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Seeking the Sacred Raven
Politics and Extinction on a Hawaiian Island
By Mark Jerome Walters ISLAND PRESS
Copyright © 2006 Mark Jerome Walters
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61091-107-8
CHAPTER 1
MOUNTAIN OF EMERALD LIGHT
STEEPED IN EARLY explorers' descriptions of Hawai'i's dense cloud forests, I've expected to enter an impenetrable thicket. As one explorer in the late 1700s wrote, "the Wood [was] impassable every where out of the common Paths" and "so Immoderately thick & strewed with Underwood & firn that it was totally Impassable." The woods are "very thick and luxuriant," wrote another. "The largest trees are nearly thirty feet in the girth, and these with the shrubbery underneath and the whole intersected with vines renders it very umbrageous."
But beneath the thick canopy of tree ferns and 'ohi'a trees where we stand is an forest nearly devoid of underbrush.
"Where's the understory?" I whisper.
"Feral cattle, they keep it pretty well mowed down. Pigs dig up a lot of the ferns and trample the underbrush," John Klavitter answers.
Keith Unger, a rancher at heart, bristles at the cattle reference. "Livestock keep the fire-prone exotic grasses down. 'Fact, we purposely keep a few cattle back here to prevent fire. Sounds like a contradiction, but cattle are one reason some of the best remaining highland forests are on our ranch."
Klavitter adds, "The understory is critically important for the 'alala. It protected them from hawks and supplied a lot of fruit and insects. Now there is almost no protection and little food."
Still intent on keeping blame off his cattle, Unger says, "Pigs are just as bad, if not worse. Polynesians brought them here over a thousand years ago."
"I agree, pigs are destructive," Klavitter politely responds. "But Polynesian pigs were probably a lot smaller than the European boars. They knock over native tree ferns to reach the heart. After the pigs eat the core of the fern, a trough is created where rain collects and mosquitoes breed. Mosquitoes carry avian malaria and pox, which are detrimental to forest birds. This isn't even to mention the introduced rats and mongooses, which raid 'alala nests and prey upon newly fledged young on the ground.
"And then there are the 'io, which have capitalized upon the open understories, where the hunting is easier than amid dense ferns and other low-growing native plants. An almost unlimited supply of introduced rats, mice, and game birds has enabled the 'io population to expand. The 'alala, on the other hand, got stuck with a dwindling supply of food. In theory, if enough areas were fenced, the understory would grow back, driving the 'io to better hunting grounds outside 'alala habitat—or at least supporting far fewer hawks within it. Some of the historical balance between the 'alala and the 'io might then be restored."
Klavitter turns his ear skyward. We hear a faint sound like the distant yelp of a dog.
"Maybe the Kealia pair," Klavitter mouths.
The sound rises again. I gaze up as ethereal columns of sunlight splinter through the canopy. I sadly listen to what may be among the last wild calls of 'alala. "Not many visitors even get to hear them," Unger whispers. "Consider yourself lucky."
We've now been in the forest for more than an hour, and Unger turns us back toward the road. Then, to our amazement, we hear another 'alala, this one closer. Its call is a high-pitched exclamatory note, like a child's yell, followed by a slow, gurgling caw.
Several nearby birds let loose from the treetops with ear-piercing, humanlike shrieks mixed with an occasional crowlike "Cawwwll!" There is yelling, yakking, whooping, barking, and howling—a cachinnation followed by quieter mutterings. We duck into an 'ohi'a shadow until the calls subside, leaving an edgy silence. The birds have disappeared, but their eyes still seem to be upon us. We are turned from observers into the observed.
Then suddenly we see it—a spreading fan of black feathers sweeping from a bough, silhouetted against a sunlit gap in the leafy ceiling. Another 'alala appears as the first bird levitates from the perch. Like miniature hang gliders, two more birds glide silently through the canopy shadows. The four 'alala now surrounding us alternately step from their perches into the air, catching themselves on black wings and arcing upward to a nearby tree. They stare at us and play musical branches, sailing acrobatically from one perch to another.
