The Hanapepe salt pond beds at sunset. (Photo courtesy Yorkman family)
On Kauai, many generations have been harvesting salt in the old Hawaiian way
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
HANAPEPE — On the southwestern coast of Kauai, in Hanapepe, a small number of families have been harvesting salt from the ocean for thousands of years.
The traditional Hawaii method of “pa‘akai” (“solidified sea”) is a laborious process. Wells fed by underground ocean water must be clean enough for brine shrimp to make their home there. The well water is poured into waiku, or holding beds, and then scooped into pune‘e, shallower, clay-sealed beds where the water evaporates and salt crystallizes into different layers. The pa‘akai is raked, rinsed and dried, all by hand.
The salt can only be harvested during the dry summer months when the beds emerge from being underwater most of the year. In recent years, they have not always dried out as they used to.
They are also threatened by rising sea levels and human pollution. Littering, kicked up sand and dirt from cars going to and from the adjacent beach. An unpermitted cesspool threatening the salt beds’ underground water source and helicopters from a nearby company raising dust were other recent issues.
Carelessness and cruelty toward the earth is not unique to Hanapepe or even Hawaii, of course. Humans have long mistreated the earth, something Pope Francis wrote about in his 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si.’”
“We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will,” he said. “The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.
“We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth; our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.”
Outside of St. Theresa Church in Kekaha, Rowen Yorkman holds two bags of Hanapepe salt he and his family harvested. (Photo courtesy Yorkman family)
Persistence
Despite the endangerment of the salt beds, the 22 families who harvest pa‘akai persist. Kauai Catholic Rowen Yorkman’s family is among them. His grandfather received rights to a plot which were passed down to Rowen’s father, then to Rowen and his siblings, and now their children. Rowen and his wife, Pilialoha, are teaching their 6- and 8-year-old daughters the process.
“Everything is there for you,” Yorkman says of the ocean water that feeds the salt bed wells, the shrimp that give this particular pa‘akai a sweeter taste, and the black clay to line the salt beds. “God put it there for us.”
“You just bring your hands, some river rocks to smooth out the clay and seal the beds,” he adds. Plus some buckets and rakes, woven baskets to sift the salt, and drying racks and you have pa‘akai.
The Hanapepe salt comes in three layers. The bottom red layer is good for packing fishing coolers, for blessings and other uses. The pink middle layer of salt is best for cooking. And the white top layer can be used as table salt.
Yorkman believes the heavy labor of harvesting the salt is worth it.
“It’s something that God gave us,” he says. “You just have to put a little work in it and it’s right there in front of you.”
“The feeling of giving it away later, and seeing people enjoying it, it’s enough for me.”
Those that have rights to the salt beds cannot sell it, only gift or trade it. So limited is this traditionally prepared salt that it’s sometimes called “Hawaiian gold.”
The next generation of Yorkman family salt harvesters include Rowen Yorkman’s daughters and nieces. Left to right, Hali’a Curnan, Mahinapoepoe Yorkman, Haweo Curnan and Hi’ilei Yorkman pose behind some of the salt they helped harvest in Hanapepe. (Photo courtesy Yorkman family)
Precious resource
Hawaiians traditionally used pa‘akai for food seasoning and preservation, for medicine and for religious purposes. It was and still is a precious resource.
A similar reverence for salt can be found in Matthew 5: 13-16, in the well-known verses about salt and light: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
While there are many symbol-rich references to salt in the Bible, this passage hones in on the prized nature of salt during Jesus’ time.
“Roman soldiers were paid in salt,” Msgr. Owen Campion writes in a Scripture reflection on this passage. It is where the word salary comes from. “Salt also was unrefined. Dust or sand usually mixed with salt. The less the dust and sand, the better the salt.”
But Matthew’s “salt of the earth” goes much deeper than the contemporary allusion to someone who is a good and honest person. As Christians, we must bear Jesus’ witness in every aspect of our lives, always working to purify our flawed and unfiltered selves.
Much like harvesting pa‘akai, we must put in the time to refine. Bland salt is poor seasoning, and lukewarm Christians are futile evangelists.
