LEO 'ELELE - TRUSTEE MESSAGES

From Waimea to Waiomina: 'Ikuā Purdy, Archie Ka'au'a and Jack Low

Robert K. Lindsey, Jr. Trustee, Hawai'i

I bring you warm Aloha from the cold, blustery side of Waimea — Kohala Hema. The clouds have lifted for a moment and one can see a thick glossy fluorescent velvety carpet of snow on Mauna Kea. We've been having kīpu'upu'u rain for two days. The wind has been blowing so hard, the rain sheets at times are parallel to the ground and when the drops collide with your skin the sensation is like buckshot from a shotgun. Today, the Hilo end of Mauna Kea has most of the snow. We have probably had more snow in the month of January 2008 than we've had the past five years combined. It's freezing. It's the Old Cold Waimea. As kama'āina, we remember. The rain has not stopped for two months. The foothills of the Kohalas from Pauahi to Pu'ukapu and the saddle area between the Kohalas and Mauna Kea are royal green. The scene is a glycee of the sheep pastures of Rotorua on New Zealand's North Island, during and after a rain but minus the scent of sulphur.

And on this cold, windy, wet day from the deck of our home, when you look north to south, Waipi'o-Ka'ū direction across the Waimea plain, you can see the old Purdy Homestead ('Ikuā Purdy). In a straight line, it's 2 miles away. When you look toward Hilo, the Ka'au'a Homestead (Archie Ka'au'a) is just a half-mile directly east of where we live. If you're familiar with the Ram House on Māmalahoa, this is where the Ka'au'a Estate once sat. The Inaba family owns it now. And, when you look toward Hualālai in the general direction of Kailua-Kona, 20 miles in the distance, at 4:30 on a clock with Hilo being at 12 o'clock, there's Pu'uanahulu. That's where the Low Homestead (Jack Low) is. One of several, that is. 'Ikuā Purdy, Archie Ka'au'a and Jack Low were paniolo, very famous paniolo from our corner of Hawai'i.

Our town has many kama'āina families of paniolo prominence with ties to Waimea, to Parker Ranch and to ranching. To name a few: Bell, Spencer, Fay, Lindsey, Parker, Low, Yamaguchi, Nakata, Keakealani, Greenwell, Pacheco, Liana, Coleman, Brighter, Sakado, Kimura, Hamada, 'Āwa'a, Kawai, Kihoi, De Silva, Onaka, Maertans, Bryan, 'Ākau, Honma, Karimoto, Kiyota, Kauwē, Kaula.   

'Ikuā Purdy, Archie Ka'au'a and Jack Low were paniolo, worked cattle for Parker as did most everyone in Waimea from 1847 when Parker Ranch was founded to the 1990s when the Ranch was still the Piko of Waimea in terms of our history, economy and way of life. They were paniolo, cowboys who stalked, hunted, trapped and brought to market for Parker the wild bullocks who used the upland kīpuka and the waonāhele as a pu'uhonua. They were keiki o ka 'āina o Waimea. Living the simple and dangerous life of a cowboy on the hunt for pipi 'āhiu. In a flash they became legends in a faraway place. It was not that they were in the right place at the right time. It was skill, technique, positive attitude, years of practice, years of doing what they enjoyed. They were the gladiators of the Waimea Plains. The year was 1908 in the summertime in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The occasion, The Frontier Day Championship. These three Hawaiian men journeyed 3,300 miles by steamship from Kawaihae to Honolulu to the West Coast and by train to Wyoming. With the support and encouragement of Eben Low (Jack Low's brother who submitted their entry forms to the event in 1907) and the ho'okipa of a Wyoming rancher from whom they borrowed horses they had never ridden but were familiar with, they entered the Super Bowl of Steer Roping on foreign soil and shocked the American rodeo world, a world whose underpinning was time-based. Time was essence. 'Ikuā Purdy won first place: 56 seconds was his time. Archie Ka'au'a won third place. Jack Low took sixth place. They are probably the most famous athletes ever to emerge from our ranching town “nestled neath the hills and floating mists” of the Kohala mountains. And so in this the Centennial Year we celebrate the achievements of 'Ikuā Purdy, Archie Ka'au'a and Jack Low. Here are several verses from Waiomina, written by Helen Lindsey Parker especially for them. Kama Hopkins, my trusted aide, does a very stunning rendition of this mele. Or you may go to Google and type in “Na Mele O Paniolo.”