Pukui translates Ka‘awaloa as “the distant kawa,” and explains “runners went to Puna or Waipio to get kava for the chiefs”. The archaeological sites of Ka‘awaloa reflect the occupation of this coastal flat from pre-contact times until approximately 1940.
At the time of Captain Cook’s arrival in 1779, Ka‘awaloa was one of the seven chiefly residential compounds in Kona and home to some of the island’s most important ruling chiefs. At least two (2) heiau are recorded on Ka‘awaloa Flat, as well as Puhina o Lono Heiau on the slopes above. (DLNR)
Kalokuokamaile recorded that “When Keawe-nui-a-‘Umi lived at Kaawaloa, he was known as the awa drinking chief and would send his runner to Waipio and Puna to get awa”. In Judd’s dictionary, Hawaiian Language, he translates it as “Ka awa – the harbor). Rev. Paris is cited as translating Ka‘awaloa means “the long landing place”. (Maly)
“It has been said that Ka‘awaloa means something like ‘Awa gotten from far away,’ and this was because the people of Kona had to go all the way to Puna to get their ‘awa.”
“This isn’t true. Kona always had plenty of ‘awa. Old Charley Aina always said that Ka‘awaloa described the ‘Long, or distant canoe landing’ of the area.” (Billy Paris; Maly) Ka‘awaloa is recognized as the site of Captain James Cook’s demise.
The missionaries arrived in Hawai‘i in 1820 and the first Kealakekua missionary settlement was established at Ka‘awaloa Flat by Reverend Ely in 1824. The missionary records indicate that a church and several missionary houses were built at Ka‘awaloa. (DLNR)
Because of the heat, the missionaries moved the mission upslope to Kuapehu in 1827. Kuapehu was “A place belonging to Naihe where he raised taro. His wife, Kapiolani, allowed missionaries to build there, over the ruins of her house.” (Place Names)
“The distinguished chief woman, Kapiolani, built a fine stone house near by the old meeting-house, and resided there for some time, living decently and in order to the day of her death, ap ornament of religion, and a wonderful trophy of the grace of God.”
“She interested herself in the missionary’s American friends, shared with them the pleasure of foreign letters, and was in all things the sympathizing mother and friend.” (Cheever)
“On the first day of the new year, I met the assembled chiefs and people at Kaawaloa, and to our mutual joy opened to them the Scriptures.”
“An attempt was made for the permanent establishment of the Kaawaloa station at Kuapehu, Naihe and Kapiolani removed and built there, and others gathered round them; but the people of the district chiefly preferred the shore station as more convenient to them.” (Bingham)
“But Kaawaloa, at the landing-place on the north side of Kealakekua bay, however conveniently accessible to the people of the district, who live much along the shores, was cramped and rocky, being composed almost exclusively of lava.”
“It was hot, dry, and barren, affording neither brook nor well, nor spring of fresh water, nor field, nor garden-spot for plantation, though a few cocoa-nut trees, so neighborly to the sea, find nourishment there.”
“Kuapehu, about two miles inland, east of the bold and volcanic cliff at the head of the bay, is, in many respects, preferable as a place of residence.”
“It is elevated 1500 feet above the sea; is airy and fertile, fanned agreeably by the land breeze from the cold Mauna Loa by night, and the sea breeze by day, making the temperature and climate about as agreeable and salubrious as Waimea.”
“Scattered trees around, and the forest a little further in the rear, the banana, sugar-cane, upland kalo, potatoes, squashes, gourds, and melons, which its soil produces; its high grasses, flowering shrubs, and wild vines, all contrasted finely with the dry and sterile shore north of the bay.”
