Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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Yes. The numbers that they give, and I don’t know if this is a cross between domestic
and wild but they put it into the thirty-thousands or so, around at various locations in the
later 1800s.
I know that domestic sheep Merino, and they were all fenced off. There was a boundary
fence, and outside the boundary fence to the top of the mountain, where all the wild
sheep were. And we used to go drive wild sheep and get rid of them just because they
were eating feed on this side of the mountain.
One of you shared with me that there’s a place, is it up by Pu‘u Anuanu or above Pu‘u
Lä‘au something, where they would just drive the wild sheep and shoot ‘em and just
leave ‘em.
Yes. I had experienced, that was while I was thrown here and there on the ranch, and
that particular time, one of the truck drivers was not feeling well, so they put me on the
truck as the truck driver. And normally, the wild sheep, once a year the cowboys were
driving the wild sheep. They put a trap, you have to trap it.
Yes.
With the fence. And they sent me to an area where our vehicle, truck can arrive there.
Because we didn’t have 4-wheel drive trucks. You go there, the cowboys will get a
butcher knife and kill every sheep, right in the pen. Our job as a truck driver and a few
others was to go over there and take the two hind legs off and throw ‘em on the truck. We
ship it to Kawaihae and to Honolulu, dog quarantine station. All go down there to feed
the dogs.
Ohh!
And what was happening here, “Cruelty to animals,” we were killing the sheep. Someone
reported it to Humane Society and they put a stop immediately! We were not allowed to
do such a thing.
Yes. But there were sometimes thousands of sheep right, brought in
Thousands. One of our cowboys, a top cowboy, Matsuishi Yamaguchi, driving the wild
sheep into the trap, his horse stumbled in the rocks, hit his head on the rock and he died.
Yes. Jiro Yamaguchi’s father.
Yes.
In 1935, I think it was.
Yes, about ‘35. Lot of sheep, lot of sheep.
There were thousands and thousands. I can share with you and you’ll see in the study
we’re preparing, we have a letter from 1856 between Isaac Young Davis and Keoni Ana,
they’re ali‘i, hapa haole, in one side of the descendants, and they were prominent in the
Hawaiian Government. The letter between them about these whole Waimea and Mauna
Kea mountain lands was that “sheep are like animals with poisonous teeth. There are
thousands…” I believe he said something like forty-thousand, he said “soon there will be
no trees left, no grass… nothing.” Even back at that time, how vicious it was, the
population just exploded. Very destructive at that time. Of course Ke‘ämoku was actually
established before Waiki‘i as a station by Francis Spencer, 1860, ‘63 thereabouts. We
see it on the old sketches and maps. That was their whole operation, sheep at Ke‘ämoku
and sheep continued at Ke‘ämoku long time yes. And then Pu‘u Anahulu.
Kalai‘eha.
Yes, then up to Kalai‘eha. All kinds of neat history. Thank you folks very much. I think
we’re good.
Aloha, thank you… [end of interview]
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:550