Tracking Ancient Hawaiian Farming Methods With Instagram
23rd November 2014
Like many agrarian cultures, pre-contact Hawaiians used a lunar calendar to manage farming and fishing. Beginning with Hilo, the crescent moon, and peaking with M?healani, the full moon, the Hawaiian calendar was made up of 30 distinct moon phases. Based on observations passed down through generations, certain phases were thought to correspond to better fishing or planting, depending on the season and where one lived.
Today, that shared knowledge has largely faded, but one group of contemporary Hawaiian conservationists is looking to rebuild the oral tradition of how lunar cycles affect the environment by using a decidedly modern form of the diary: an Instagram account. The Moon Phase Project, as conceived by founders Kanani Frazier and Brenda Asuncion, encourages a team of island-based photographers to post observations of the natural world tagged with the corresponding Hawaiian moon phase to a shared account.
Sometimes the old ways are best.