| 1. The diet of the ancient Polynesians was a fairly limited one. | |||
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| 2. Due to the scarcity of edible foods on the islands. | |||
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| 3. For example, land foods were pretty much limited to starchy items. | |||
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| 4. Such as taro, breadfruit, yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas. | |||
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| 5. Whereas their protein source consisted mainly of fish and shellfish that came from the ocean. | |||
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| 6. Many different types of seaweed were used to vary this somewhat monotonous diet as it could be used as a spice, a relish, or even as a salad ingredient, its flavor and color pepped up an ordinary meal. | |||
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| 7. At one time in Hawaiian history, there were as many as 70 different kinds of limu or seaweed. | |||
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| 8. To be used in foods or as medicine. | |||
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| 9. In the past, the islanders' ruling chiefs imposed a kapu system on the common people with regard to what foods they were not allowed to eat. | |||
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| 10. The restrictions and taboos being particularly rigorous where women were concerned. | |||
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| 11. Before Queen Kaahumanu intervened on their behalf in the year 1819. | |||
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| 12. Women were forbidden to eat turtles and various types of fish; in addition, bananas, coconuts, and meats like pork were strictly taboo. | |||
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| 13. What the women liked most about limu was its abundance they also liked its versatility as an allowable food source. | |||
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| 14. Which they were allowed to eat without restriction. | |||
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| 15. The early preparation of seaweed was rather unsophisticated. | |||
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| 16. Since it was either eaten fresh, or it was sun dried and simply preserved with salt. | |||
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| 17. A perishable type of limu, which could not be preserved, was called one-day limu. | |||
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| 18. Meaning that it had to be eaten within a few hours after it had been picked. | |||
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| 19. Early Hawaiians cooked their food items in an underground barbecue pit which was lined with stones, this pit was called an imu. | |||
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| 20. Underground heat was used to bake pigs, taro, sweet potatoes, and limu. | |||
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| 21. When soup was desired. | |||
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| 22. A hot stone was simply dropped into a calabash or large wooden bowl. | |||
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| 23. After which a type of seaweed was added in order to provide flavor and thickening for the liquid ingredients. | |||
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| 24. Some medicinal uses for certain types of seaweed having been recorded in the early 1900s by the Territorial Board of Health. | |||
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| 25. One type of seaweed, called limu kala, was used as a poultice to be applied to coral cuts. | |||
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| 26. After it had been chopped up or chewed. | |||
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| 27. Another type of seaweed called sea lettuce was dried with some other plants. | |||
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| 28. And then smoked for a total of nine days in order to produce an acceptable treatment for asthma. | |||
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| 29. Still another type of medicine was produced by baking a type of limu which had been wrapped in ti leaves and then eating it five days in a row. | |||
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| 30. This remedy was supposed to stop chest pains. | |||
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| 31. In short, various types of limu were considered to be miracle medicines. | |||
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| 32. Which were designed to cure everything from a sprained muscle to a stomach or backache as well as to remove white splotches from the surface of the skin. | |||
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| 33. Seaweed was also used in various ceremonies at least one of which was connected with illness. | |||
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| 34. Hawaiians once believed evil spirits residing in a human body caused a person to be ill with a sickness that would not go away. | |||
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| 35. Until the evil spirits had left the body. | |||
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| 36. So a sick person would wear a lei made of limu kala around his or her neck and swim out to sea after which the lei would float away, removing the evil spirits at the same time. | |||
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| 37. So that the person could recover from the illness. | |||
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| 38. A type of seaweed known as limu kohu plays a prominent role in a Hawaiian legend. | |||
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| 39. One day, a woman was searching for limu along the coastal shore, although she sat for a long time on the flat portion of a rock, her search was in vain. | |||
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| 40. All at once, she was startled; the rock she sat on started to move. | |||
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| 41. However, what she thought was a rock was, in fact, a huge turtle. | |||
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| 42. Which was really her 'aumakua. | |||
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| 43. The word referring to a family god. | |||
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| 44. Swimming to a coastal area that was particularly dense with the fragrant, dark limu kohu seaweed. | |||
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| 45. The turtle made it possible for the woman to fill a basket full of limu, moreover, she was able to take it home with her, and of course, she told all of her friends. | |||
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| 46. About how she had received this great reward from her 'aumakua. | |||
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| 47. Another legend tells of a younger woman who had magical skills regarding the art of love. | |||
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| 48. After giving some freshwater seaweed to a man of her choice. | |||
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| 49. She was able to receive eternal adoration from him, showing how at least one type of limu could be used as a love potion. | |||
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| 50. Because of its many uses, limu was treasured by the Hawaiians, even Queen Liliuokalani had her favorite type of seaweed, limu kolu, transplanted from Kauai to her Diamond Head residence on Oahu where it formed the start of a "limu garden." | |||
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