2023-08-10 18:09:05
lahaina 36 people have died in the vicinity of this town on Maui, an island in the state of Hawaii. They died in the fire, which started as a forest fire and spread to the town due to high winds. “Don’t go to Lahaina,” the county government tweeted on Wednesday.
I went to Lahaina in 2017 and I remember that the city impressed me more than the really beautiful beaches in the area. Maybe because I’m from Europe and I got to see some Hawaiian history in Lahaina. I can remember the pretty wooden houses on the waterfront and my visit to the Heritage Museum which seemed to contain the whole history of the islands. There were harpoons on display, whale bones and whale teeth, a reminder of Lahaina’s long history as a whaling site. There were yellowed photos of taro fields. A kerosene-powered stove that stood there once belonged to a missionary. Missionary work is also part of the history of these islands, the destruction of the traditional social order and the plantation economy. Pineapples and sugar cane were grown in the area, and Chinese and Latin workers were brought in. I remember our guide’s pride in representing his islands’ history.
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Has the ancient banyan tree survived at the port?
There was a 150 year old banyan tree right by the harbor. A missionary is said to have planted it, it was incredible. Expansive like an entire district. I tried to see if the giant tree might have survived the fire from the video of Lahaina that the New York Times posted on its website. I looked for the lighthouse, the oldest in the Pacific, built by the then King of Hawaii almost 200 years ago. Vain. The video, taken from the sea, probably with the help of a drone, shows a devastated place with clouds of smoke drifting over it. There was no warning, no time to prepare, the director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation told the New York Times.
With Lahaina, once the capital of Hawaii’s kings, Hawaiians lost a treasure chest that preserved their history.
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