In January 1779, Captain James Cook returned to Hawaiʻi during the same Pacific expedition that had first reached Kauaʻi and Niʻihau in January 1778. When the Resolution and Discovery entered Kealakekua Bay in the Kona district of Hawaiʻi Island, their crews encountered an extraordinary gathering of Hawaiian canoes.

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The precise number cannot now be confirmed, but there is little doubt that the concentration of canoes was immense and reflected both the size of the surrounding population and the central importance of the canoe in Hawaiian life.

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Cook’s expedition also brought disease. Captain James King later recorded that Hawaiians complained that the British had left an illness among their women. King wrote that he had seen no sign of the disease when the expedition first arrived and concluded that Cook’s crews were probably responsible for its introduction. Historians generally identify the illness as a sexually transmitted disease, most likely gonorrhea and possibly syphilis, although an exact diagnosis cannot be made from eighteenth-century descriptions.

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The Beginning of Regular Western Contact

Following Cook’s death in 1779, no other documented Western vessel reached Hawaiʻi until May 1786, when the British trading ships King George and Queen Charlotte, commanded by Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon, arrived in the islands. This was seven years after Cook’s death and eight years after his first contact with Hawaiʻi.

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This contact significantly influenced Hawaiian maritime technology. The influence became especially visible during Kamehameha I’s military campaigns to unite the Hawaiian Islands.

 

Kamehameha and the Waʻa Peleleu

After a storm disrupted Kamehameha’s attempted invasion of Kauaʻi in 1796, he ordered the construction of a fleet of unusually large war and transport canoes known as waʻa peleleu. 

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These canoes were intended to transport warriors, weapons, provisions, and other supplies between the islands. They combined Hawaiian canoe-building knowledge with selected foreign features. Large Hawaiian-built hulls were joined as double canoes and fitted with raised platforms, foreign-style sails, and, in some cases, firearms or swivel guns.

The waʻa peleleu demonstrated that Hawaiian canoe builders were not simply abandoning their traditions. They were adapting Hawaiian technology to meet new military and political demands.

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Changes in Canoe Construction

The introduction of iron and steel tools eventually made some stages of canoe construction faster, particularly the rough shaping and hollowing of a hull. Stone adzes did not disappear immediately, however. Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that Hawaiian builders continued using stone adzes well into the post-contact period. Some builders used steel tools for rough work but returned to stone adzes for the controlled finishing of hard koa wood.

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Foreign tools also influenced how certain canoe parts were fashioned. Within the canoe-building tradition described here, the kupe, or bow and stern covers, increasingly came to be shaped as single pieces rather than as two separate sections lashed together.

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The kuapoʻi, an opening or hatch found primarily in the forward kupe of some earlier canoes, became less common and eventually disappeared from many later canoes. The palekai, which had previously been associated with the kuapoʻi and ran across the hull, was increasingly formed into a V-shape that directed boarding water toward the sides of the canoe.  These changes may appear minor, but collectively they altered both the appearance and operation of the Hawaiian canoe.

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Epidemics and the Loss of Knowledge

Increasing foreign contact also exposed Hawaiians to repeated epidemics. The population of Hawaiʻi at the time of Cook’s arrival remains uncertain. Historical estimates vary widely, although many twentieth-century estimates placed it between approximately 200,000 and 400,000 people.

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By the Hawaiian Kingdom census of 1890, only 40,622 people were identified as Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian within a total population of 89,990. The remaining population consisted of Hawaiian-born residents of foreign ancestry and immigrants from China, Japan, Portugal, the United States, Britain, Germany, Polynesia, and other places.

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The population collapse was devastating, but the loss cannot be measured by numbers alone. Every death could also mean the loss of specialized knowledge. Political leaders, navigators, kālai waʻa, medical practitioners, genealogists, priests, historians, fishermen, farmers, and cultural teachers died without always having the opportunity to pass their knowledge to another generation.  ​The result was not only a decline in population. It was also an enormous loss of intellectual and cultural continuity.

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Plantation Agriculture and Immigration

Large-scale commercial agriculture further transformed Hawaiian society and the landscape. Sugar plantations, pineapple cultivation, and cattle ranching cleared or altered extensive areas of forest, grassland, and traditional agricultural land. These enterprises shifted the economic foundation of Hawaiʻi toward export production.

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The first organized group of Chinese contract laborers arrived in Hawaiʻi in January 1852 to work primarily on sugar plantations. They were followed by workers from Japan, Portugal, the Philippines, Korea, Puerto Rico, and other regions.

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These immigrants and their descendants became part of Hawaiʻi’s social fabric and contributed greatly to the islands. At the same time, the plantation system created a highly regimented wage-labor economy controlled largely by powerful business interests. It differed sharply from Hawaiian systems based upon subsistence, reciprocal obligation, chiefly responsibility, family production, and the sharing of community resources.

The plantation economy also contributed to Native Hawaiians becoming a minority in their own homeland.

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The Declining Role of the Traditional Canoe

As schooners, ships, steam-powered vessels, imported boats, and improved roads became more common, the traditional Hawaiian canoe became less important for interisland transportation and many commercial activities.

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The canoe did not disappear. It remained important to fishermen and families living in rural and isolated coastal communities. However, the number of people capable of constructing and maintaining a traditional canoe steadily declined.

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The United States annexed Hawaiʻi through the Newlands Resolution in 1898.

In 1896, the government of the Republic of Hawaiʻi enacted a law requiring English to be the “medium and basis of instruction” in recognized public and private schools. The law did not make speaking Hawaiian illegal everywhere, but it effectively ended Hawaiian-medium education. Hawaiian-speaking students were frequently discouraged or punished for using their language, even outside the classroom.

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The combined effects of political overthrow, language suppression, population loss, economic displacement, and Westernization greatly weakened the transmission of Hawaiian canoe traditions.