Unger points out another 'alala half hidden twenty feet above the ground behind the glossy oblong leaves of an Ilex or kawa'u tree. Klavitter peers through his binoculars and whispers, "Noe, daughter of the Kealia pair."
Noe rubs each side of her beak on the branch as if sharpening her bill. She gazes down at the ground, then into the forest. She works her bill under some loose bark, flecking off a short strip as she searches for insects.
Klavitter whispers again: "The 'ohi'a. Thirty feet up. Noe's brother, Paniolo." Paniolo (Hawaiian for "cowboy") tilts his head and gazes at us, then swoops down before arcing up to land in a nearby 'ohi'a. Cocky, swaggering, he perches ten feet away and climbs, parrotlike, along the branch, calling loudly as his eyes bear down on us.
"Cowboy is brash," Unger whispers, and Klavitter nods in agreement. Paniolo is fond of what biologists nicknamed the John Wayne display, wherein he hunches his shoulders menacingly and extends the whiskerlike feathers, or "beard," on his throat.
As the 'alala grow used to our presence, our whispers become soft voices. Klavitter says that a wild 'alala once tried to steal a mouse that Paniolo was carrying in his beak. Both birds flapped wildly as they tumbled downward in a midair tug-of-war. The wild bird gave up, and Paniolo victoriously devoured the mouse on a nearby limb. "Paniolo may be the only captive-reared 'alala that fought a wild bird and won," Klavitter remarks.
In August 1995, biologists found Paniolo motionless and fluffed up in a tree near the rest of the wild 'alala. His right leg had been broken in an 'io ambush. Biologists took Paniolo to Kona International Airport, and from there he was flown by helicopter to a treatment facility on Maui. His leg was splinted, and after several months of recuperation he was returned to the forest, where two female 'alala welcomed him back by preening his feathers.
Perched above, Paniolo, showing no sign of his previous injury, examines us from every angle, pivoting and tilting his head. He climbs and scoots nimbly along the branches, sometimes using his beak as a lever to maneuver his body. Noe and Paniolo are soon joined briefly by their elder brother Kehau, who suddenly takes flight and lands twenty feet above us in a kawa'u tree. We are surrounded by 'alala.
We hear among the dark boughs an occasional soft "Whaaa" and "Aaa- wooo" and the more pointed "Aa-waaoop!" At times, the birds seem more at home with us than with each other, as one occasionally delivers a pointed snigger, growl, or throaty "Raa-raa" to a compatriot.
I wade farther into a glen of waist-high ferns. An 'alala glides from a tree onto the ground twenty feet away. Soon the Bachelor's siblings join the congregation. Lokahi perches about thirty feet up in a huge 'ohi'a tree. Hiwahiwa appears briefly before spreading her wings and gliding into the shadows. In less than ten minutes we have seen not only Bachelor's two siblings but also the three Kealia children—Paniolo, Kehau, and Nose.
Then come others.
"Nanu and Hoku!" Klavitter points out two more after peering through his binoculars at their colored leg bands. "Hoku is short for Hoku lele, which means shooting star." Through my binoculars I can see Hoku's dark, gleaming eyes.
His sister Nanu, named for a rare and fragrant Hawaiian gardenia, sits beneath the canopy in a spray of light. Once common, only about twenty of the trees remain in the wild—and none on Hawai'i Island, where all but one tree of the species were destroyed by a road repair crew in the 1930s.
Nanu and Hoku's sister Hilu, shyer than the others, barely ventures from the shadows. She flaps across a clearing in the canopy and is momentarily backlit by the sun before perching again and slipping back into forest shadows. She flutters her eyelids and then closes them as if to nap.
"I think that's Mahoa over there!" Klavitter says, pointing out Hilu's brother, who sits partially hidden in a large 'ohi'a.
