Immediately after Captain Cook first landed at Waimea Kauai in January 1778, he and others were taken inland for an ‘excursion of the country’. They had seen ‘pyramids’ or ‘obelisks’ as they passed in their ships. What follows are descriptions of what they saw, as noted in Cook’s Journal.

“As we ranged down the coast from the east, in the ships, we had observed at every village one or more elevated white objects, like pyramids or rather obelisks; and one of these, which I guessed to be at least fifty feet high was very conspicuous from the ship’s anchoring station, and seemed to be at no great distance up this valley.”

“To have a nearer inspection of it, was the principal object of my walk. Our guide perfectly understood that we wished to be conducted to it. But it happened to be so placed that we could not get at it, being separated from us by the pool of water.”

“However, there being another of the same kind within our reach, about half a mile off, upon our side of the valley, we set out to visit that.”

“The moment we got to it, we saw that it stood in a burying ground, or morai (heiau;) the resemblance of which, in many respects, to those we were so well acquainted with at other islands in this ocean … could not but strike us …”

“On each side of the pyramid were long pieces of wickerwork, called hereanee, in the same ruinous condition; with two slender poles, inclining to each other, at one corner, where some plantains were laid upon a board, fixed at the height of five or six feet. This they called herairemy ; and informed us that the fruit was an offering to their god”.

“The island seemed to abound with such places of sacrifice as this which we were now visiting, and which appeared to be one of the most inconsiderable of them; being far less conspicuous than several others which we had seen as we sailed along the coast, and particularly than that on the opposite side of the water in this valley …”

“… the white kenananoo, or pyramid, of which we were now almost sure, derived its colour only from pieces of the consecrated cloth laid over it.”

The ‘pyramids’ or ‘obelisks’ Cook saw at the heiau were Lana-nu‘u-mamao (‘Anu‘u), “a tower-like frame, made of strong timbers, covered with aho, ie poles, but not thatched. It had three floors, or kahuas, of which the lowest was named lana, the next nu‘u, and the highest mamao.”

“The lowest, the lana, was used for the bestowal of offerings. The second, nu‘u, was more sacred; the high priest and his attendants sometimes stood there while conducting religious services.”

“The third, the mamao, was the most sacred place of all. Only the high priest and king were allowed to come to this platform.”

“When worship was being conducted at the lana-nu‘u-mamao all the people prostrated themselves. It seems probable that the lana-nu‘u-mamao was used as a sort of oracle.” (Malo)

“It was usually more than twenty feet tall and contained three platforms. The lowest symbolized the earth, the abode of humans, and was where offerings were placed; the middle was viewed as the space of birds and clouds and was where the high priest and his attendants conducted services …”

“… the highest platform symbolized the heavens — dwelling place of the gods — and could only be ascended by the high priest and the king. This was where the high priest received inspiration and acted as intermediary with the gods.”

“The entire structure was covered with bleached kapa. It was a highly visible component of the temple platform area and contained within a refuse or bone pit where decayed offerings and bones of victims were cast (lua pa‘u).” (NPS)

“The building of this heiau was a great and arduous undertaking. Priests were everywhere about; they selected the site, determined the orientation, the dimensions, and the arrangement of the structure, and at every stage performed the ritualistic ceremonies without which the work could not be acceptable to the gods.” (Kuykendall)
“The usual plan of the luakini dictated that if the front faced the west or east, the oracle tower stood on the north end of the structure.”

“If the heiau fronted on the north or south, the tower would be on the east side, turned toward the west or south. The audience sat in the southern or western part of the structure.” (NPS)

“(F)unctionally specialized heiaus had well identifiable features; luakini temples could not be built just anywhere, but only upon sites formerly built on by the people of old. If so, then the larger heiau should be architecturally stratified, with the platforms and terraces of older heiau buried under later additions and elaborations.”

“An opposite opinion is represented by Stokes: the different types of foundations … seem to have had no connection with the classes of worship to which the heiau belonged.”

“An intermediate solution is proposed by Valeri: the Hawaiians had two heiau classification systems, which have not been clearly distinguished. The first was based on function – fertility, production, or war. The second was based on architectural typology. The functional classification could be combined with the architectural to produce a wide array of subtypes.” (Chase-Dunn & Ermolaeva)

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