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Hawaiian Newspapers and Surviving Knowledge

Much of what is known today about the traditional Hawaiian canoe survives in Hawaiian-language newspapers and other writings produced during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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These newspapers preserve descriptions of canoe construction, sailing, fishing, chiefly fleets, battles, ceremonies, and maritime practices. They also contain moʻolelo about ancient heroes, political events, ruling aliʻi, genealogies, religion, land use, medicine, and everyday Hawaiian life.

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Historic Hawaiian-language newspapers were published from 1834 into the twentieth century and now constitute one of the largest bodies of Indigenous-language writing in the world.

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Written records, however, preserve only part of the tradition. The remaining knowledge of actual canoe use continued largely through fishermen and canoe families in places where canoes were still needed for survival.

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Plank Canoes, Fiberglass, and New Materials

As large koa logs became more difficult to obtain and the number of skilled canoe builders declined, many fishermen turned to processed wooden planks. Plank-built fishing canoes could be constructed from available lumber without requiring a single massive log.

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By the middle of the twentieth century, marine plywood, waterproof adhesives, fiberglass cloth, polyester resin, and later epoxy resins again changed canoe construction. Fiberglass molds allowed builders to reproduce hulls more quickly and with greater uniformity. Canoes became easier to maintain and could be produced without access to a large koa tree.

These materials helped keep the canoe in use, but they also moved construction farther away from the forest knowledge, ceremonies, tools, material relationships, and community labor traditionally associated with building a canoe from a living tree.

 

The Growth of Canoe Racing

Organized outrigger canoe racing expanded rapidly during the 1950s. The Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association was established in 1950, helping to standardize racing rules and canoe specifications. In 1952, three koa racing canoes crossed the Kaiwi Channel in the first Molokaʻi Hoe race.

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​​​​​​​Fiancial sponcership by Commercial entities and the increasing emphasis on measurable performance, racing canoes continued to change. Hulls were refined for speed. Computer-assisted design, synthetic materials, lighter construction, changing paddle shapes, adjustable rigging, and quick-release outrigger attachments transformed the modern racing canoe.

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The canoe was no longer shaped only by the requirements of fishing, coastal transportation, surf landings, carrying capacity, or survival at sea. It was increasingly shaped by racing rules, standardized courses, speed, and competitive advantage.

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This did not eliminate cultural values from canoe racing. Many clubs continue to teach discipline, cooperation, respect, genealogy, and community responsibility. Nevertheless, the center of attention increasingly shifted from the canoe as a cultural system toward the canoe as a piece of athletic equipment.

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Hōkūleʻa and the Revival of Voyaging

A different form of canoe renewal began with the construction of Hōkūleʻa, launched in 1975.

In 1976, Hōkūleʻa sailed from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti under the guidance of Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug. He navigated without modern instruments, relying upon stars, winds, waves, clouds, birds, and other signs of the natural world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The successful voyage demonstrated that the settlement of Polynesia could have been accomplished through intentional voyaging rather than accidental drifting. It also became a major catalyst for the Hawaiian cultural renaissance.  Hōkūleʻa and the voyaging movement restored pride in Polynesian navigation and inspired the construction of voyaging canoes throughout the Pacific.

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At the same time, Hōkūleʻa was never intended to be an exact reproduction of one documented pre-contact Hawaiian canoe. Its fiberglass hulls, plywood structures, synthetic lines, modern safety equipment, and evolving sail systems reflect the practical needs of a modern voyaging program.

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Modern sailing and voyaging canoes are built for different purposes. Some emphasize education and cultural renewal. Others are built for coastal sailing, expeditions, tourism, recreation, or racing. Double outriggers, netted platforms, synthetic sails, modern steering systems, and other innovations may improve safety or performance, but they can also move a canoe farther from documented Hawaiian forms.

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Modern construction is not automatically opposed to Hawaiian culture. The more important question is whether each change serves the values and purposes of the Hawaiian canoe or gradually replaces them.

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What Makes a Canoe Hawaiian?

As the purpose of the canoe changed, its construction changed with it. As its construction changed, the attitudes of those building and using it also changed.

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A Hawaiian canoe cannot be defined by hull shape alone. It is connected to the forest from which it came, the tools and knowledge used to shape it, the names of its parts, the relationships among the people who care for it, the waters in which it operates, and the values governing its use.

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Change has always been part of the Hawaiian canoe. Kamehameha’s waʻa peleleu were themselves innovations. Hawaiian fishermen adopted metal tools, plank construction, imported cloth, and later fiberglass because circumstances required adaptation.

The question is therefore not whether the Hawaiian canoe should change.

 

The question is:

How much can be removed, replaced, or redesigned before the canoe no longer carries the knowledge, values, identity, and worldview that made it Hawaiian?

 

A Closing Experience at Kealakekua Bay

In 2024, we were asked to sail a 20-foot, double-hulled fiberglass canoe from the pier at Kealakekua Bay to Hōnaunau. Its hulls had been molded from the form of a traditional nineteenth-century Hawaiian canoe.

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As we prepared to launch, a State of Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources enforcement officer approached us. He demanded to know who owned the canoe and said he was preparing to issue a citation for the illegal storage of a vessel on State property.

I explained the irony of the situation.

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When Captain Cook entered Kealakekua Bay in 1779, he was surrounded by an immense gathering of Hawaiian canoes—perhaps 1,500 or more.

Nearly 250 years later, a State of Hawaiʻi officer was preparing to issue a citation against what appeared to be the only Hawaiian canoe in the bay that day.

 

The officer​ left without issuing the citation. Yet the forces—whether deliberate or unintended—that continue to erode and ultimately erase the traditional Hawaiian canoe, are still at work.

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