• Many Hawaiian wood crafts are made out of the reddish-colored Koa wood.Hawaii image by Gregory Simmons from Fotolia.com
  
  Acacia koa is a type of flowering tree that is native to the Hawaiian Islands, and the tree is most pervasive on the islands of Hawaii, Maui and Oahu. For centuries, Hawaiians have used the trunks of the trees to build canoes, bodyboards and some surfboards. Its dark reddish colored wood has also been used for ukuleles, guitars, furniture and wooden trinkets like clocks and gift boxes. While still popular for wood crafts, the Hawaiian koa has decreased in numbers on the islands. In recent years, other woods such as heartwood, sapwood and Indian lilac have been used in traditional wood crafts.
  
  

Instruments

• During the late 1800s, Hawaiians learned the art of ukulele (like luke, but it is plucked), picking up the skill from the Portuguese. These true Hawaiian ukuleles are usually handmade from a single, solid piece koa wood for the back and side pieces, and some other tonewoods. While simple in design, inlay work creates a varied wood look, and these instruments generally have a natural, high-gloss lacquer finish to display the coloring of the wood. Hawaiian guitars are also usually made from the koa wood, and these guitars are generally one of the following: acoustic, folk, slide or classical. The koa wood gives the guitar a mahogany tone and a light sound).
  
  

Canoes and Surfboards

• Canoes, bodyboards and surfboards are often created from a single trunk of the Koa. The trunks are dug out to create the body of the canoe (wa'a in Hawaiian) while the trunks are split in half and sanded down to create the boards. A common surfboard is the Alaia, which has a rounded nose and a squarish tail end, and these are usually between 7 to 12 feet long. The longest surfboard created on the island is the olo, which is created out of oak-colored wiliwili, and this board is generally reserved for royalty. Wiliwili is another type of flowering tree common to the Hawaiian Islands, but this tree creates a much more buoyant board because of its low density. Handmade Hawaiian canoes have either one or two hulls. Besides the koa wood for the boat, plants such as the akoko, uhaloa and ama'u are used for dyes and paints, and the sails are created out of the hala plant. Stone adzes are still used to carve and shape these canoes.
  
  

Trinkets

• Handmade bowels are commonly sold to island visitors. The traditional Hawaiian Milo bowl often comes in the traditional Hawaiian calabash (fat bottom bowels with the look of gourds) shape, which is created by using the area of the tree where it splits into more than one branch. All of the traditional bowels are inlaid with a variety of woods, including koa, Indian lilac, sapwood and heartwood. Vases are made in a similar way, except that traditional vases often have a bulging bottom with a long skinny neck, and many have a removable plug on the bottom for draining them. Other trinkets that are often made from koa wood include solid-wood gift boxes, paddles and clocks made form a single, irregular shaped wood block.