The View from Here
Curses, Nightmarchers, Wasps, and Archaeology:
My Summer Adventures with the University of Hawaii Archaeological Fieldschool Part I

Lynne K. Fukuda
Instructor of Anthropology
Windward Community College
E-mail: lfukuda@hawaii.edu

      Even in 21st century Hawaii, many residents acknowledge the existence of Goddess Pele, the volcano goddess. There are many sightings of her, dressed in white, appearing as a Polynesian woman of various ages, and being spotted by tourists, helicopter pilots (who see her close to the volcano where no human possibly could be found), and residents. The locals also take curses seriously. Volcanic stones, usually of a dark color, taken from certain areas, could bring about sickness or accidents to a family. Some of these stones, or pohaku, are believed to be inhabited by spirits or had been parts of heiaus, or Hawaiian temples, and have strong supernatural power, or mana. There are many stories of locals who met unfortunate ends or had bouts of mysterious illnesses from picking up pretty, well-formed stones at the beach or on their hikes, and have returned the stones to their rightful places to rid themselves of the curse. Those who build rock walls often have the walls blessed by a priest, knowing that spirits may have inhabited some of the rocks.
      Thus, many locals, hearing horrible tales of curses and spirits, have a healthy respect for things Hawaiian and do not disturb artifacts, temples, or take things without permission. I, too, would not imagine disturbing such things, for I would not like to meet with an untimely end. At the present time in Hawaii we have a Wal-Mart store in Honolulu that was built up over a historic gravesite, a mass grave of possible smallpox victims from the turn of the century. Hawaiian groups are angered because the graves have been disturbed, and the bones have not been reburied and blessed. The bones lie in boxes in storage in the Honolulu Wal-Mart store. Hawaiian custom dictates that the dead never be disturbed, and if they are disturbed due to necessary processes, such as construction, etc., they must be reburied nearby or at an appropriate place and blessed with a ceremony befitting the dead.
      I do not go to the Honolulu Wal-Mart store, afraid of the curses of those one hundred dead people. I wonder if I would see them, their sores oozing from the pox, haunting the hallways of the store or following me to the restroom. I do not want to fall suddenly ill or have large boxes accidentally fall on me and crush me like a bug, the result of angry spirits who cannot rest because they have been disturbed.

