The Rodeo Clown Reunion ended, I returned home, packed my bags and headed west. Yep, really west, the ‘Big Island’ of Hawai’i. My running buddies, Imogene Beals and Donna Clark joined me and after a long flight we arrived at the airport in Hilo. We rented a car and headed to our ‘cabin’ across the island. The road was winding and we hugged the Pacific Ocean on our right as we drove through lush green foliage and trees of a kind we don’t have back in Texas. A waterfall would appear amid the greenery here and there. The drive was beautiful. No freeways here, it was just a narrow two lane highway and occasionally we would drive through a village. We were enjoying it immensely. Then it got dark.
Now I have seen dark, but this happened in minutes. We slowed down, and kept driving until we reached the town of Waimea, our destination. However, our ‘cabin’ was further, on the western coast. Once we left Waimea it became really dark, with a cloud cover, and not a star was seen. We were in the country and not a light was seen. It took all three of us, in the dark of night to work toward our destination. I drove, Donna read the map, when I’d let her turn on the interior light, and Imogene watched for ‘varmints’. We finally reached our ‘cabin’. We drove in to a well-lit reception area of the Fairmont Orchid Resort and as the valet parking attendants took our car, we were welcomed with “Aloha” and adorned with leis by the staff. We were delighted with the welcome and ready to end our journey.
Our ‘cabin’ was a five-star hotel with over 500 rooms. The grounds were impeccably groomed with water falls and beautiful Japanese tea houses scattered here and there, among the magnificent hibiscus and other floral varieties. The Pacific Ocean was a short walk from our room that opened on to a lanai. A nice little ‘cabin’ for three very tired cowgirls. We slept very well.
We awoke early, especially with the five hour time zone difference, and headed off to breakfast on the veranda. The weather was perfect, the bird-watching was great, and the service was tops. Soon we were in our speedy little auto headed back to Waimea where we met Dr. Billy Bergin, President of the Paniolo Preservation Society, and Keawe Vredenburg, Executive Director of the Waiomina Centennial, Mrs. Penny Vredenburg and Sharon Sakai, who, over lunch, were so helpful in answering our many questions about the area. You see, this is the heart of ranching on the island. The cowboy and cowgirl way of life on the ‘Big Island’ is here.
The purpose of our trip was to enjoy the Waiomina Centennial Celebration being held by the Paniolo Preservation Society. The event was to commemorate a happening one hundred years ago, 1908, when three paniolos, (the Hawaiian word for cowboy) were invited by Charles Hirsig, a well known Cheyenne area rancher, to compete in the 12th Annual Cheyenne Frontier Days steer roping. Paniolos are known for their abilities to rope cattle, as this has been an important part of their cowboy chores and handling wild cattle for several hundred years. That year, Ikua Purdy, won the Steer Roping at Cheyenne Frontier Days and the other two paniolos won third and sixth in the event. Because of that successful trip to Cheyenne, and the large ranching community in the State of Hawai’i, it is the goal of the Society to make the public aware of the important role the paniolo and ranching played in the history, and in the current economics, of the state.
We attended the 34th annual Parker Ranch Round-Up “Scholarship” Rodeo for two days. What a fun time we had. The weather was perfect and the cowboys and cowgirls competed with complete abandon. The families and children filled the grandstand and overflowed on to the grassy area, right up to the arena. The food was plentiful and booths of cowboy and cowgirl clothing and tack was for sale. At first it seemed like a regular rodeo, that could have been somewhere in Texas, Colorado or Oklahoma until we looked a little closer. Some of the words in the Program were unfamiliar to us. Wahine meaning woman and Kane meaning man in the Hawaiian language. Some of the events were unusual as well. The very first event, after the Grand Entry, is called Po’o Wai U, and requires the contestant to rope a steer and get him to a Y shaped post placed in the middle of the arena. Once the steer is roped the cowboy pulls the animal close to the Y and he flips his rope into the Y, then dismounts and ties the animal with another rope up close to the Y post. This is a timed event and the shortest time wins. The performance began around noon, and went in to the evening. It was truly a festive and fun affair for the entire family and evident everyone was having a good time.
We visited the home of the last heir of the Parker Ranch, Richard Smart. The Parker Ranch is the fifth largest ranch in the United States, based on their cow/calf operation. The owner, a sixth generation descendent, who died in 1992, lived in a wonderful one story home he designed, on the edge of Waimea. It is now open for tours. Smart was not only the last Parker heir to own the ranch, he was an actor in many Broadway and off-Broadway musicals and loved to hold parties to entertain his friends. The importance of his social life was very evident in his design of the home. The knowledge and information given to us by the guide about the history and the lives of those descendents of John Palmer Parker, and the home itself was very impressive. Parker, who at the age of nineteen arrived on the island as a ship’s clerk in 1809. He decided he wanted to stay and hid out until the ship had sailed. He married Kipikane, granddaughter to King Kamehameha I, in 1816. The King died three years later, but King Kamehameha III granted Parker four acres, a rare act of generosity in a country with no private land ownership. Later he bought and leased more land and started the Parker Ranch.
The Great Waiomina Centennial Black and White Gala, was held at the Richard Smart home, and I met numerous ‘movers and shakers, cowboys and cowgirls, wahines and kanes’, of the area and enjoyed an evening of Hawaiian music, great food, stories and an auction. The event was a fund raiser for the Paniolo Preservation Society.
