The history of lavender in Europe is good for those who love this fragrant herb known, but it took some detective work to discover the history of lavender in Hawaii. It all started when a herd of lavender in my home island of Maui has asked me to help write a book on the structure.
The owner of the farm, which is of Hawaiian origin, has a sort of mystical sense of the plant lavender in the history of the islands. He said he was sure it was a plant and loved by the nobility andRoyal Kingdom of Hawaii, and he asked me to find out how this Mediterranean plant came here.
Since my specialty is writing the history of Hawaii, I started research with enthusiasm.
I had an advantage because people in the company had a copy of a song called Pua Lavender - Lavender Flower - published in1870 was given in a Hawaiian newspaper. It was a sweet love song in which the beloved is compared to a flower of lavender.
There were several Hawaiian newspapers in the nineteenthCentury, traditional print stories, poems and messages of the day. Fortunately for those of us who can not read and Hawaii do not have time to dig in the archives, there is a project to digitize all the old newspapers, and many are now available on the Internet.
When I saw the library's online journal, I found two old advertising in lavender. One was from 1849, the contents of a new program that includes products ranging from white silk ladiesPickles stockings, rope, and lavender.
In 1869, an advertising company, "ka wai maikai Lavender" (lavender order ") and" ka lavender Bokè hoikeike ". The word" Bokè "threw me off first - no word in the dictionary as Hawaii - but then I realized that was probably the word "ostrich" in the Hawaiian phonetic writing mode to use the adoption of English words. Because "hoikeike" means "to display," perhaps this was a bunch of dried lavender ocean delivered asdecorative element.
None of these results answer the question - when and how the plant arrived in Hawaii of lavender? I read biographies of famous men for their plants to islands, called the local botanical gardens and the Bishop Museum, spoke with historians in the State Archives and faculty at the University of Hawaii Department of Agriculture, but no one could answer my question .
I asked all my friends, fans of Hawaiian history, many of which are books on working conditionsand many missionary journals and letters are read. They found a note in the Journal of the missionary Amos Cooke on "our beloved Juliette" is suffering with palpitations that "adds a tablespoon of lavender relieves soon." The diary was done in 1849 - perhaps sipping some of Juliette lavender in old newspaper ad!
In the archives of the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu, I found no mention of lavender, although I had certainly hoped that the new orderEngland missionaries had kept records of what they brought with them and what they planted in their gardens. Yes, his diaries and letters should mention things like roses and figs, but not lavender.
I left disappointed in the archives, but when I went beyond the original missionary homes, get on the crowded streets of downtown Honolulu, I looked and saw a lavender plant growing on a threshold of the old building. I was so excited, I could not stop talking about it forDays! Surely this was a good sign.
Then I said, instead of the administrator in Washington, the private residence of Hawaii last monarch, Queen Liliuokalani was. It turns out the queen behind a manuscript list of plants in his garden, left, and guess what it was: the lavender bushes. "So it seemed that the Queen herself was a lavender lovers!
Oh, grow, despite this guidance, and our knowledge of heart that missionaries laborious and Anglophile and Royals would have a handPlant that had so many practical applications and much beloved by the Victorians, we never knew exactly when and how lavender came to Hawaii. Remains an unsolved mystery.
But I still have hope. Maybe one day someone dig a letter historians as a missionary wife kept a plant lavender offer describes the long sea voyage around Cape Horn, and we will have our answer.
Meanwhile, you know, like lavender Hawaii, especially on the sunny sideHaleakala on Maui. And increasingly these days, loves lavender Hawaii.
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