Place Names of Hawaii
Probably no gazetteer ever packed its pages with as much arcane history, culture and geography as “Place Names of Hawaii,” the classic book by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Ebert. Consider just three of the more than 4,000 entries.
Kahuailanawai: Pool, upper Nuuanu, Honolulu, perhaps the one now called Jackass Ginger. (Lit. site of the tranquil pool.)
Jackass Ginger: Pool and mud slide, Judd Trail, upper Nuuanu, Honolulu, named by local youths in the early 1900s for a donkey that was tethered nearby and for the yellow ginger growing by the pool.
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Photo: David Croxford |
Lusitana: Street, Punchbowl, Honolulu, named for a Portuguese Welfare Society whose members were largely immigrants from the Azores who arrived in 1883. Lusitania is the ancient name for West Hispania, and now a poetic name for Portugal.
And that’s just in Nuuanu!
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