moʻolelo
I was born in 1915 on Gandle Lane in Honolulu, but we moved to Hilo in April 1924 when my dad got a job there. He was the court reporter, the only one in town. We lived there until 1930 when we moved back to Honolulu, and I transferred from Hilo High to McKinley. During those five years on the Big lsland my dad organized about eight goat drives in Kīlauea National Park. The Board of Agriculture was trying to protect the park and the grazing lands, and they encouraged the drives and paid half the cost. Whoever did the drive, though, had to dispose of the goats, and our drives netted from seven hundred to four thousand goats per drive.
We had relatives in Kalapana, the Lane family, and I spent several summers with them. From the Lanes we knew some of the other Kalapana families such as the Pea's, Hauanio's, Kaipo's, and Kamelamela's. My dad would hire about thirty of them as cowboys and pay them five dollars a day, plus their meals. They had to bring their own horses. They rode mauka and stayed overnight at ʻĀinahou Ranch before starting the drive.
The first day the cowboys would fan out from the Chain of Craters to Hilina Pali and slowly herd the goats toward ʻĀpua Point on the ocean. ʻĀpua was the first night's stop. The cowboys kept about one-quarter mile behind the goats so they wouldn't get spooked and bolt. A fence was laid flat across the point and when the goats were driven over it, the cowboys raised it, penning the goats. The point was surrounded by water. The Pea family was from ʻĀpua, and told my dad that the 1868 tidal wave had wiped out their village, so they had moved to Kalapana. They still knew the area well, and everyone got water from the brackish water well for their former village. lt was within 150 feet of the point and could only be reached by climbing down into a deep crack.
On one drive I got lost in the Kaʻū Desert. A violent sand-storm swept over us and I lost sight of the other riders. My horse stepped in a hole, reared up to free his foot, and I slid off. I hit the ground really hard, but jumped up right away to grab him. Luckily, he was only walking. My dad had told me many times if I was ever lost to just give the horse its head. I did and he walked us back toward ʻĀpua Point.
The second stop was Kaʻena where there was another pen, and by then the goats were tired and easy to handle. They were almost like a domesticated herd. At the last stop in Punaluʻu, the goats were penned, slaughtered, and skinned immediately. The hides were salted and placed in the shade to cure, and the car-casses were thrown in the ocean for the sharks. After the hides were cured, they were bundled, trucked to Hilo, and shipped to the mainland.
George V. Clark, August 31, 1980
During the evenings on the goat drives, the cowboys would sit around talking and joking, and sometimes tell riddles. This is one that I remember:
O keia kanaka nui Nui kona leo Lohe na poʻe apau Ma ka laho.
In English it means:
This is a big man He has a loud voice All of the people hear him From his balls.
The answer is a church bell.
John Lane, July 28, 1982