BACKGROUND - Maui: Including Molokai and Lanai - page 701

though the South Maui zip code is the islands largest with over 26,000 residents in Kihei
and Wailea. The Upcountry population is just over 31,000 including Pa'ia and Ha'iku, and
West Maui has 21,000. In East Maui about 5,000 live along the Hana Highway, although
fewer than 2,000 reside in Hana itself. For Maui County, 78 percent are urban while 22 per-
cent live rurally. The ethnic breakdown of Maui's 144,000 people is 36 percent Caucasian,
29 percent Asian, 23 percent mixed, 11 percent Hawaiian, and 1 percent other.
PEOPLE
Hawaiians
Any study of the native Hawaiians is ultimately a study in tragedy because it nearly ends
in their demise as a viable people. When Captain Cook first sighted Hawai'i in 1778, there
were an estimated 300,000 natives living in relative harmony with their ecological sur-
roundings; within 100 years a scant 50,000 demoralized and dejected Hawaiians existed
almost as wards of the state. Today, although more than 240,000 people claim varying de-
grees of Hawaiian blood, experts say that fewer than 1,000 are pure Hawaiian, and this
might be stretching it.
It's easy to see why people of Hawaiian lineage could be bitter over what they have
lost, being strangers in their own land, much like Native Americans. The overwhelming
majority of Hawaiians are of mixed heritage, and the wisest take the best from all worlds.
From the Hawaiian side comes simplicity, love of the land, and acceptance of people. It is
the Hawaiian legacy of aloha that remains immortal and adds that special elusive quality
that is Hawai'i.
POLYNESIAN ROOTS
The Polynesians' original stock is muddled and remains an anthropological mystery, but
it's believed that they were nomadic wanderers who migrated from both the Indian sub-
continent and Southeast Asia through Indonesia, where they learned to sail and navigate
on protected waterways. As they migrated, they honed their sailing skills until they could
take on the Pacific. As they moved, they absorbed people from other cultures and races
until they had coalesced into Polynesians.
THE CASTE SYSTEM
Hawaiian society was divided into rankings by a strict caste system determined by birth
and from which there was no chance of escaping. The highest rank was the ali'i —the
chiefs and royalty. Ranking passed from both father and mother, and custom dictated that
the first mating of an ali'i be with a person of equal status.