Eben Parker Low
Year Inducted: 2005
Pu`uwa`awa`a Ranch | Hawai'i
Known in the islands as "Rawhide Ben", Eben Parker Low was born in Honolulu, a great grandson of John Palmer Parker I and his Hawaiian wife, Kipikane. He spent his early years on Parker Ranch, handling cows and calves by the time he was six years old. He had very little education; in his own words, "...just plain common sense plus some English grammar and arithmetic and writing." At the age of 26 he became manager of Pu'uhue Ranch in Kohala, and began a career that made him one of the big island's most famous and colorful paniolo.
Like the true paniolo of the day, Eben was a fluent Hawaiian speaker. He earned a reputation as a wild bullock hunter, undeterred even by the loss of his hand in a roping accident on the slopes of Mauna Kea. "The paniolo work in the open," he wrote in his memoirs, "in God's good sunlight and in his refreshing rains and winds. The paniolo is a free agent, depending only on God and himself..."
Eben was drawn to an oasis he saw in the distance, on the slopes of Mauna Kea. It was the Cinder Cone Pu'uwa'awa'a, which he described as "...a perfect paradise..." in 1894 he founded Pu'uwa'awa'a Ranch there with his partner, Robert Hind.
Eben was instrumental in bringing the talent of the Hawaiian paniolo to the national scene when he sent Archie Ka'au'a, Jack Low and Ikua Purdy to the Frontier Days World Championship Roping Competition in Cheyenne Wyoming in 1908. His confidence and pride in them were expressed by his own words, "you cannot imagine the noise of the applause our boys received from those 30,000 watchers... the kanakas had won!"
Eben Low was one of the last to know the early days of ranching on the Big Island. He was a true kanaka kaoli - a man who loved the aina where he was born, and the paniolo with whom he shared the day.