Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tree of Life

“If a man plant ten breadfruit trees in his life, which he can do in about an hour, he would completely fulfil his duty to his own as well as future generations.” (Joseph Banks, 1769)

Banks had been on the Endeavour with Captain Cook on his first voyage to the South Pacific in 1768-1771.  William Bligh was part of the Cook’s crew on its third voyage when it made contact with Hawaiʻi in 1778.

Bligh later captained the Bounty on a voyage to gather breadfruit trees from Tahiti and take them to Jamaica in the Caribbean. There, the trees would be planted to provide food for slaves.

Bligh didn’t make it back on the Bounty, his crew mutinied (April 28, 1789;) one reason for the mutiny was that the crew believed Bligh cared more about the breadfruit than them (he cut water rationing to the crew in favor of providing water for the breadfruit plants.)  Bligh’s tombstone, in part, reads he was the “first (who) transplanted the bread fruit tree.”

For thousands of years, Ulu (Breadfruit) was a staple food in Oceania.  It is believed to have originated in New Guinea and the Indo-Malay region and was spread throughout the vast Pacific by voyaging islanders.

According to a legend, the chief Kahai brought the breadfruit tree to Hawaiʻi from Samoa in the twelfth century and first planted it at Kualoa, Oʻahu. Only one variety was known in Hawaiʻi, while more than 24 were distinguished by native names in the South Seas.  (CTAHR)

It was a canoe crop – one of around 30 plants brought to the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians when they first arrived in Hawaiʻi.

“This tree, whose fruit is so useful, if not necessary, to the inhabitants of most of the islands of the South Seas, has been chiefly celebrated as a production of the Sandwich Islands; it is not confined to these alone, but is also found in all the countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean.”  (Book of Trees, 1837)

Known as ‘Ulu’ in Hawaiʻi and Samoa, ‘Uru’ is the Tahitian word for the tree, ‘Kuru’ in the Cook Islands, and ‘Mei’ in the Marquesas, Tonga and Gambier Islands, scientifically, it’s known as Artocarpus altilis.

William Dampier, claims credit for giving the fruit its English name, breadfruit. His description of it, from his 1688 Voyage Round the World, notes:

“The Bread-fruit (as we call it) grows on a large Tree, as big and high as our largest Apple trees. It hath a spreading head full of branches, and dark leaves. …”

“When the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft; and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The Natives of this Island use it for bread: they gather it when full grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an Oven, which scorcheth the rind and makes it black:”

“but they scrape off the outside black crust, and there remains a tender thin crust, and the inside is soft, tender and white like the crumb of a Penny Loaf.”

“There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but it is all of a pure substance like Bread; it must be eaten new; for if its kept above 24 hours, it becomes dry, and eats harsh and choaky; but ’tis very pleasant before it is too stale. The fruit lasts in season 8 months in the year, during which time the Natives eat no other sort of food of Bread kind.”  (Smith)

The breadfruit is multipurpose, it may be eaten ripe as a fruit or under-ripe as a vegetable – it is roasted, baked, boiled, fried, pickled, fermented, frozen, mashed into a puree, and dried and ground into meal or flour.

The Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawai‘i, is engaged in a Global Hunger Initiative to expand plantings of good quality breadfruit varieties in tropical regions.

Click here for a link to the NTBG Breadfruit Institute.

More than 80% of the world’s hungry live in tropical and subtropical regions – this is where breadfruit thrives.  The trees require little attention or care, producing an abundance of fruit with minimal inputs of labor or materials.

Trees begin to bear fruit in three to five years, producing for many decades.  Crop yields are superior to other starchy staples. An average-sized tree will readily produce 100-200 fruit per year.

The Breadfruit Institute manages the world’s largest collection of breadfruit, conserving over 120 varieties. The Institute has developed effective methods to propagate and distribute millions of plants of productive nutrient-rich varieties.

This initiative aims to disseminate breadfruit plants to alleviate hunger and support sustainable agriculture, agroforestry and reforestation in the tropics.

The same can hold true, here at home.

