The Polynesians brought sugar cane with them when they came here to settle. They brought and developed a lot of new varieties but none of these are grown on the plantations now.

The main use of sugar cane for medicine by the Hawaiians was to make many bad-tasting medicines taste better -- just as mothers used to put orange juice in castor oil to make it not taste so bad (ugh!).

A piece of stalk was cut, peeled and the inside crushed -- then the sweet sap was squeezed out of the pulp. The Hawaiians used this sap as it was -- they didn't crystallize it as we do now.

The very young shoots were used for cuts. These shoots, along with other plants and salt, were wrapped in ti leaves and baked over charcoal. Then the juice was squeezed out and poured into the cut (auwe!).