Fishhook database offers insight into old Hawaii

The world’s largest collection of Hawaiian fishhooks is now available for viewing and study via an online database. The digital treasure trove comprises more than 4,000 artifacts from the Bishop Museum’s archaeology collections.

The fishhooks, excavated from three cultural sites in the Ka‘u District of Hawaii island during the 1950s, reveal the varying design adaptations by Hawaiians over six centuries.

"Fishhooks have always been important for archaeologists looking at change over time," said Bishop Museum anthropologist Mara Mulrooney. "Cultural practitioners can gain inspiration from looking at ancient designs, educators can look to this database to learn more about ancient Hawaiian fishing practices and students of all ages will enjoy looking at these fishhooks."

The database, made possible by a grant from the Hawai‘i Council For the Humanities, went online last month. Each entry offers four images against a black background, showing both sides of the fishhook, with and without scale measurements.

Mulrooney said the pilot project is part of the larger Ho‘o­maka Hou Research Initiative, which aims to use modern techniques to learn more from the museum’s archaeology collections and foster collaborative international research.

Next, the institution will digitize fishhook collections from other parts of the Pacific, including the Marquesas, the Society Islands and Nuku­oro in the Caro­line Islands of Micronesia.

The fishhooks, which typically measure less than an inch tall, were excavated by noted archaeologists Kenneth P. Emory, Yosihiko Sinoto and William Bonk between 1953 and 1959 in Ka‘u.

The three sites — Puu Alii, Wai­ahu­kini Rockshelter and Maka­lei Rockshelter — offer a wealth of archaeological information dating from as early as A.D. 1300 to the mid-1800s. The items gathered there include the fishhooks as well as tools to make them and volcanic glass.

Sinoto, a trained archaeologist and Bishop Museum’s senior anthropologist, classified Hawaiian fishhooks as one-piece (made from a single piece of material), two-piece and composite (multiple pieces). During the classification process, an archaic style of composite fishhook — a bonito trolling lure made from two shell pieces— captured his attention, Mulrooney said, because it was exactly the same style as a hook he recovered in the Marquesas.

"He was able to see many similarities between the two groups of artifacts," she said.

From that finding Sinoto derived his model for the initial settlement of the Hawaiian Islands.

Approximately a dozen of the fishhooks in the database are on permanent display in the museum’s Pacific Hall, which explores the origins and cultures of Pacific islanders and their migration over the Pacific Ocean.

Researchers can examine moo­lelo, or oral stories, that relate to the artifacts and conduct comparative studies with fishhooks from other parts of Hawaii and across the Pacific.

One research affiliate, Kelley Esh, a doctoral student from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, for instance, is studying fish bones at the Ka‘u sites to analyze the changes in the kinds of fish that people consumed through time, said Mulrooney.

Many fishhooks were made from shell, especially pearl shell, but most were made from bone. The two-piece bone fishhook was unique to Hawaii, said Mulrooney.

With the online database, research affiliates from abroad can now analyze the items without having to visit the museum.

"It opens the door to new possibilities in looking at change in the bigger picture of Hawaiian archaeology," said Mulrooney. "In terms of conservation, we now have a digital record of each of these artifacts, which is really valuable to have."