      I have had a proper mental evaluation by various shrinks, but I am not a schizophrenic. I do not see visions or hear voices, and yet, I can see ghosts from the past that, upon proper research, are accurately dressed, and old dwellings and buildings that no longer exist but had existed before. It is not as if I remember the past, but I am able to see straight into the past as if it were the present. I have seen the ancient Hawaiian living near fishponds in Hawaii, surfers with koa wood boards in the rough surf, and met Tsunami victims who died in the tsunami in Hilo. I have also seen Goddess Pele and other Hawaiian spirits. I do not think that I am truly crazy.
      Thus, my initiation into the spirit world of the Hawaiians was what I believe allowed me to see ghosts and spirits. I toiled in the hot sun for three consecutive summers, giving my respect to the ancients, studying their culture and their remains, and learned to understand true Hawaiian culture. I had grown up with the stories of encounters with spirits and ghosts my own family had in Hawaii, but I was to experience first-hand such an encounter that fateful summer on the island of Lanai, said to be a highly spiritual island with strong mana or supernatural power.
      "I would like to volunteer myself as a research assistant for your archaeological field school," I told the professor before the summer began. I had friends signed up for the field school and wished to go along, although I did not need the credits. Thus, as a volunteer, I could have the privilege of camping out with everyone and also saved myself the price of tuition.
      "There is a lot I need help on," my professor informed me. "We need help in everyday things like keeping camp, doing laundry, cooking and cleaning and driving the van."
      I nodded; slightly disappointed that working in the field on the site was not included in the list of needs. "I would love to help," I answered. My professor's description of my duties did not sound very adventurous, but it is often the mundane, everyday things that count more in the end, I suppose, in real life, and not the Indiana Jones' actions that allow real archaeologists to function efficiently in the field. Imagine if Indiana Jones found out that he had no fresh water to drink or his food supplies had been eaten up by giant rats. He would be in pursuit of food and water instead of the secret treasures of the past. British archaeologists, who were often on a pedestal in comparison to American archaeologists, who often rough it and pack their own food and tend to their own needs, had servants in the field, catering to their every need. There would be tea time, served on good china with as much sweets and pastries as possible, served on tables as if the British had never left good old England. They would be dressed in their immaculate clothing, laundered by laboring washerwomen. Groups of diggers, who were not recognized as archaeologists as they are today, would do the back-breaking labor of digging trenches and doing the initial excavations while the British archaeologists, who often were members of the nobility with names that started with Sir, go in with a delicate camel-hair brush and examine the item the "diggers" had discovered. And, of course, Sir so-and-so would exclaim that he had uncovered the treasure or find after months of hard labor under the Egyptian sun, enduring the hundred-degree heat and hardships of the field where good clotted cream was not found for afternoon tea, and it was never cool enough in the shade, because they were so much removed from true civilization.
      Yes, I would be an essential part of the archaeological field crew, much like the diggers and the washerwomen and the servants, only I would be considered a field assistant to my professor, who would also help me in some of the tasks when he was not busy supervising the students in the field.
      "You will also have time to help the others on the dig," my professor told me, sensing my disappointment. "I know the work doesn't sound exciting, but you will be an essential part of our team." My professor was kind and understanding. He knew that because I was young, my duties had disappointed me.
      I almost jumped with excitement. "I would love that very much!" I exclaimed. I loved archaeology, having worked two summers in the hot Hawaiian sun. Although we had not found very much, I enjoyed the process. We found a few 19th century glass, buttons, shoe buttons, post molds, charcoals (the remains of a fire), and some significant rocks. In addition, I uncovered a nest of baby centipedes followed by a ferocious centipede mom that threatened to bite me. I knew that the work was hard, and yet, I craved it, like caffeine.
      "You are crazy," my mother once remarked. "You allow yourself to labor under the hot sun like a common coolie and come home sun-burnt and smiling as if you had done something important and fun. Who would undergo such torment for only a handful of charcoal and a few old pieces of someone's garbage?"
      My mother had been partially right, but she was the one who had been a mountain climber in her youth, scaling granite cliffs and hiking into deep mountains and reaching mountain peaks at the risk of falling to her death. Her only reward each time, after suffering almost unbearable pain while climbing up into the high altitude areas, was to see the view from the peak. It brought out an unexplainable euphoria, a high that many athletes and enthusiasts experience. My euphoria, too, was very similar. I would be digging all summer in the blistering heat under the subtropical sun of Hawaii, where sites were often in hot, dry regions with very little rain. "I don't think I ever want to do this again," I would complain, and yet, I would do it again.

      Thus, I began to pack for my new journey. We would be living in tents that summer near the field site. We would have large tents, a campsite with water and toilets, an outdoor shower, and picnic tables. It was not hard to imagine living under such conditions in Hawaiian. We did not have poisonous snakes or large predators. We would be safe and comfortable, as if we were in our own beds. "Ah, a large tent and time to rough it all summer," I sighed. Once used to the hardships of the field, I began to crave the natural life. I did not mind having electricity at my fingertips or ice cubes in my drink. I did not even miss TV or radio, for I had lived without it for months at my grandparents' place on the remote region on the North shore of Kauai as a child. I imagined having a tent to myself with my brand-new sleeping bag that was made for North American springtime, and a few books to read.
      My happy image would be altered later, discovering that without snakes and predators, Hawaii had its own vices. Yet, I was young, merely twenty-years-old, and I was not aware that working in the field, and living there, would pose its own problems. My two previous summers doing archaeology had been commuter visits. We went into the field in the morning and left in the afternoon and went home to our comfortable beds, away from our teammates.

