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By ALEXANDRE DA SILVA
HONOLULU (AP) - As a boy growing up in a poor family on Hawaii's Big Island, Tom "Pohaku" Stone found entertainment barreling down grassy slopes aboard ti leaves and banana stumps.
What began as childhood fun on a natural roller coaster has evolved into an academic and cultural journey aimed at reviving the 2,000-year-old Hawaiian tradition of he'e holua, or Hawaiian lava sledding.
And Stone has the scars to show for it.
Wearing just a tank top and shorts and reaching speeds of up to 70 mph on a sled standing only 4 inches above the ground, Stone once ran into a steel post sticking up from the grass during a demonstration on a slope on Maui, tearing an 18-inch gash in his left thigh.
In another crash, Stone broke his neck. It hasn't stopped him.
"You can't even imagine what it's like to be headfirst, 4 inches off the ground, doing 30, 40, 50 miles an hour on rock," Stone said. "It looks like you are riding just fluid lava. It's death-defying ... but it's a lot of fun."
It wasn't quite as dangerous when Stone was a kid.
"You would break off a bunch of ti leaves, sit down on it and skid down the mountain all covered in mud," said Stone, now a 54-year-old community college professor who teaches the ancient Hawaiian sport and gives classes on sled building and riding. "That just became my cultural passion because of the similarities with surfing, but it also became my academic passion."
Ti plants, or cordylines, are members of the agave family. The leaves usually are used for fiber, cloth or livestock fodder.
Traditionally, he'e holua served both as a sport and as a vehicle for Hawaiians to honor their gods, especially Pele, the goddess of fire. After reaching the top of a slope, Hawaiians would stand up, lie down or kneel atop hardwood sleds - often carved from kauila or ohia trees and measuring 12 feet long by 6 inches wide - and speed down the man-made courses of hardened lava rocks sprinkled with grass.
But missionaries who brought Christianity to Hawaii saw the sport as "a frivolous waste of time," Stone said, and its practice ended in 1825, when the last he'e holua racing event was documented.
"They wanted us to work, stop being happy," Stone said.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNew...f-1183613.html
HONOLULU (AP) - As a boy growing up in a poor family on Hawaii's Big Island, Tom "Pohaku" Stone found entertainment barreling down grassy slopes aboard ti leaves and banana stumps.
What began as childhood fun on a natural roller coaster has evolved into an academic and cultural journey aimed at reviving the 2,000-year-old Hawaiian tradition of he'e holua, or Hawaiian lava sledding.
And Stone has the scars to show for it.
Wearing just a tank top and shorts and reaching speeds of up to 70 mph on a sled standing only 4 inches above the ground, Stone once ran into a steel post sticking up from the grass during a demonstration on a slope on Maui, tearing an 18-inch gash in his left thigh.
In another crash, Stone broke his neck. It hasn't stopped him.
"You can't even imagine what it's like to be headfirst, 4 inches off the ground, doing 30, 40, 50 miles an hour on rock," Stone said. "It looks like you are riding just fluid lava. It's death-defying ... but it's a lot of fun."
It wasn't quite as dangerous when Stone was a kid.
"You would break off a bunch of ti leaves, sit down on it and skid down the mountain all covered in mud," said Stone, now a 54-year-old community college professor who teaches the ancient Hawaiian sport and gives classes on sled building and riding. "That just became my cultural passion because of the similarities with surfing, but it also became my academic passion."
Ti plants, or cordylines, are members of the agave family. The leaves usually are used for fiber, cloth or livestock fodder.
Traditionally, he'e holua served both as a sport and as a vehicle for Hawaiians to honor their gods, especially Pele, the goddess of fire. After reaching the top of a slope, Hawaiians would stand up, lie down or kneel atop hardwood sleds - often carved from kauila or ohia trees and measuring 12 feet long by 6 inches wide - and speed down the man-made courses of hardened lava rocks sprinkled with grass.
But missionaries who brought Christianity to Hawaii saw the sport as "a frivolous waste of time," Stone said, and its practice ended in 1825, when the last he'e holua racing event was documented.
"They wanted us to work, stop being happy," Stone said.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNew...f-1183613.html
