Frommer's Kauai - Jeanette Foster [13]
Of course, all this pampering doesn’t come cheap. Massages are generally $95 to $195 for 50 minutes and $150 to $250 for 80 minutes; body treatments are in the $150 to $250 range; and alternative healthcare treatments can be has high as $200 to $300. But you may think it’s worth the expense to banish your tension and stress.
Chapter 2: Hawaii in Depth
Today, other tropical islands are closing in on the 50th state’s position as the world’s premier beach destination. But Hawaii isn’t just another pretty place in the sun. There’s an undeniable quality ingrained in the local culture and lifestyle—the quick smiles to strangers, the feeling of family, the automatic extension of courtesy and tolerance. It’s the aloha spirit.
1 History 101
Paddling outrigger canoes, the first ancestors of today’s Hawaiians followed the stars and birds across a trackless sea to Hawaii, which they called “the land of raging fire.” Those first settlers were part of the great Polynesian migration that settled the vast triangle of islands stretching from New Zealand in the southwest to Easter Island in the east to Hawaii in the north. No one is sure exactly when they came to Hawaii from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, some 2,500 miles to the south, but a dog-bone fishhook found at the southernmost tip of the Big Island has been carbon-dated to A.D. 700.
An entire Hawaiian culture arose from these settlers. Each island became a separate kingdom. The inhabitants built temples, fishponds, and aqueducts to irrigate taro plantations. Sailors became farmers and fishermen. The alii (high-ranking chiefs) created a caste system and established taboos. Ritual human sacrifices were common.
THE “FATAL CATASTROPHE” No ancient Hawaiian ever imagined that a haole (a white person; literally, one with “no breath”) would ever appear on one of these “floating islands.” But then one day, in 1779, just such a person sailed into Waimea Bay on Kauai, where he was welcomed as the god Lono.
The man was 50-year-old Captain James Cook, already famous in Britain for “discovering” much of the South Pacific. Now on his third great voyage of exploration, Cook had set sail from Tahiti northward across uncharted waters to find the mythical Northwest Passage that was said to link the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. On his way, Cook stumbled upon the Hawaiian Islands quite by chance. He named them the Sandwich Islands, for the Earl of Sandwich, first lord of the admiralty, who had bankrolled the expedition.
Overnight, Stone-Age Hawaii entered the age of iron. Gifts were presented and objects traded: nails for fresh water, pigs, and the affections of Hawaiian women. The sailors brought syphilis, measles, and other diseases to which the Hawaiians had no natural immunity, thereby unwittingly wreaking havoc on the native population.
After his unsuccessful attempt to find the Northwest Passage, Cook returned to Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island, where a fight broke out over an alleged theft, and the great navigator was killed by a blow to the head. After this “fatal catastrophe,” the British survivors sailed home. But Hawaii was now on the sea charts. French, Russian, American, and other traders on the fur route between Canada’s Hudson Bay Company and China anchored in Hawaii to get fresh water. More trade—and more disastrous liaisons—ensued.
Two more sea captains left indelible marks on the islands: The first was American John Kendrick, who, in 1791, stripped Hawaii of its sandalwood and sailed to China. The second captain was Englishman George Vancouver, who, in 1793, left cows and sheep, which spread out to the high-tide lines. King Kamehameha I sent to Mexico and Spain for cowboys to round up the wild livestock, thus beginning the islands’ paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) tradition.
The tightly woven Hawaiian society, enforced by royalty and religious edicts, began to unravel after the death in 1819 of King