Our brief stay was well spent, learning the history and the western way of life of the Hawaiian people. We also visited the Anna Ranch, which has been turned in to a Museum of Anna Lindsey Perry-Fiske, a former cowgirl and rancher of the area. We attended the 2nd Annual Celebrity Chef Benefit and feasted on delicacies such as Cod Fish Cakes, Roasted Paniolo Corned Beef, Shrimp Scampi, Avocado Soup, and more. Our last evening Dr. and Mrs. Bergin and Mr. and Mrs. Keawe Vredenburg invited us to join them for a tasty seafood dinner at the harbor, Kawaihae. This ‘jumping off place’ is where cattle shipped to the mainland were actually expected to swim to the ships harbored there, then hoisted aboard. Today the transfer of cattle to ships is done by rolling large double-decker aluminum stock trailers on and off modern container ships.
We visited saddlemaker, Alvin Kawamoto, at his Hawi (a town at the north tip of the island) home and shop. The Hawaiian saddle is different than saddles made on the mainland in that it is constructed much like the original vaquero saddle, with changes necessary for the Hawaiian wet climate. The saddle tree is made of native wood covered with rawhide and laced together with goat skin. The Hawaiian saddle has a longer horn and taller cantle. A single large piece of wet rawhide is then placed over the horn, and slit into strips that are braided into three or four woven ropes (called ‘awe’awe), that hold the 3” or 4” cinch rings. It is designed in such a way that the leather covering, placed over the horn and cantle, can easily be removed when the rains come, to protect the leather and prevent it from rotting. The resulting saddle is a beautiful creation and my description is extremely simplistic, compared to all the necessary details required to make such a saddle.
The history of ranching on the islands is something I knew very little about, but while there I had the best historians in the area to help me learn. The first cattle were brought by sea captain George Vancouver and given to King Kamehameha I, in 1793. To help the cattle get a good start, breed and multiply, the captain suggested that the King put a ‘kapu’ on the killing of the cattle. That meant if anyone was caught killing the new animals to the island they could be put to death. For twenty years the cattle ran wild and with each generation they became more aggressive and difficult. In fact natives began building fences to keep the dangerous critters out and away from their families and crops. Eventually the kapu was lifted and the people began killing them. At first they only used their hides and tallow. Beef was not a staple for the Hawaiian people. The natives soon found that the whaling ships from other parts of the world would arrive at their port in need of replenishing their larders, and beef was in demand. Horses were introduced to the island in 1803, but it was not until 1832 that King Kamehameha III invited some Mexican vaqueros to the islands to teach the locals how to utilize horses and cattle. Since there are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian language and there is no ‘s’ in the language, the word meaning espanol (or Spanish) became paniolo in the local language. The natives learned the crafts of a cowboy very well and continue it today. In fact, the Po’o Wai U event that we witnessed at the Parker Rodeo was used when the natives began riding horses to try and tame the cattle, that had become so wild through each generation, by roping them, tying them to a tree and leaving them for hours to calm them. They would eventually add the animal to a developing herd of domesticated cattle. Today there are over 400 ranches on the islands of Hawai’i.
The Parker Ranch, now owned and operated by the Parker Ranch Foundation Trust, benefits the community through its schools, medical facilities and charitable organizations. Chris Kanazawa is the CEO of the Trust and has been at the helm since 2004. His credentials are impressive and the Trustees are certain his skills will help the Trust accomplish its goals. The 175,000 acre ranch owns approximately 35,000 head of cattle, most of which are Angus or Charolais. The breeding program evolved over the years from a straight Hereford cow herd to a three-way cross herd of Angus, Brangus, Hereford cows to an Angus sired cowherd. About 30 percent of these cows are bred to Charolais bulls. When the calves are weaned at five to six months, and weigh about 400 pounds, they are shipped to mainland United States, to areas in Kansas, California, Texas and Oregon. The calves are put on grass until they reach 600 to 800 pounds, then are moved in to feedlots to reach a finished weight around 1,100 to 1,300 pounds. This beef, approximately ten million pounds, is sold through marketing co-ops on the mainland. The 250 horses on the Ranch are primarily Quarter Horses. Except for breeding stallions brought in all horses are raised on the ranch. Each of the twelve cowboys, working for the ranch, have eight horses assigned to him. He is responsible for shoeing, and the care of his animals, including the work-training. The breeding program is noted as one of the best anywhere in the industry.
To sum up our brief time on the “Big Island” we were welcomed by everyone we met. We learned a lot about the history and the western life in Hawaii. Firsthand we experienced rodeo and ranching, and returned home full of information I feel compelled to share with anyone who loves the west and has not had the good fortune to visit or learn about the Hawaiian paniolo and ranching.
For more detailed information regarding the “Big Island” and the development of the paniolo and the Parker Ranch please order the following books by Dr. Billy Bergin, an expert on this subject. LOYAL TO THE LAND, THE LEGENDARY PARKER RANCH, 750-1950 and the book LOYAL TO THE LAND, 1950-1970, VOLUME 2, published by University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu. You can also contact’ PANIOLO PRESERVATION SOCIETY, P O Box 640, Kamuela, HI 06743 or go to www.paniolopreservation.org.
Copyright 1996 - 2008 Rodeo Attitude, LLC., All rights reserved.