywhere you looked – pineapples.
The Polypineapple Polynesian culture was also polytheistic, but their favorite god was a soccer player from Brazil named Pele. They really liked the way he kicked the ball, and used his head, too.
Coconuts were also big in the islands, as well as the water they contained within themselves. And coconut spiders. And macadamia nuts, which were used to build roads; also orchids, which are a type of spider (there are lots of spiders in Hawaii).
Don’t forget the Turtles, Lava, Waterfalls, Sugarcane, Feral Wallabys, and Taro. These are the things that made up Hawaii before it was messed up by people.
But pineapples, coconuts, macadamia nuts, orchids, &c all took a back seat to something else. Last but not least, the place was once overrun with sandwiches: ham sandwiches, hamburger sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches, BLTs, bologna sandwiches, liverwurst sandwiches, liverbest sandwiches, salami sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, Spam sandwiches, Reubens, Ice Cream sandwiches - even pineapple sandwiches - you name it.
For that reason, Europeans called the archipelago the Sandwich Islands for quite some time. Not the Pineapple islands, or the Coconut islands, or anything else, but the Sandwich Islands.
The islands didn’t get their current name until these same Europeans told the Sandwich Islanders that they were going to annex their islands and start governing them from afar. The first native to hear this news, said, "Huh?!? Why?!?," and then, when he was pushed off a cliff for his failure to express unmitigated delight in the administrative change, the last thing heard from him was, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"
So, as tribute to him, they combined his final words, which were “Huh?!? Why?!? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” into their shortened form (eliding the spaces and punctuation marks), which first came to be spelled as Huhwhyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and then eventually was shortened to Hawaii (it was still pronounced the same, but the spelling was changed to make it look more exotic).
I’ve gotten ahead of myself, though; the islands were first discovered by Phileas Fogg who, floating over them in a balloon, had his trusty companion Passepartout take this picture:
The white bits are clouds; the blue bits are water. By the way, Fogg’s companion was nicknamed “Passepartout” because he had a passport, too
1627 – Here Come the Spaniards
Seeing Passepartout’s photo in an old number of National Geomorphic, the Spanish first sent a boatload of nosy sailors to visit Hawaii in 1627.
By the way, since Spain was the first European nation to butt in on the affairs of the natives, they were the ones that called the collection of islands an “archipelago,” which is Spanish for “rounded danger,” or “chief pelican” or something. They never explained why they found this moniker fitting. And the Hawaiians soon learned that they would get head-butted if they asked too many questions; since the Spaniards wore pointy metal hats, they just let it go.
1778 – Captain Cook Arrives
Once the Spanish left, the Pineapple People lived in harmonious bliss until Captain James Cook sailed over.
On spotting his ridiculous hat, the natives made certain assumptions and muttered, “There goes the neighborhood.”
Eva Rinaldi captured this study of Cook as he sailed into Honolulu:
He actually appears to be unaware how silly his hat looks
1779 – Cook's Goose is Cooked
Unable to believe that someone with such outlandish headgear could “be anybody,” the natives thought Cook was the ship’s cook.
In other words, they thought cook was his occupation, not his name. Because they had eaten some of the British food from the ship, the natives considered the preparing and serving of suchlike victuals to be high crime and treason, and they took matters into their own hands. In 1779, they put an end to his unfathomably atrocious cooking (or so they thought) by knocking him galley west:
“You call that vittles?!? Take this, you no-account sluggard!”
1794 – Great Britain Grabs Hawaii
In 1794, Hawaii was placed under the protectorate of Great Britain by Vancouver. The natives ignored this, because they didn’t know if Vancouver, Washington, or Vancouver, British Columbia was meant.
After all, how could they celebrate being protectorated if they didn’t know whether to serve apple pie or maple bars for dessert at the shindig?
1835 – Sugar Plantation in Kauai
Growing tired of nothing but pineapple sandwiches day in and day out, the royal baker (Kamehameha) came up with a recipe for pineapple squares. To make these, though, he needed sugar. On a lark, not really knowing what to expect, he planted some sugar seeds, and in due time, voila! Sugar cane sprouted!
The taste treat became so beloved, especially by hula dancers and hula hoopsters, that an entire sugar plantation was set up right there in Kauai.
They got some boys to take over the running of the place:
Not wanting to “muzzle the bull,” the boys were allowed to eat all the sugar they wanted, as long as they kept working
1843 – Britain Takes Over Again
Knowing that all the wealth from the sales of pineapple squares would ruin the character of the simple Hawaiians, in 1843 the British magnanimously came in and kindly took over the administration of the income the islands were bringing in.
The British influence may be perceived in the coat of arms (or “republic seal”) that the Hawaiians came up with shortly thereafter:
Some people say the Monk Seal got its name from this
1849 – French Fail to Take Hawaii
In 1849, French admiral Legoarant de Tromelin failed in his attempted invasion of the islands.
England and the Ewe-Knighted States had been finagling to control Hawaii for some time, and the French, feeling left out and hoping that the Ewe-Knighted States were distracted looking for gold in California and fighting Mexicans in Mexico, gave it a go themselves. The French soldiers forgot to bring their swords along, though, and had to give it up once the Hawaiians resisted.
1872 -- “Roughing It”
Mark Twain had visited the islands in the mid 1860s. On returning to San Francisco, he made the islands and islanders a subject of a lecture, which he toured around the country delivering.
Eventually, Twain made a book out of it, too. His Roughing It, which also covered his 1860s experiences in Washoe (Nevada) and California, contained plenty of “Sandwich Island” material.
Ever observant, Twain compared funeral rites of antiquity with modern ones (modern at that time, anyway – a century and a half ago):
1873 – Pearl Harbor Fever
In 1873, the Ewe-Knighted States government wanted to buy Pearl Harbor really bad. They wanted to look out at the ocean from there. It was pretty.
Or maybe it was the pearls they were after.
Unfortunately for them, though, selling Pearl Harbor was unpopular with the natives. They were afraid they would end up losing all of the islands if they started selling them piecemeal.
Where the natives got such a preposterous idea, nobody could fathom.
. . .
Each Saturday and Tuesday an excerpt of one State’s (satirized) history will be posted here, in alphabetical order (from Alabama to Wyoming).
The (32-page) complete book “The New All-too-True-Blue History of Hawaii” is available here.
The regions of the U.S. have been combined into volumes, too; Hawaii is included in the volume The New All-too-True-Blue History of the American West
You can listen to this excerpt here:
Blackbird Crow Raven is also the author of the book “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle”