The ancient Hawaiian Kona ‘ulu region, kaluulu

The young volcanic slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa create a backdrop to Kona that is both beautiful and fertile. The afternoon sea breezes push clouds up the massive mountains creating a landscape that boasts arid plains, rainforests, and everything in between. The indigenous settlers of Hawai‘i Island cultivated these slopes with luxuriant fields of crops such as taro, sweet potato, sugarcane, and breadfruit. The Hawaiians adapted their plantings to the different climates of Kona in order to maximize the region’s productivity. Early Europeans were clearly impressed, claiming “luxuriant,” “elegant,” and “vigorous” growth “comparable to the finest plantations” in Europe.

Famous within these Kona gardens was the presence of a large breadfruit grove, referred to as the kaluulu (kah-loo-oo-loo). This ancient plantation formed a thin strip about a half-mile wide that stretched from Honaunau to Kaloko. The “trees…were a good distance apart, so as to give room to their boughs to spread out vigorously on all sides,” and the “spreading trees with beautiful foliage were scattered about [three miles] from the shore along the side of the mountain as far as we could see on both sides.” Between the trees sweet potato and paper mulberry were grown where shade from the breadfruit offered shelter from the scorching Kona sun.

Unfortunately little is known about the kaluulu other than its existence. When it was established, what techniques were practiced, and how the harvest was shared is all a mystery. Even the word is an enigma. “Kaluulu” is not in the Hawaiian Dictionary and all the most famous Hawaiian historians omit it, and yet the term is documented in over 30 land claims during the time of the Mahele (1842). Like many Hawaiian words it appears to be a place specific term with hidden connotations. One meaning is as a contraction of ka-ulu-ulu, meaning luxuriant growth or very cultivatable land. Another obvious reference is to ‘ulu, the term meaning “breadfruit.”

One thing that is assured is that the breadfruit plantation of old Kona was a huge source of food—one that would produce even in drought years—that represents a critical component of the traditional economy. Many famous and powerful chiefs of Hawai‘i have dwelt in Kona. Liloa, Umi, Kalaniopu‘u and even Kamehameha I utilized Kona as the political and military center of old Hawai‘i. While it would be a stretch to say that breadfruit powered the conquest of Hawai‘i, the author would claim that the role of breadfruit in Hawai‘i’s history has been greatly underestimated.

The kaluulu is a unique treasure of Hawaiian history, and tells enthralling stories of the Hawaiian people. That the plantation cuts across political boundaries and encompasses thousands of individual family plots tells of a powerful chief able to mobilize efforts across the Kona region. That the plantation is only a narrow strip of land bordering the “rain belt” tells of the intimate relationship of the Hawaiians and the land. And that there is a kaluulu at all tells of a love for a food that was brought thousands of miles across the ocean to be planted and eaten.