The View from Here
Curses, Nightmarchers, Wasps, and Archaeology:
My Summer Adventures with the University of Hawaii Archaeological Fieldschool
- Part IV [Note 1]
Lynne K. Fukuda
Instructor of Anthropology
Windward Community College
E-mail: lfukuda@hawaii.edu
As you might guess, the last
part of my tale will explain what happened in the end--that summer and
afterwards. The summer on Lanai Island was a bright point in my young
life. It was my first field experience off of Oahu and away from home.
Although the van accident shamed me for months to come, because many
of my soon-to-be colleagues in the anthropology department (when I entered
as a Master's student) teased me about my mishap, it was, nevertheless,
an accomplishment. The wasp sting was also a prize I accepted; the painful
part of fieldwork and nothing more. I was thankful not to have a hole
in my skull or broken bones from my summer on the island.
The creepy feeling of the supernatural
experience began to wear off, although in the years following I would experience
more of the same. Perhaps, like listening to the wind or to almost indiscernible
insects in the forest, it is a form of awareness. If one opens one's mind to
the other world--to spirits and ghosts--perhaps most of us would be able to see
and hear them.
It was ten years after that summer
that I returned to the tiny Island of Lanai; my old college roommate was a schoolteacher
there. I stayed in her small but clean teacher's cottage that housed three single
teachers in three bedrooms with a shared bathroom and living areas. I went there
as a tourist, no longer a temporary resident of the island. There were two resorts
then, in addition to the modest, ten-room Hotel Lanai. Manele Bay Hotel was on
the coast, the haunted coast where the ancients had lived, fishing and reaping
the rich yields of the sea and land. Many had opposed the development, sure that
the hotel would destroy the once pristine beach which only boasted of a public
bathroom and outdoor shower. However, it remained pristine, having only a single
hotel and dotted by very few tourists. It transformed into a beautiful, world-class
resort, still protecting what Lanai had to offer: the quiet of the real Hawaii
with unspoiled beaches and unpolluted waters.
I also visited the Koele Lodge, above
Lanai City, at a higher elevation it was always lucky enough to be cool and green.
Because the island itself had been populated with deer and other wild game for
hunters, Keole became a playground for those who liked a country lodge. It offered
horseback-riding, hikes, hunting trips into the mountains, and a place to relax
and eat. I loved its teatime, a courtesy to Lanai locals, who could also take
tea for free in the gracious tearoom. The best pastry chefs made the traditional
British cakes and sandwiches and served a good selection of teas or coffee.
I took in the new conveniences, remembering
the country cooking of the old Lanai and the simple burger joint I had dined
in. There was even more gift shops and local artwork available for sale, having
more tourists to buy their wares. And yet, while walking around the small block
that was Lanai City, I was saddened by the changes. They were subtle, yet certain.
The locals no longer stopped to chat, being courteous to visitors by not invading
their privacy. Storekeepers too did not ask many questions, only smiling and
greeting me.
I could not find the familiar faces,
except a few. When I found them, it seemed that they could not remember me; a
regular customer that summer ten years past. It was as if I had faded into a
memory of the old Lanai, the place where the locals had once loved and bidden
farewell. Like a small stack of letters, tied with a silk ribbon, I too had been
placed carefully in a box in storage, that the old people had reluctantly put
away from their minds.
No one remembered me. However, in the
old Lanai, memories were long, and strange happenings--like what happened to
us that summer--would be repeated for years to come. The new Lanai, though, had
washed away some of the old memories, as though the pain of losing the old ways
and the old Lanai had been too much.
"It's different now," I remarked
to a storekeeper quietly. "I came ten years ago."
The old storekeeper nodded sadly. "We
didn't want it to happen, but at least it made new jobs for our young people.
They hired outsiders, too," he said, shaking his head.
I looked around at the development;
new houses scattered across the once empty landscape. The pineapple fields that
I passed were shabby with weeds. And on the side were cows chewing on dry grasses.
The horses looked tired, grazing on dry fields, rushing to the fence when I offered
them a morsel of grass from my side of it. It was as if they thirsted for more
than they had.
"What about reforestation?" I
asked. The plantation era had ended. It was possible to reforest the land to
catch more water and lessen the increased demand on groundwater wells that the
new resorts had created. There was no reforestation plan. Yet the beginnings
of diversified agriculture were on Lanai. I was glad of it. The local Lanai folk
would now be in charge of how they lived, however painful it might be to have
investments that failed or crops that did not do well. No longer would they slave
to the plantation horn, or send their youths to the fields. Instead, they could
choose to remain in the still sparsely populated island with its slow lifestyle,
in spite of the resorts. Their children and grandchildren could choose to go
to college on the main islands or on the U.S. mainland, and perhaps decide to
come back to Lanai, or remain elsewhere.
