I was back digging through some of the last unexplored piles of my mothers papers, clippings, and other items stacked haphazardly in boxes, or just left in piles, in a storeroom off the garage in the old Kahala house where my parents lived for over 70 years.
And, in the process, I turned up another treasure, a few pages of typed notes on Hawaiian medicines, based on conversations with her mother, Heleualani Cathcart Yonge, just two months before she died in the summer of 1959. There are also references to additional details gathered from a a few family friends (you’ll see some of them mention in the notes).
There are at least 17 plants listed, with brief notes on how they were prepared and what they were used for. Some are relatively familiar today, such as Noni, but others obscure.
Click here to read the notes on Hawaiian medicinal plants.
Here’s a sample from my mom’s notes:
Many years ago when my father was very ill and there wasn’t a Dr. in Honolulu that could find anything wrong with him, some friend of my mothers made an api or tonic to build up the general health. This is my mother’s description: Ingredients were coconut, noni, ini and the juice of the red & white striped sugar cane. This was all ground or p ounded and the juice forced out. All of the refuse from the ingredients was tied in a bundle and disposed of out in the ocean by one person with no one else around (hold-over from kahuna days).
Did it work? She doesn’t say.
And don’t miss the anecdotes on the last page, drawn from my mother’s memory of a summer spent with the Whittington family in Kau (there were a couple of Whittington girls among her friends while at Kamehameha. My mother graduated in the Class of 1931.
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Ian, contact the Botany department at UH to see who took over ethnobotany after Isabella Abbott died. Either UH or Bishop Museum might find those papers quite valuable.
Ian: Interesting notes from your mother. Not much new, but special in terms of her informants and the geographical and time frame of their reputed use. Hawaiian Studies folks might like to have a copy of these for reference.
The one plant that baffled me until I did a search and found this:
JOWl (H) Same as hauowi, hauoi, –or owi. A weedy kind of verbena
(Verbena litoralis) from tropical
America, with square
stems 1-6 feet high, toothed
oblong leaves, and narrow flower
spikes bearing tiny blue flowers.
Hawaiians use it for cuts and
bruises, applying the juice
externally.
Al Chock, our venerable 85+ year old ethnobotanist who knew Izzy Abbott well would sure like to see these.
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/staffpages
/al_chock.htm
His email is alchock@hawaii.edu
Thanks for sharing these notes.
Aloha, Mark Merlin, Professor, Botany Department, UH Manoa
I love your sharing of your mothers history notes!
I especially enjoyed the anecdotes about the summer that your mother spent with the Whittingtons in Ka`u. We have the Whittington Beach County Park down there–would that be the beach where the grandmother had lived?
Aloha Ian – Read your Mom’s notes with great interest and many memories. My tutu(s) used some of those remedies on me and I’m still here. Did your Mom ever mention Dr. Kaanoi, Hawaiian naturopathic practitioner in Kapahulu when I was growing up, and my family members were his patients. I had to help in finding laukahi for their high blood pressure. Before the days of weed killer sprays we would find it in Manoa and Kaimuki and they made teas of it. Using the scrapings of ti helped my hard to heal cuts and injuries small kid time, and I used it on my kids while living in the wilds of Kauai…worked great. Haole doctors saw the messy green stuff and just said “Hmmmm, seems to be working.” No further comment. It was way better than the messy purple stuff they used. The Native Hawaiian MD hui might be interested in your Mom’s writings…mahalo nui for sharing.