Centuries ago, the Hawaiians recognized breadfruit’s benefit and brought it with them to Hawaiʻi – we can learn from that.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sandalwood Era

“When the first people arrived in Hawai’i by canoe, Sandalwood (‘iliahi) grew abundantly. They found medicinal and other practical uses for the tree, including using the pulverized wood to scent bark cloth used for clothing and bedding.” (Elisabeth C. Miller Library)

“The Hawaiian people were familiar with the pleasant aroma of the iliahi. They called its wood laau ala (or laau aala), meaning “fragrant wood,” and they sprinkled finely powdered heartwood on their kapa or bark doth to perfume it.” (St John)

“For centuries the sandalwood, with its pleasantly fragrant dried heartwood, was much sought for. In the Orient, particularly in China, Burma, and India, the wood was used for the making of idols and sacred utensils for shrines, choice boxes and carvings, fuel for funeral pyres, and joss sticks to be burnt in temples.”

“The distilled oil was used in numerous medicines, perfumes, and cosmetics, and as a body rub. The thick oil pressed from the seed was used as illuminating oil.” (St John)

“The fragrant wood was a principal commodity of the American China traders, prized by the Chinese mainly for incense but also for furniture and craft objects.” (Johnston)  “White men also traded along the Northwest Coast for furs and other goods, stopping in Hawaii to replenish their ships before sailing to the market in Canton.” (Kashay)

“The islands’ animals, fruits, and vegetable could only go so far in paying for the silks, satins, china, furniture, and other goods that the chiefs desired.”

“At the same time, American and British businessmen’s need to sell items in order to gain wealth persisted. The discovery of sandalwood at the islands made it possible for both these needs and desires to be met.” (Kashay)

“The early 19th century in the Hawaiian Islands is known as the ‘Sandalwood Era,’ where it is estimated that as many as 90% of Hawaiian sandalwood trees were felled and exchanged for ships and supplies. As a result, most Hawaiian sandalwood taxa are now rare or threatened”. (Harbaugh etal)

“American and British merchants exchanged guns, powder, cloth, glass, and New England rum for Hawaiian sandalwood. In turn, they traded the fragrant wood to the Chinese for silk, china, furniture, and the like.” (Kashay)

While the chiefs “could consume the goods their people produced without remuneration, capitalists required payment. The islands’ animals, fruits, and vegetable could only go so far in paying for the silks, satins, china, furniture, and other goods that the chiefs desired.”

“At the same time, American and British businessmen’s need to sell items in order to gain wealth persisted. The discovery of sandalwood at the islands made it possible for both these needs and desires to be met.”  (Kashay)

“From 1790 to 1810 sandalwood may have been exported, but if so, in very small quantity, for little record is found.” (St John) “The sandalwood era started in 1804 and lasted until about 1842.” (Seto Levin)

“Then, in 1809, two brothers, the American ship captains Jonathan Winship of the “Albatross” and Nathan Winship of the “O’Cain,” started on a voyage that established the sandalwood trade.”

“After trading for furs on the coast of Oregon, they sailed in October, 1811, for Honolulu, where they and Captain William Heath Davis of the “Isabella” took on cargoes of sandalwood. The ships sailed to Canton, where the fragrant wood was sold at a large profit.”

“Returning to Honolulu, the three captains persuaded King Kamehameha I to grant them a monopoly of the sandalwood and cotton trade for 10 years. Loading five ships, the three captains sailed to Canton and thus established a highly remunerative traffic.” (St John)

“(W)hen the captains returned to Honolulu they found Kamehameha unfriendly. He canceled their trade monopoly and refused to renew it …. Thereafter, though no longer a trader’s monopoly, the sandalwood trade developed rapidly and throve from 1815 to 1826 … The wood was marketed in China by the picul (133 1/3-pounds) and its value fluctuated from $3.00 to $18.00.” (St John)

“[T]he sandalwood trade reached its peak between 1810-1819. During these years, plenty of good quality wood could be found in the easily accessible lowlands of the islands. This timber fetched a high price in China, somewhere between a $120-$ 150 a ton. “With his monopoly of the trade, Kamehameha I could net as much as $300,000 or more annually.” (Kashay)