“Besides the ordinary productions of the country, Mr. Ruggles, Naihe, and Kapiolani had a variety of exotics – the grape, fig, guava, pomegranate, orange, coffee, cotton, and mulberry, growing on a small scale, which is the most that can be said, as yet, of these articles at the Sandwich Islands.” (Bingham)
“An honorable woman, a hoary-headed Hawaiian convert to Christianity, Kekupuohi, who had been one of the wives of Kalaniopuu, the king in the days of Capt. Cook, but now a member of the church at Kailua, visiting at the thatched cottage of Mr. Ruggles, in the midst of this scenery …”
“… and having her attention agreeably attracted by a prolific grape vine, which spread its fruit and foliage over the door, and by the various flowers and fruits of the garden-like court”. [Bingham] translated:”
“It may be proper to say here that the church and mission-houses of this station, some time after Mr. Ruggles, through loss of health, left the field, were located on the south side of Kealakekua Bay, a position which was supposed to accommodate the people connected with the station better than the north side, or Kuapehu in the rear.” (Bingham)
In visiting the area, Sereno Bishop notes, “Our nearest missionary neighbor outside of the town of Kailua were the Ruggleses, who lived at Kaawaloa, twelve miles south. Their dwelling was at Kuapehu, two miles up the mountain, a most verdant and attractive spot.”
“It later became the residence of Rev John D Paris. Kaawaloa proper was a village on the north side of Kealakekua Bay.” (Bishop)
In 1852 the Rev Paris, who had been at Waiohinu for ten years, was assigned to the Kealakekua district. He wrote that the name Ka‘awaloa was used, by the Hawaiians, more often than Kealakekua. Paris built Kahikolu Church that served the Ka‘awaloa and Kealakekua area; it also was as the Mother Church for the South Kona Area. (NPS)
“We often visited Kaawaloa, probably twice a year, going by water in a double canoe, generally starting two or three hours before daylight, so as to carry the land breeze a good part of the way.” (Sereno Bishop)
“Following the Path of the Gods, Kealakekua; dotted for miles by heathen temples great and small, I found Kuapehu. A grass house, built by Keike, Brother Ruggles, and a cottage built by the beloved Forbes, where the mission families used to spend a few weeks for a change as a health station”. (Recollections of Paris)
There was a road “built above the shoreline flats in the late 1850s to connect Kailua to Ka‘awaloa. Its starting place at Kealakekua was the Paris house at Kuapehu.”
“Government documents of the time describe this road as the “Road from Kealakekua pali”. Samuel Clemens travelled it in 1866 and described the occasional “great boughs which overarch the road and shut out the sun and sea and everything, and leave you in a dim, shady tunnel.” (DLNR)
The Paris family dominated the life of the ahupua‘a from its purchase in 1859 to the death of Rev. John Paris, Sr. (a Congregational minister) in 1892. The son, John Paris, Jr., retained much of his father’s interests.
“Here for five or six years the veteran missionary [John D Paris] continued in his Master’s work. On the marriage of his son John, in 1880, the old home at Kuapehu was sold to him. and the elder Paris family, Father and Mother Paris with their daughter Ella, moved again to Honolulu, expecting never to return.” (The Friend, June 1926)
His only son, John, Jr. became a stock raiser of both cattle and goats, kept at Ka‘awaloa and other nearby lands. He was also the recipient of his father’s most choice land. The Paris’ daughter, Ella, ran a boarding house on the site of Kapi‘olani’s mauka house referred to as the Paris Hotel. (DLNR)
Billy Paris in an oral history noted, “my great-grandfather, with his second marriage, he had two children. His daughter was Ella Hudson Paris.”
“The home I was telling you about, he first built, was down in Mauna-alani, where my sister’s living now. Up on the hill–directly on the hill there above the junction, where the deep cut is on the upper side of the road–the home is still there. (The house site name is Kuapehu.)”
“It’s quite in pretty bad shape today [1981]. My cousins have just recently sold that property to someone. And I see they’re starting to clear the lot now next to Kamei’s Cleaners there–Shiraki’s Cleaners or whatever it is.” “Well, you’ll see a roadway on the left going up. The hotel is on top of the hill.”
(Kuapehu is above “the Captain Cook junction, where you go down to Napoopoo” – “that is where Princess Kapiolani [once] lived.”) (Paris; Social History of Kona)