Lanai Islanders were no longer a captive
population owned by the plantation and exiled by geography. Many were travelers
now, going back and forth to other islands to shop for necessities and material
things by ferry or by plane. Many boasted of trips twice or three times a year
to the mainland to visit Las Vegas or California.
One disappointment of the locals was
that they would no longer be able to enjoy the private beach that fronted Manele
Bay Hotel. The owner built them a small campsite and beach recreation area on
the side, as if the locals were servants and the hotel guests their masters.
Yet, hotels meant jobs, and those who left the plantations found work in the
new hotels. Many young people jumped at the chance to be trained for new jobs
with skills they could use elsewhere. The older folks simply retired, turning
their backs on the new era, and wishing to live in their old, quiet ways.
I walked about the small residential
areas equipped with a camera to record the old plantation houses as I remembered
them. I feasted on their colorful gardens and committed them to memory. Never
again would I see Lanai in this way again. In another ten years, the traces of
old Lanai, with its old folks, would be gone.
When I returned home, after meeting
very sweet schoolchildren at Lanai school, I looked over their pictures happily.
At least the families had not changed very much. The children were still happy
and healthy as I remembered them. I compared the photos of Lanai of ten years
before and sighed. Whether in the living world or the dead, the passage of time
often erased the past. I, too, like the ghosts and spirits of the past, would
soon be forgotten. It was only friends and relatives who would remember of my
passing, of what I had done in life. It was only the written histories and the
photographs that would tell the tales of those who once existed but exist no
longer.
I wondered if supernatural forces and
the ghosts from the past also desired to be remembered by the living. Perhaps
it was this desire that allowed them to become visible to a chosen few living
being to tell the tales of their existence, so they would never be forgotten.
Tragic occurrences, sudden deaths, epidemics, and war all seem to spawn ghostly
occurrences. Perhaps, if limbo truly exists, these individuals are the unfortunate
victims, trapped in lifetimes, unable to reach heaven or the afterlife, and yet,
no longer living. Taking lessons from these ghosts, I hope that the living do
not allow themselves to be trapped in the in-between world. Like the Lanai people
who chose to leave the past behind and to welcome a new life, I too would have
to turn away from the past to enter the twentieth-century, and later, the twenty-first
century.
I resisted the world of computers for
nearly a decade, refusing to use a word processor and sticking to my manual typewriter,
then to my electric one. I spurned e-mail as a form of communication, using USPS
mail as my main mode of writing letters. I did not even have a microwave until
nearly 15 years after most Hawaiian people. And yet, after my initial struggle,
I became an avid e-mailer, began to teach online and created online courses.
It takes courage to leave the comforts of the past to try something new.
Change is inevitable, and we cannot
live in the past. However, it is in knowing of the past that we can learn lessons.
One of the lessons I learned from archaeological fieldwork was the respect the
ancients had for their natural environment, living on the land as if it were
part of their own bodies, and worshipping it as the true temple of their gods.
I give thanks to the ancient gods and to the ghosts for their blessings and never
fail to ask permission to tread on the land that they once walked. For all of
us share the same earth; in the past, or in the future. It is this lesson that
archaeology teaches us: even in the past other peoples and other creatures tread
the earth, and we must be respectful and share it for all eternity.
[1] This is dedicated to all archaeologists who excavate and preserve the past with care. For Glenn Grant, who preserved the supernatural tales of Hawaii and has turned himself now into a ghost. For all ghosts, especially to the Nightmarchers, who continue to let their presence be known in the Hawaiian Islands. I had the pleasure of working under Dr. Glenn Grant for two terms when he was a chancellor at a local college. He was a well-known specialist on ghost stories and collected, in the manner of an anthropologist, the histories of spirits and hauntings that occurred in Hawaii. Although many stories may have been merely made up, passed on through families, some have a grain of truth. The hauntings and ghost sightings occur to those who are not familiar with the stories or occur to those not from Hawaii. It was the willingness to patiently record such stories that made Dr. Grant a great collector of local ghost stories. I am forever grateful for his listening ear and his sincerity, taking my ghostly encounters and experiences seriously. In this wide world, life is always full of mysteries. [Back]
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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Citation Reference: Fukuda, Lynne K. (2005). AE-Extra. May. Available Online. [URL: < >. Created: 27 April 2005. Updated: --. Accessed: ] |