Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-05-28
PERPLEXING HAWAII
AN ISLAND WI cH HAS NO NORTH.
 SOUTH, EAST OR WEST.


 Tho Difficulty of Getting Ones Bearings--
 Terms Used in Indicating tho Different
 Sides of streets-Are Official and Used in
 All Legal Documents.
 Visitors to Honolulu are often per. plexed to get the points of the compass fixed in their minds with reference to streets and locations. They are still more perplexed to find nobody who knows them and nobody who feels the need of knowing them. To the visitor, especially from the Mississippi Valley, where the Congressional survey of public lands his laid out everything | four.sGuarp. so that directions and distances e- always thought of in their relation D north, south, east or west, this is .acomprehensible.
 But it does not take a very long re- sidence there to learn that the points of the compass in the ordinary matters of direction are of very little practical use, and the prevailing system indi- eating locations and direction, adapted from that used by the native Hawaii ans and continuing the use of their no- menelature, is q very practical one and we'll adapted to conditions.
 The islands are small and of volcanic origin. There is at least one main range of mountains on each island, though there may be subsidiary ones. | As is we'll known, mountains do not run with special reference to the points | of the compass. And the narrow val Ieys cut and crowded out of the yOIcan- | ie mass and extending from the moun- | tains to the sea bear still less appreci- | able relation to them. So that if one were to establish the points of the com. with relation to any one of these val leys q quarter of mile would bring him to another, where he would have to take his bearings all afresh. But there are two objects he can never get out of sight of. These are tho noun tain and the sea. And on this fact the basis both of the nomenclature and of the system of direction rests. With re- lation to any point the two cardinal di- recti0ns are toward the mountain and toward the sea Now, the native Flaw allan terms for these are 'smauka,' to- ward or in direction of the mountain and "makai. toward or in direction of | the sea.
 The topography of the country, a ser ies of valleys extending from the mountain to the sea. and the feudal tenure under which land was held in the ancient day. led to the division of the country into narrow strips, or dis, triets-molu, as the larger were called; ahupuoa, the next smaller, and iii, those still smaller, but all. with very few exceptions, extending from the seashore to the top of the mountain. In TAonr1n rsacfpi6fnd their own lis, yet had access to the sea to fish and swim and ride the surf. to the mountains for firewood and building material. and to land be- l tween to cultivate tar0. The boundaries of these districts were all carefully de- l fined in time immemOrial and remain the same today Moreover, each dis trict had it's name, and that name re- mains.
 With the mountain above and the sea below and the narrow districts in sue l cession, each with it's boundaries and name we'll defined, the basis of the 1 system and nomenclature of direction was complete. A given point or object is ''mauka," toward the mountain or "makai,' toward the sea, in rela- ] tion to another object or point; and l and it is "waihihi, or ''ewa," in the di- rection of the district of Eva, for the other relations of direction.
 So that in Honolulu. for instance, where no street runs north and south, or east and west. and few streets run straight in any direction for any great distance. no one speaks of the north or south side of the street-no one can; nor of the east and west sides. But every street has mauka and makai side, or q waihihi and eva side So a particular corner may be precisely and accurately described as the ma uka- waihihi corner, or the makai-ewa.
 These terms are not only colloquial, but official. They are used in contracts, deeds, wills and statutes. They suit conditions and have grown out of l them.