Paʻakai (Hawaiian Salt)

by Lurline Wailana McGregor

Sea salt is what is left when seawater evaporates, while rock salt is mined from ancient lakes and seas. Salt mines can be deep underground or high in the mountains, such as the Himalayas, where salt formed from ancient, evaporated seas. Table salt is rock salt that has been processed to remove mineral impurities, giving it a finer texture and higher sodium content.

In addition to making food flavorful, salt is one of the essential nutrients that all living creatures must ingest on a regular basis to function properly. As humans, we need salt to maintain a steady blood pressure, distribute water throughout our bodies, deliver nutrients to cells, and enable muscle movement. Since our bodies cannot store salt in adequate quantities, we are hardwired to crave it, helping to assure that we consume it regularly.

Salt is also crucial in preserving food. Through osmosis, salt draws water out of cells, dehydrating them and inhibiting the growth of bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that cause food spoilage. Since the earliest times, humans have universally used salt to preserve fish and meats, making it a staple when refrigeration is not available, such as on lengthy sea voyages. So vital is salt to our survival that it is revered as more than a food product; it is a symbol of purity, healing, and protection in many cultures throughout the world.

Salt in Hawaiian culture
Paʻakai is the Hawaiian word for salt, literally meaning “solid ocean.” Traditionally, salt was highly valued in Hawaiian culture not only as a food product, but for its importance in ceremonial and religious practices. It was primarily collected in coral pools on rocky shorelines after seawater evaporated or produced in larger quantities by building shallow clay ponds on land. Each island still takes great pride in its paʻakai.

“We think that the best salt is from Kaʻūpūlehu”, says Hannah Springer, kamaʻāina (native-born) of Kaʻūpūlehu in North Kona on Hawaiʻi Island. “The site for gathering is situated on a lava delta that receives ocean swells from deep water, so the water coming onto the rocks is quite clean. In our younger days, part of the mystique of this salt, the mana (power) of the salt, was making the hike to that stretch of shoreline at the right time of year when you knew there were going to be rich deposits. The flakes get to be pretty large, and they’re noted for their cleanliness.”

So steadfast is the cultural tradition of gathering paʻakai that in 2000, the Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court denied a Land Use Commission’s decision to grant a developer’s petition to reclassify approximately 1,000 acres of conservation land in Kaʻūpūlehu to an urban district, because it failed to protect and preserve gathering and access rights of Native Hawaiians. This decision became the basis of the “Ka Paʻakai Analysis” framework, which established a three-pronged test that government agencies must pass before considering proposed land and water uses that could impact the practice of traditional and customary rights.

While families across the islands still gather paʻakai for their own use, Hanapēpē, on the west side of Kauaʻi, is the last remaining area where salt continues to be traditionally produced and harvested in clay ponds by twenty-two families. For Hawaiians, Hanapēpē salt is cherished, not only for its taste, but also for its ceremonial and medicinal uses.

Unfortunately, in addition to ongoing land pollution and erosion threats, another very real threat to salt production is climate change. Sea-level rise increases marine flooding, which in turn causes greater coastal erosion and flooding of the ponds. Flooding from increased rainfall also affects the ponds, which must be hot and dry during summer months to produce salt.

Malia Nobrega-Olivera wears many hats in the Hawaiian community and is also a member of one of Hanapēpē’s salt-making families. In response to a recommendation in a 2023 Salt Pond Hydrogeologic Investigation at Hanapēpē Salt Pond to move the salt beds further inland, she explained why that won’t work.

“If it was so easy, that all it is is salt water evaporating, then anyone in any place would be producing salt in the same manner, and that it would have the same kind of ono (delicious) taste to it,” Nobrega-Olivera said. “My grandpa taught me that in this ʻāina, there is a salt shelf. When the water comes from the ocean and passes through the salt shelf and into our puna (wells), the salinity of the water rises anywhere from three to eight times more than the ocean salinity levels. Another key component is, there’s a layer of clay in this ʻāina, in some areas nine feet deep. When we transfer the high salinity water into the secondary wells and then the beds, the water does not escape, and the salinity levels just get higher and higher.”

The twenty-two salt-making ʻohana in Hanapēpē are all members of the Hui Hana Paʻakai o Hanapēpē, organized by Nobrega-Olivera’s grandfather, and they agreed many years ago that salt from their beds would not be sold. “We use it for exchanging, as gifting, for cultural blessings, for laʻau (medicine) and other stuff,” says Nobrega-Olivera. So revered is Hanapēpē salt that over 33,000 supporters signed a petition urging the Kauaʻi Planning Commission to protect the salt ponds from a proposed expansion of a nearby helicopter company.

Salt through Hawaiian history
During the nineteenth century, salt became an important export commodity in Hawaiʻi  for ships stopping to obtain fresh provisions. A newspaper article published in 1861 in Honolulu’s Pacific Commercial Advertiser recounts a visit to the Puʻuloa Salt Works, located at Keahi, now called Iroquois Point, west of Pearl Harbor channel.

A three-foot wide, 800-foot-long raised ditch of baked clay was filled a foot deep with salt water for initial evaporation, then moved to a larger enclosure to finish drying. Windmills ground the resulting rock salt into a fine salt that was then bagged and sent by schooner for delivery to ships in Honolulu Harbor. The salt works produced 2,000 tons of salt a year at that time. Started by King Kamehameha III and Isaac Montgomery in the early 1840s, Puʻuloa Salt Works continued operating until the early 1900s.

In more recent times, entrepreneurs have used their marketing skills to turn the allure of Hawaiian salt into a gourmet item. A quick internet search of “Hawaiian salt” shows dozens of such products for sale, from Hawaiian black lava salt to fine pink Hawaiian salt. According to state law, fifty one percent of the materials and labor must originate in Hawaiʻi to be considered “Made in Hawaiʻi.” Companies can, and do, import rock salt, process it, and package it in Hawaiʻi to meet the 51 percent requirement to call it “Hawaiian salt.” There are some local companies that produce salt on a commercial scale, using hi-tech production methods, and sell it as “Hawaiian salt” in grocery stores or Waikīkī gift shops, but none is produced by traditional methods.

“We will buy rock salt for the volume if we’re making an imu, or we’ve got some pigs and chickens and things like that,” says Hannah Springer. “I call it rock salt. Otherwise, we are particular, and we do prefer the salt from Kaʻūpūlehu, where we have young friends or family members that can go down and gather for us. And we’re always stoked when people come home from Kauaʻi and bring the salts of that island as well.” Regardless of which island it comes from or whose is the best, paʻakai is always a treasured gift.

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