Aafje finally arrived in Mexico with 6000lbs of primo Mexican, the very best there was at the time. This was called the "Lightening Bolt" weed, due to one BEL member in Mexico remarking how one cola looked like a lightening bolt. BEL members were smoking this "lightening bolt" weed all over Maui, tossing seeds everywhere. Some BEL members even began planting seeds, which led to a strain called "Kula Crippler" after the area of Maui it was grown. The "Kula Crippler" came from a seed brought back in bales of weed used to make hash by the Tokhi brothers from Afghanistan on a previous hash smuggling mission. These two strains, the Mexican "Lightening Bolt" and the Afghani "Kula Crippler" were crossed by a surfer from Santa Barbara, and quickly Kula was covered with this NEW crossbred strain. It was so good that BEL members began smuggling it back to California. This new strain was the now world famous "Maui Wowie" named in honor of where it was created.
This is what you can read about the BOEL history on the net, that Maui Wowie is rough to speak Mex x Afghan.
If I had to guess, the wowie wasn’t anything specifically bred by anyone in Hawaii. It was probably bud that someone got from Maui and was given the “wowie” or “waui” name by someone who got it in Cali.
That person either found seeds or someone who bought it down the line found seeds and started growing those seeds under the name Maui Waui or Wowie. Others got seeds from that person/group and that’s how the strain known as Maui Waui was born.
That same thing has happened for decades with cannabis. Someone gets really good bud, they give it whatever name they want, seeds get found and that name sticks while the actual origins are either unknown or intentionally covered up. Look at chemdog, in Colorado they called it the dog or dogbud, chem thinks it has a chemmy taste so names his plants chemdog, all the while it supposedly came out of Oregon/Washington and who knows what the original growers called it or what’s its origin is.
So my guess is that Maui Waui was the original Chemdog. That’s why no one on Maui has ever seen or had a Waui but yet it’s known all over the world as a strain. Just like the Chemdog is known all over but those original growers never called it Chemdog.
Some more Hawaiian meanderings. Most of the weed back then didn't have a name. It was either ono, or da kine in description, more often than not. When you're young drug crazed college student, words can turn into urban myth sometimes. The more crazy exotic the name, the more one could ask for an oz.
I do remember seeing an awful lot of sativa looking elephant weed. Some good, and a whole lot not so good. Believe it or not, it was tough to score real connoisseur bud, even in Hawaii back then.
RMS