      I had packed two small duffel bags of clothing and necessities. I knew that there was a store in the small town in Lanai City, but I took a few things anyway, knowing that things would be expensive or harder to locate on a small island with a population of 2000 people and only three stores to choose from. My sketchbook, stationery items, and camera, along with film, went into my bag. With a few swimming garments, a hat, sunscreen, several t-shirts, and shorts and one nice dress, I was all set for my trip.
      I met my new field mates at the small crafts airport. There were many Cessnas, a few larger propeller planes. My plane was marked Molokai Air. It was the commuter airlines for the small islands of Molokai and Lanai and transported its inhabitants on many trips. The airport in Lanai city was very small, in a clearing in the middle of a pineapple field, and the small planes were the perfect size.
      "What is your weight, Miss?" the man at the airport asked.
      I grimaced, not wishing to reveal my real weight, but I gave it anyway. I was not heavy, but did not like to give it out, just as I disliked giving out my true age. I knew the airline person would add a few to several pounds to each passenger, knowing that many lied about their weight. I reasoned that my bags could be heavier than those of the other passengers, and they would have to add some weight to mine, although I had given an accurate weight.
      "Did you know they put the larger people on the front of the plane?" one of the students said.
      I started to laugh.
      "No kidding, Lynne. They do that to balance the weight on the small plane," the other student remarked.
      The friendly airline person spoke up. "We actually had a flight with some large, Hawaiian musicians and each of them weighed more than 300 lbs, so we had to put only two of them at a time and had delayed flights," he said.
      I laughed, imagining the small aircraft teetering in the air, as the large passengers leaned from side to side. "Help!" I imagined the plane saying.

      After our initial shock of being asked our weights, the students introduced themselves. There were five young students, like myself, in their early twenties. There was also a Hawaiian activist who was a proponent for ending military bomb practice on Kahoolawe, the other small island next to Lanai and Molokai, who was in his fourties. There was a housewifely lady in her fifties who loved archaeology, and an Egyptian woman of mysterious origin who was dressed in a long skirt and had a scarf on her head.
      "I am Egyptian," she said in her exotic accent.
      I studied her face and form and nodded. She did seem Egyptian. I did not assume all Egyptians were interested in Hawaiian archaeology, but I supposed there had to be at least a few. There were also two graduate students in anthropology who were the teaching assistants. Our professor was a handsome man, immaculate, and more like Mr.Clean than a scruffy archaeologist. His teeth flashed white, and his sky-blue eyes were more like an actor's, along with his genuinely blond hair. I knew by a look at our interesting crew that we had the makings of an Indiana Jones movie.

      The plane took off, giving us a taste of its loud, piercing engine. However, we were highly satisfied by the view. "Hey, we can see the ground and the water at a closer distance than on a jet," one of the students remarked.
      I looked at the opening that gave me glimpses of the pilot. It was a small and intimate crew. We all sat in the cramped but comfortable plane and chatted with one another. The stewardess, too, was friendly and relaxed. There was no in-flight beverage service, but she chatted with us and seemed to enjoy the ride immensely.
      The flight was a mere twenty-five minutes, but it seemed an entirely different journey. If I had gone to Lanai on a jet, I would not have been able to observe the island from the air with the good birds-eye view that I got from the small plane. I saw every groove, every furrow. I studied the contours of that dry and very flat island, that was mostly a plateau, with cliffs on the side, and a low area that sloped from Lanai City to sea level, showing off white sands and rough surf. The island was denuded, the result of unwise practices of releasing deer, goat and cattle on a small, vulnerable island that had not known or evolved with large grazing animals. The result was ecological destruction. When it rained, blood red soil, high in iron, swept into the sea, choking out the coral reef.
      The pineapple boom in Hawaii also hastened the end of the lowland forests and its vegetation by denuding most of Lanai in order to have pineapple plantation, so that it seemed that the entire island was a giant pineapple plantation. The locals called it the Pineapple Isle. I now knew why. We flew over acres and acres of pineapple fields and nothing else. It seemed that no one grew anything else, except for a fruit that many ate occasionally at holidays or as decorations for cocktails, or as the highly acidic juice that was the unfavorite drink of many small children.
      I recalled how I had thrown up after being served pineapple juice on the plane as a child. It was so acidic and made my airsick stomach worse. I also remembered the horrible smell of the pineapple cannery in Honolulu that we passed sometimes on the way to the airport. The building had a metal pineapple structure with yellow and brown markings and gave me the image of a giant pineapple monster that threatened to turn all small children into the sickly syrup that was packed in the solid, unkind tin cans that trapped the hapless pineapples, butchered and sliced into unnatural doughnut shapes for shipping. The cannery emitted a very unpleasant smell for those inside and outside of the cannery. There were horror stories of girls from my high school who quit their summer jobs there because the acidic pineapple juice had burned their delicate skin, giving them a terrible rash. The women who worked there for decades had missing teeth, rotting off from tasting morsels of fresh pineapples. For a child growing up with virtually no factories, the pineapple cannery was indeed a frightening place where perfectly good, natural pineapples were transformed into canned goods, a form that most Hawaii residents did not favor. I had only eaten sliced fresh pineapples, ripened on the stalk to a golden yellow with a slightly orange sheen. We had eaten it freshly picked from the fields in the little pineapple stand in Wahiawa. It was a treat for city children from Honolulu. The long drive into the rural area of Wahiawa-Waialua, where it is now more suburban in flavor in some parts, and the taste of fresh pineapples, fragrant and ripe, was a distant world from canned pineapples that tasted like cooked fruit soaked in syrup and disguised to hide some terrible food secret to some unsuspecting person who had never tasted the fresh fruit.
      I imagined landing on Lanai, surrounded by fields of pineapples that resembled that of Wahiawa and feasting on fresh fruit. "Ahh," I said to myself, "Fresh pineapples every day." However, I was not able to have any for a while, once there, being expensive in the local market. On Lanai, it was the custom never to buy the fruit but to have it as a gift from an acquaintance who had a relative who worked in the fields and was permitted to pick the remaining off-grade fruit, and the last crop, called the sugar pine, unusually sweet but misshapen and very small. It was usually the last crop before the pineapple plant weakened from the highly resistant nematode parasites that persisted in the red volcanic soil and killed off the plant in the third or fourth year, or forced the plantation to pull them out in favor of new, healthier plants for the next year, where yield would be high and good.

