Olowalu ka moa

It would have been nice if Kekeha Solis had included the link I provided.

The bill is short and easy to read. It makes clear that someone can keep up to 7 chickens on his property, provided they are kept in an enclosure away from neighboring property, don't create noxious odors, etc.

The bill also makes clear that the chickens must be for the personal use of the owner, and "no person keeping chickens pursuant to this article shall sell eggs or engage in chicken breeding or fertilizer production for commercial purposes ..."

Kekeha Solis raises the question whether the bill would prohibit the owner of the chickens from exchanging chickens, eggs, or fertilizer with friends or neighbors in return for other stuff which the owner uses for his own personal consumption.

Of course everyone knows that in old Hawaii there was no money; people shared food. Those living near the ocean caught fish; those living in the uplands caught pigs or birds; and they traded with each other. That barter economy was described in "Nana I Ke Kumu" describing the Family System in Ka'u (1952), by Mary Kawena Pukui, E.W. Haertig & Catherine A. Lee. That description of lifestyle was highly romanticized, based on fond memories from a bygone era. A more recent, rigorous, scholarly study was done by a professor with a Ph.D. in anthropology: Jocelyn Linnekin, "Children of the Land." New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1985. Dr. Linnekin, a student of famed ethnohistorian Marshall Sahlins, spent a year (ending in 1975) living among the ethnic Hawaiians on the isolated Keanae peninsula in windward Maui, along the picturesque road to Hana. She focused on the persistence of tradition, and the role of "exchange-in-kind" as the economic model. She notes that even in 1975, in this isolated community where almost every resident is living on land passed down for generations, ancient rituals and cultural practices do not survive in ancient forms. Cultural practices are often invented and then used for asserting political claims.

Barter is a form of selling and buying. The state and federal tax codes require that excise and income taxes be paid on the value of goods or services that are bartered, in the same way as though money had been exchanged. Many people engage in bartering in hopes of never paying such taxes. As long as they do it on a small scale, with friends and neighbors, it's not likely that the tax collector will notice or care. But if bartering is done on a large scale and the goods received are then later sold, such activity would clearly violate the requirements in Bill #1.

The same sort of issue came up when hearings were held for rule-making for the Papahanaumokuakea Northwest Hawaiian Islands Reserve. I attended those hearings at a meeting in Kane'ohe, and submitted testimony. Even though commercial fishing was to be prohibited, a few families who had fished there for many years protested, and demanded that the rules should allow fishing for personal consumption by "kanaka maoli" families (but not Japanese or Caucasian families) who had been doing that. But then a few greedy guys said "Well hey, if it's OK for me to fish to feed my family, then I should be able to sell my fish to get vegetables, beef, etc. to 'feed my family.' And I should be able to catch big boatloads of fish to sell, so I will have money to 'feed my family' which happens to include a few thousand people." So that falls under the well-known concept "Give them an inch, they'll take a mile."

I also cannot resist comparing the title of this week's essay: "Olowalu ka moa" with the name given to the latest in a long string of racial registries sponsored by OHA: Kana'iolowalu. 'Ae. E Olowalu anei ka lahui o na kanaka 'oiwi i loko o ka pa ho'okae 'ili? He hewa nui kela.