I sit between two large, moss-covered logs, as if in a chaise longue, to expand the family tree in my notebook. The ink on the page is smeared by fog drip. I lie back in the cool wetness, close my eyes, and then inhale deeply the scents of the forest before adding to the family tree.
By noon, mist hangs from the scarlet-blossomed 'ohi'a boughs. As we continue our trek back, a few 'alala follow. Then, about a half mile from the road, pandemonium erupts in the treetops. The Ho'okena pair appears, and the other birds noisily respond to the wild birds with a cacophony of wails, caws, and trills. As the Bachelor debuts nearby with a loud, harsh "Aaaaa-whooooppr—a series of forceful slurred whole notes that fill the canopy—other calls subside. We watch him, perched in a dark-leaved kawa'u, dipping his bill into a fruiting 'ie'ie vine brocading the branch. He draws out a small berry, holds it down with one foot, and spears it with his bill.
It's been an extraordinary morning: we have seen twelve of the last fourteen 'alala in the wild, the most 'alala, Klavitter says, he's ever seen in a single day. Only the Kealia pair remained out of sight—and those two we believe we heard.
* * *
On the drive back down the mountain, we meet up with Donna Ball, a young woman with light brown hair who heads the team of field biologists. In a clearing behind her, a short distance back in the woods, is the dome-shaped tent, nicknamed the Hula Dome, where the biologists live. I open my door and put a foot on the ground as she steps forward.
"Any luck?" she asks.
"Twelve!" Unger says.
"Wow! That's good!"
"Does it bother them that they're followed by biologists all the time or have visitors like us?" I ask.
"We try to follow each individual less than two hours a day. During the breeding season, nesting birds are monitored only from a blind. They don't seem to mind our presence. You probably noticed that being around people doesn't seem to bother them!"
"Do you go to sleep worrying about them?"
"Sometimes," she says as a droplet of water falls from a tree and lands in her hair.
Then she says, "I do worry about them, all the time," as if relieved to share the burden.
Unger and I drive in silence down the mountain. Once back at the warehouse, I bid Unger farewell and head down the steep drive in my car and back out onto the Mamalahoa Highway.
My time on Mauna Loa already seems like a dream. But no longer is my imagination required to conjure up images of forests or the raven of my quest. Part of me wants to return. Another wants to preserve the experience in memory as it is, fearing, perhaps, what may come in the months and years ahead.
CHAPTER 2
IN THE BEGINNING
IN THE BEGINNING were coral polyps and starfish, sea urchins and limpets. Of hot darkness they came: crabs, conch shells, and mother-of-pearl. The sacred essence entered all things. Then swam the spinner dolphin through the dark sea, home of the silver albacore, the stingray, the octopus. On land, Hula winds stirred the 'ie'ie vine, and blossoming 'ohi'a trees stretched their boughs. In the Third Era of creation came the 'alala.
A male this, the female that
A male born in the time of black darkness
The female born in the time of groping in the darkness
Overshadowed was the sea, overshadowed the land
Overshadowed the streams, overshadowed the mountains
Overshadowed the dimly brightening night
The rootstalk grew forming nine leaves
Upright it grew with dark leaves
The sprout that shot forth leaves of high chiefs
....................
The rootstalk sprouted, the taro stalk grew
Born was the 'alala....
Growing from one another, all species were siblings. Indeed, the land itself was considered a member of the human family. These views of creation figured into the way Hawaiians exploited and conserved the islands' animals and other living resources.
The Hawaiians' view of the 'alala began with their creation story, as told in the Kumulipo, or "Beginning in Deep Darkness." Here, Earth was not made by a creator but spontaneously arose from nothingness. Earth was then swept by a chaotic whirlwind of god-inspired life—plants and animals of sea and land—a world where every leaf expressed the face of the divine, every wind spoke the voice of spirits, and every forest fragrance breathed the supernatural. In this world there were no natural occurrences, only supernatural ones: the rainbow, the wind, a sudden call or flight of birds, unexpected ocean waves, cloud formations, the behavior of animals. What was not divine was an earthly sign. Noisy flocks of 'alala screaming down from the uplands of the gods and across the lowland villages warned that lava from Mauna Loa was on its way, and ancient Hawaiians knew that when the wiliwili bloomed along the coast, sharks would bite.