      When I went to Lanai, the island and its inhabitants were entering a new era. The island was privately owned and was to be changed from a plantation into a complex of hotels and resorts. Many residents resisted the change. "Why can we not continue our way of life? The hotels will bring bad influences and change our way of life," they said, dismally. The older generation was satisfied with their rural life, living on a plantation and working hard in the fields. They had raised their children and saw their grandchildren grow up healthy and strong without the outside influences that those on the larger islands in Hawaii had known. Without many material needs, these individuals had lived their lives in their simple, rustic way, thanking God for each day that passed and enjoying life, as they knew it. The hotel complexes would bring a large disturbance and a storm of change in their once peaceful world that remained in a time warp, where statehood and its inevitable influences had changed Hawaii but had not touched the paternalistic manner of the plantation that took care of their own from cradle to the grave. Yet, this same plantation was now abandoning these people for newer things.

      "Perhaps, it will allow our young people to remain here with their families if they find work at the hotels," other said. Lanai's youth were migrating out to Honolulu and the other states to attend school and to find jobs. Many who tasted higher education did not wish to toil like slaves under the hot sun in the fields, tending to the pineapples that cut the hands of the workers, and being perpetually covered by the red dust that blew up to cover the entire island.
      "We lived by the plantation horn," one of the older residents told me. "We would wake up at the crack of dawn, eat our breakfast and pack our lunches. Then wait for the horn and rush to work. In the evening, we would leave the fields when we heard the horn. Then, it was Pau Hana (finish work)."

      I was to meet many friendly and interesting inhabitants of this isolated island that consisted of a single pineapple plantation, its bosses and its workers and their children. It was a world that my grandparents knew, but a world that many of the grandchildren abandoned in search of better opportunities and better working conditions. Many of the original workers were immigrants, just as the Mexican workers who work on the present Hawaiian plantations are. Many came with a dream of a better life, of living on a beautiful island, and raising their children to become prosperous. Many lived out their dreams, toiling patiently and enduring superhuman hardship at times, believing that their sacrifices would ensure a better way of life for those who came later.
      In return, these people had been protected from change. The old wooden plantation houses stood as they originally had, housing the workers, the stores served their every need, stocking everything from knitting needles, to food items and fishing supplies. The fields of dark green, spiky plants that lay low on the ground, balancing a single golden fruit in the shape of a pinecone had stood there for more than a hundred years, calling to them in labor to meet the world market for the coveted Hawaiian pineapple. Many of the workers did not know the fate of the fruits they grew. They understood little of the eager consumers who lived in cold climates and tasted pineapple that was sour instead of sweet, picked early for shipping when it was considered too green for locals. It was cut up preciously by those in lands far away, a gift from a friend or a fruit to decorate a holiday table, exotic and bringing to the diners, the taste of a tropical island world that these diners could little imagine.
      The Lanai locals continued their peaceful way of life, adapting to the heat of the sun and the hard labor, giving thanks to their gods for the good health they experienced in Hawaii's mild climate and for the natural beauty of the land that gave them all they need in terms of food and a place to live. Many of their descendants could not imagine the terrible hardships they endured or the acceptance of such harsh conditions. But to the people who came from primarily agricultural background in their homelands, it was a blessing. They could not imagine the hardships of losing sleep and proper rest and commuting each day to work, not raising their own children without hardly seeing them as they were shuttled from preschool to after school programs and working long hours in offices merely to purchase and house and to gain material goods. To the old folks, the plantation provided them with a free home as long as they were employed, a plot for a small vegetable garden ad enough space for chickens, time with their children for rural pleasures of hunting and fishing and going out for a swim in the beautiful ocean that surrounded their island home.
      I was fortunate to meet these people, full of stories and memories of a time that was passing as Lanai was passing into the 20th century. Once the resorts were built, and jobs were different, I would not be able to find them again or be able to find them eager and friendly to share their stories.

