A Hawaiian narrative story involving the wrath of two deities has helped scientists track down remnants of an 8-metre-high tsunami that battered the state鈥檚 second largest island, Maui, at least 350 years ago.
鈥淥ur work breathes new life into an ancient mo驶olelo [a story passed down in folklore], putting flesh on the bones of a significant historical event,鈥� says at the University of Southampton, UK.
Written accounts of Hawaiian tsunamis date back to 1812, but Fisher 鈥� who was raised on Maui 鈥� wanted to look deeper into the history of tsunamis affecting the island. He started searching for clues in mo驶olelo. One in particular caught his eye, which a Hawaiian anthropologist had noted in his diary during a 1922 expedition to document Maui culture.
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According to the mo驶olelo, two Hawaiian gods were personified as strangers creating springs in the ground. Reaching a house to request food, they were denied hospitality. The enraged gods then destroyed a large fishpond, a valuable resource for ancient Hawaiians, built by the homeowner, before heading to the nearby villages Kaup艒 and Nu鈥檜.
Noticing that the mo驶olelo hinted at a possible tsunami, Fisher and his colleagues began surveying the Nu鈥檜 area, where they unearthed anomalies in the geological record that could only be explained by a huge wave.
One sign included boulders containing fragments of coral that formed a distinct line about 8 metres above average sea level and 250 metres inland. Rounded, sea-smoothed stones were also wedged into the cracks of inland rocky outcrops, though they couldn鈥檛 have formed there.
鈥淟inking the mo驶olelo to the evidence on the ground felt like cracking a code handed down from the k奴puna [elders] through the generations,鈥� says Fisher.
The team modelled the tsunami鈥檚 height and speed, and the extent of flooding it caused, with 3D simulations, determining that a local underwater landslide was probably responsible. The event was also larger than any documented tsunami in the area鈥檚 known history.
Radiometric dating of the coral rocks revealed the tsunami happened between 878 and 1671, before Europeans arrived in 1778. However, previous archaeological evidence suggests the region鈥檚 earliest settlements appeared in the 1400s, meaning that the tsunami probably happened after this date for the settlers to create the mo驶olelo.
鈥淗ugely impactful events such as massive tsunamis left their mark on the psyche of people in pre-literate societies, so they passed these memories on to future generations through familiar stories,鈥� says at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, who investigates links between Indigenous oral traditions and environmental catastrophes.
This research highlights the role of Indigenous knowledge in complementing science to reduce the risks from future natural disasters, says , who models tsunamis at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valpara铆so in Chile.
Fisher says that understanding the centuries-old tsunami helped with the design of a forested bio-shield to protect the Nu鈥檜 Refuge, a wetland nature reserve where he is the land manager, from future tsunamis. 鈥淚n many ways, this project allowed our ancestors to speak from the distant past to make us aware of just how vulnerable we are,鈥� he says.
Marine Geology