In line with these beliefs, the early Hawaiians based land management on both scientific and anecdotal knowledge. And their practical understanding of natural phenomena merged with their spiritual beliefs. This blend of mind and spirit, antithetical to most Western approaches to natural resource management, brought me to the heart of the question about efforts to preserve the 'alala. In the Hawaiian view, did the presence of the sacred in the 'alala and other animals bestow upon them a powerful, implicit claim to existence? If the 'alala's spiritually fortified existence did contribute to its preservation in the old days, could such intangible values likewise help in modern times—given half a chance? Have such beliefs been permanently supplanted by the traditional Western view that animals are objects first and beings last—if at all? Or is the whole notion of "spiritual ecology"—the belief that spiritual values drove conservation among the early Hawaiians and other indigenous peoples—our own romance with what never was? Such questions haunted me because whatever conservation values most of us practice today, they are insufficient to save many other vanishing species. Without a fundamentally different model of belief—and behavior—what possible hope can we offer to the 'alala, to other species, or to ourselves?
I thought, with some comfort, about the seemingly secular foundations of our own Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). While on the surface the law can be overwhelmingly technical, a closer look reveals a faint echo within it that bestows upon all plants and animals, no matter how small, a powerful right to exist. The law does not say, "Save only those species from which we stand to materially benefit"; it says to save them regardless of the cost. The ESA, as Holmes Rolston III said, is "a congressional resolution that the nation and its people ought to live as compatibly as they can with the fauna and flora of their continent (and abroad), and it deplores the fact that we are now not doing so."
While I knew that many of my questions would never be fully answered, I felt that the complex values reflected in the ancient Hawaiian code of behavior toward the land and the many animals that dwelled thereon might, if nothing else, yield scattered insights into the struggles of our dark time of vanishing species. The questions could help me to better understand the global web of social, ecological, and political forces in which so many vanishing species like the 'alala are trapped.
In the traditional Hawaiian world, four major gods reigned: Kane, god of sunlight and freshwater; Lono, god of harvest, peace, fertility, and the winter wet season, who spoke as thunder, lightning, and rain; Ku, god of war and chiefs; and Kanaloa, god of the ocean, whose breathing created the tides.
These major gods were composed of a multitude of lesser ones, many of whom were ancestral spirits known as 'aumakua. Hawaiians addressed these spirits not in fear but as respected, dependable compatriots in life. Unlike the more powerful gods, 'aumakua were actual members of one's family. They were also guides to the afterlife.
Ancestral spirits could assume many forms, including birds, sharks, turtles, limpets, mud hens, lizards, eels, field mice, caterpillars, even wind or rocks. To do physical harm to or to eat one's 'aumakua could bring death. A family had several or even many different 'aumakua. The 'alala would most likely have been 'aumakua for those families whose ancestors lived in Kona or Ka'u, the only districts where the bird itself lived. It would very likely have been the 'aumakua of those whose professional trades—such as canoe making—regularly took them into the high forests of the 'alala.
The omnipresent 'aumakua guided nearly every act and thought. For early Hawaiians it was kapu, or forbidden, to hit anyone in the face or head because that was the body's entrance for good spirits, including 'aumakua. Picking a blossom from the 'ohi'a tree or other plant required a prayer for dispensation, lest the act offend a lesser god. Hence, there were myriad prayers for fishing, planting, harvesting taro, cutting certain trees, even burying a newborn's umbilical cord.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Seeking the Sacred Raven by Mark Jerome Walters. Copyright © 2006 Mark Jerome Walters. Excerpted by permission of ISLAND PRESS.
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