      My summer of archaeology was starting as we landed in the middle of a pineapple field. The island, although an ecological disaster area, was still pristine. It did not have skyscrapers or resorts. The coastline was natural and unaltered. The population was very small and their activities did not seem to disturb the island. There were neat rows of wooden plantation houses, raised several feet off the ground with generous eaves, large windows, and inviting porches. Each small plot was planted with flowers and vegetables, the pride of its owner. The areas that were not farmed or inhabited were left, as they were when the original Hawaiians had lived. Nothing had disturbed the artifacts with the exception of roaming goats and deer. We were surprised later on to discover that some artifacts, although previously discovered by Lanai residents had been respectfully left in place.
      "We don't dare disturb anything," a resident confided in me once, "If we did, we could get cursed. Lots of strange bad things happened to folks who didn't respect the old stuff or disturbed the spirits."
      I wondered, hearing this, if the spirits themselves watched over the archaeological remains on that highly spiritual island of Lanai. Why else would they remain undisturbed for centuries when sites had been disturbed on other islands? Of course, it could be explained by the fact that Lanai was a private island with very little outside visitors and also boasted of a miniscule crime rate. No one vandalized, no one stole, except for a few fruits or so, and no one on the pristine island was a known murderer, rapist, robber, burglar, or thief. It was such a small and tightly knit society that if someone committed such a crime, he or she would immediately be shunned and would not be able to continue living on the island. Everyone knew everyone else's business, and someone's naughty son would be reported to his parents and relatives immediately. Someone was always watching out for everyone else. The Lanai policemen spent their days smiling and talking to the townspeople, making sure that everyone was safe and unhurt. It was their mere presence that guaranteed a safe community.
      In the years to come, when Lanai converted from an island fully dependent on pineapple to an island dependent on tourism, the crime rate changed drastically. To this once pristine place, drugs were introduced. There was a killing, a surge of burglaries and other types of crime associated with the influence of the outside world. Lanai was no longer innocent and safe. Its children and its people would be cruelly exposed to the harsh realities of 20th century life, where there were the haves and have nots and drugs and other problems. If utopia had existed, it was to be found on that little island of Lanai in between the larger main islands in the Hawaiian Island chain. I was given my last taste of such a world that could be possible, safe from the evils of the outside world, with a captive population of plantation workers and those associated with the island. It had existed for a few hundred years, and with development came the demise of such a simple and contented society. It was to this exciting place in Hawaii where the lack of large stone structures and elaborate architecture and artifacts, that we were to discover ourselves in a different realm.
      Lanai Island itself was in a time warp. Like a voyager entering the twilight zone, my teammates and I were plunged into the world where the spirits of the Hawaiians existed alongside the living, and the remains of the ancestors were still there, allowing present day visitors to observe them.

Dedication: This article is dedicated in memory of Dr.Bert Davis, former Marine, Vietnam Vet, and an unforgettable professor of archaeology, who gave me the love of all things old and gone, but not gone forever. May you have great digs in the big place in the sky. 

Academic Exchange Extra invites reader response to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.

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------------------------------  Page Citation Reference: Fukuda, Lynne K. (2005).  AE-Extra. January. Available Online. [URL: < >. Created: 27 January 2005. Updated: 25 February 2005.. Accessed: ]