Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kauakaiakaola Heiau

Kauakaiakaola (Ka-ua-kai-aka-ola – also known as Kauaikahaola (Ka-ua-i-kaha-ola)) Heiau was a temple for increase of food and fish (Heiau Ho‘oulu ‘Ai, Ho‘oulu I‘a.) (It translates to ‘the rain which gives life to all living things.’) “It is related that when King Kamehameha I, on the advice of a kahuna of the island of Kauai, decided to restore the old heiau in his day, he approached it by canoe”.

It is believed the heiau was built during the time of ‘Umi (about the same time of Christopher Columbus crossing the Atlantic to America.) It sat abandoned, then Curtis V Crellin purchased the property with ‘a pile of rocks.” He later learned it was a heiau and in 1947, with guidance from Kenneth Emory at Bishop Museum, restored it. In today’s context, the heiau is just north of the Casa de Emdeko condominiums, just outside of Kailua-Kona.

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Halekiʻi and Pihana Heiau

Located about ¼-mile inland, constructed of stacked waterworn basalt boulders collected from ʻIao Stream, Halekiʻi and Pihana Heiau overlook ‘Iao Stream, Kahului Bay and the Wailuku Plain, and are the most accessible of the remaining pre-contact Hawaiian structures of religious and historical importance in the Wailuku-Kahului area.

Traditional history credits the menehune with the construction of both heiau in a single night, using rock from Paukukalo Beach. Other accounts credit Kihapiʻilani with building Halekiʻi, and Kiʻihewa with building Pihana during the time of Kakaʻe, the aliʻi of West Maui. Some say that they were built under the rule of Kahekili.

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Nine Traditions That Emphasized Chiefly Rank

In 1920, Martha Beckwith became the first person to hold a chair in Folklore at any college or university in the country. The Folklore Foundation, established at Vassar, was an unprecedented institution and became a center of research in the almost entirely new field of folk culture.  (Vassar) “Position in old Hawaiʻi, both social and […]

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Hewahewa

“Kailua Harbor, April 5, 1820. In the dawn of the day, as we passed near shore, several chiefs were spending their idle hours in gambling, we were favored with an interview with Hewahewa, the late High Priest. He received us kindly and on his introduction to Brother Bingham he expressed much satisfaction in meeting with […]

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Līloa

Nowhere on the island of Hawaiʻi do the palms grow taller than in the valleys of Waipiʻo, and nowhere is the foliage greener, for every month in the year they are refreshed with rains, and almost hourly cooled in the shadows of passing clouds.  (Kalākaua) Waipi‘o (“curved water”) is one of several coastal valleys on […]