ESPECTROS RAMAN DE VARIEDADES DE GRANOS DE CACAO.

Given the historic events, including the catastrophic loss of Hawaiian lives since the introduction of diseases, which were unknown to the islands, the native peoples of the islands have been adversely affected by external influences. Prior to the introduction of these new diseases, contact with other people had been fairly limited to voyagers from faraway islands of Polynesia. Only the fittest travelers could survive the strenuous voyage on traditional double-hulled canoes from the southern islands of Nuku Hiva, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Tonga and Samoa. The archipelago of Hawaiʻi, extending from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to Hawaiʻi Island in the south is the most isolated group of islands in the world, more than 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) away from any other significant landmass in any direction (Juvik, 1999, p. xiii). Tiny Pacific atolls or outcroppings of land, lie over 1,000 miles south (1,610 kilometers) like the Line Islands or the northern most Cook Island of Tongareva are located closer to Ka Piko O Wākea, the Equator, but lack natural resources to launch a significant voyage to reach the Hawaiian Archipelago.

In 1778, beginning with the arrival of Captain James Cook during his third and final voyage through the Pacific7 and continuing for the next 100 years with whalers and traders, and then the immigrant population, new diseases were introduced into the islands which had never been seen. Cook’s men introduced syphilis, gonorrhea and other diseases to the Hawaiian population with devastating effect. In his journals, Cook writes of his knowledge that his sailors were suffering from these dreaded sexually transmitted disease. However, despite orders that no women should board the ship, he felt helpless to stop the spread of this infectious disease (Cook, 1971, p. 50). These wasting diseases also left many Hawaiians suffering from impotency, severely affecting the ability for those contracting the disease to produce children (Stannard, 1989, p. 141). Soon after came the introduction of typhoid, flu epidemics, bubonic plague brought by ship rats, measles and smallpox. The following is a description of the smallpox epidemic, which ravaged the islands and killed ten thousand people in a three month period in 1853.

The dead fell like dried kukui twigs tossed down by the wind. Day by day from morning till night horse-drawn carts went about from street to street of the town, and the dead were stacked up like a load of wood, some in coffins, but most of them just piled in, wrapped in cloth with heads and legs sticking out.

(Kamakau, 1992b, p. 417)

Another foreign disease, leprosy, was introduced for which there was no known cure. Hawaiians called this dreadful disease Maʻi Pākē since it was believed that Chinese immigrants brought the disease during the early reign of Kamehameha III (Kuykendall, 1965b, p. 73). Hawaiians, in particular, were victim to these diseases for which they had no natural immunities. Over 97% of the 8,000 men, women and children banished to live in Kalaupapa Leper Colony on the Island of Molokaʻi were Hawaiian (Law, 2012, p. 2). More than 5,000 Hawaiians succumbed to epidemics of more introduced diseases like influenza, mumps, whooping cough and measles within a two year period from 1848 to 1849 (Kameʻeleihiwa, 1992, p. 299). In a little more than 100 years, the population fell

7 _{The purpose of James Cook’s third voyage was to locate a navigable sea route over the North}

American Continent that would allow a more feasible passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He died at Kealakekua Bay during a scuffle on the beach over a stolen cutter and an unsuccessful retaliatory attempt to kidnap a chief to be held as a hostage (Beaglehole, 1974, p. 672).

from an estimated high of 800,000 people to 39,504 (Dye, 1994, p. 2; Stannard, 1989, p. 30).8

Figure 2.2: Hawaiian Population decline (1778 – 1896)

Since that time, Hawaiians remain the most at risk population for major diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart attack and high blood pressure. Despite ongoing research and public education efforts to prevent the deadly impacts of these diseases, Hawaiians are still dominantly impacted among all the other ethnic groups in Hawaiʻi. The average life expectancy for residents of Hawaiʻi is the longest in the U.S, according to recent studies. But, when narrowed to the various ethnic groups, Hawaiian life expectancy drops to the lowest (See Table 2.1, Life Expectancy in Hawaiʻi).

8 _{There is a great scholarly debate over the estimate of the population of Hawaiʻi at the time of}

Captain James Cook’s arrival. Stannard bases his population estimate on the theory of food productivity and the depopulation rate experienced by other virgin soil after initial contact with syphilis, gonorrhoea, tuberculosis and influenza, all of which were carried by the men on Cook’s ships. Lieutenant James King of Cook’s expedition and others who followed, estimated the population to be between 200,000 and 400,000, based on observation of the coastal villages and extrapolated to include the interior countryside. Robert C. Schmitt, State of Hawaiʻi Statistician (1995) suggests that the population was no more than 350,000 to 400,000.

800,000   71,019   _{47,508   39,504}   0   100,000   200,000   300,000   400,000   500,000   600,000   700,000   800,000   900,000   1778   1853   1878   1896   Popula'on  

Table 2.1. Life Expectancy in Hawaiʻi: Combined, by Race, 1910-1990, And By Sex and Race, 2000

Year All

Races Cau- casian

Chinese Filipino Hawaiian Japanese Korean Samoan Other

1910 44.0 54.8 54.2 N/A 32.6 49.3 (NA) (NA) 15.6 1920 45.7 56.5 53.8 28.1 33.6 50.5 (NA) (NA) 28.4 1930 54.0 61.9 60.1 46.1 41.9 60.1 (NA) (NA) 32.6 1940 62.0 64.0 65.3 56.9 51.8 66.3 (NA) (NA) 59.5 1950 69.5 69.2 69.7 69.1 62.5 72.6 (NA) (NA) 68.3 1960 72.4 72.8 74.1 71.5 64.6 75.7 (NA) (NA) 62.2 1970 72.2 73.2 76.1 72.6 67.6 77.4 (NA) (NA) 76.7 1980 77.9 75.8 81.7 79.3 71.8 80.9 (NA) (NA) 79.0 1990 78.9 75.5 82.9 78.9 74.3 82.1 (NA) (NA) 80.4 2000 80.5 79.0 86.1 80.9 74.3 82.8 81.4 72.8 (NA) Male 77.5 76.7 83.5 78.0 71.5 79.7 78.3 71.1 (NA) Female 83.6 81.7 88.7 85.9 77.1 88.7 83.6 74.6 (NA)

State of Hawaiʻi Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism Data Book 2011