Kalo may refer to:
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Hawaiians were very skilled and knowledgeable in the use off all the resources they had when it came to food production. Crop production of the kalo (taro) has been transformed and given its own uniqueness in the Hawaiian Islands than that of the rest of the Pacific. Hawaiians used water irrigation systems to produce this prime crop. In Hawaiian terms the word loʻi refers to their wet-land kalo field, or patch. Wet-land fields produce ten to fifteen times more kalo per acre than dry land fields.[1] The Hawaiian irrigation system that watered the lo'i was manipulated to form an opening from the main mountain line stream, to flow down through each patch, then the stream water is led back into its original stream line it came from, where it is then headed to the sea.
The loʻi is part of an ahupuaʻa, a division of land from the mountain to the sea. Ahupuaʻa simply means "pig altar," and was named for stone altars with pig head carvings that marked the boundaries of each Hawaiian land division. Ideally, an ahuapuaʻa would have its required necessities in its borders. From the mountains, materials such as timber is provided for thatching roofs and twining rope. The uplands would provide several crops such as sugar cane and sweet potatoes, while the lowlands produced the taro and fish from the sea. This type of environment system, using all resources in the land, would very much satisfy the large populations in each ahupuaʻa.[2]
In the midst of Hawaiian History comes the genealogy of Hawaiians. One of many mythological versions on Hawaiian ancestry deals with the taro plant of being an ancestor to Hawaiians. Legend joins the two siblings of high and divine rank: Papahanaumoku (Papa from whom lands are born)—Earth mother, and Wakea—Sky father; together they create islands of Hawaii and a beautiful woman, Hoʻohokukalani (The Heavenly one who made the stars).[3]
Wakea desired his daughter’s beauty and layed with her, and born was a stillborn child, ʻaluʻalu (watery or deformed). The child was named Haloanaka, for Haloa meant ‘Long Breath’ or ‘Eternal Life.’ The fetus was buried and after grieving watery tears over her son's grave, out sprang a fragile, strong, and healthy plant—Kalo (Taro):
The second child born of this incestral union was named Haloa, after his older brother. The kalo of the earth was the sustenance for the young brother and became the principal food for the generations to come. And so the kalo was forever linked through this Hawaiian Creation Story of Wakea and Hoʻohokukalani. As man continues to work the wetlands of this sacred crop, he remembers the ancestor that nourishes him — Haloanaka.[5]
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