“But, by the 1820s, the supply of sandalwood had diminished. Excessive cutting of the timber had reduced the Hawaiians to searching for stands of the fragrant wood in the inaccessible mountains at the center of the islands. Generally, this wood proved inferior to that which had been previously logged.” (Kashay)

“By the 1820s, the whaling industry brought more western men to the islands. They arrived either to replenish their vessels or to sell goods to those who did. In all of these cases, the lure of great wealth led westerners to settle permanently.” (Kashay)

“As the exchange in sandalwood declined in the late 1820s, the resident foreign merchants made up for their lost revenues by increasing their trade in provisions with the new whale fleets that were cruising the Pacific.”  (Kashay)

“The successive Hawaiian kings at first followed the example of the shrewd Kamehameha I and kept sandalwood as a royal monopoly, but later they shared it with the higher chiefs.” (St John)

“As with the Native American fur trade, the sandalwood trade allowed the chiefs to buy western goods on credit. (Kashay)  In the Islands, “Business seems to have been conducted, to a very considerable extent, by barter.”

“Sandal wood was the chief article, indeed it might almost have been called the standard coin, although Spanish silver more nearly reached that definition.  There is constant mention of sticks or piculs of the wood, but none of money.” (Hunnewell)

“As the king bought greater and greater quantities of imported goods, his demands for sandalwood in taxes became greater and more frequent.” (St John)

“All the inhabitants able to go were ordered into the hills in search of the precious wood. The trees were cut down and chopped into logs 6 to 8 feet long; then with adzes the bark and sapwood were chipped off.”

“Men and women tied the logs to their backs with the fibrous leaves of the ti and trudged to the measuring pit or to the shore.” (St John) There were “frequent and unannounced trips by chiefs throughout their lands to observe the local populations, direct their activities (such as sandalwood cutting)”. (Johnston)

“The tax levies increased, becoming more and more exacting, and as all chroniclers agree, they became an intolerable burden on the people. As the easily accessible sandalwood stands had been felled, the people had to climb farther and farther into the wet, cold mountain forests and the quests were no longer like idyllic song fests.”

“The people were driven to the task, and many died of exposure in the mountains. While they were away in the interior, crops and taro patches were neglected, so that famine came to the islands and took its toll of the king’s subjects.” (St John)

“The advent of the sandalwood trade was not without consequence for the whole society. External trade formerly consisted of the exchange of food for iron and this trade did not overburden Hawaii’s subsistence economy.”

“But the collection of sandalwood for trade entailed diverting a large portion of the labour force from subsistence agriculture to the grueling task of cutting trees in the mountain forests and hauling them long distances to the seacoast.”

“A direct consequence of this diversion of labour was that many of the fields were left uncultivated and fishing virtually ceased and that whatever was cultivated was harvested for the ali’i and their konohiki ‘managers’; the makaainana went hungry.”

“Moreover the new use of labour reinforced the breach already existing between the makaainana and the ali’i. The ali’i now viewed the makaainana not as junior kinsmen but as a resource to be exploited.” (Seto Levin)

“The following are the regulations adopted and enforced by the Sandwich Island authorities, in December, 1826, for the purpose of raising revenue to discharge their debts due to citizens of the United States:”

“Every man is required to deliver a half picul of good sandalwood [a picul being 133 lbs.] to the governor of the district to which he belongs, on or before the 1st day of September, 1827; in case of not being able to procure the sandalwood, four Spanish dollars, or any property worth that sum, will be taken in payment.”

“No person, except those who are infirm, or too advanced an age to go to the mountains, will be exempted from this law. Every woman of the age of 13 years or upwards, is to pay a mat, 12 feet long and 6 wide, or tapa of equal value, (to such a mat,) or the sum of one Spanish dollar, on or before the 1st day of September, 1827….”

“Every man who shall proceed to the mountains for sandal-wood shall be at liberty to cut one pecul, and, on delivering half a pecul to the person appointed to receive it, shall be entitled to sell the other half, on his own account, to whomsoever he may think proper.” (Thomas AP Catesby Jones, Feb 4, 1845 Report No. 92)

“On one occasion we saw nearly two thousand persons, laden with fagots [bundles] of sandalwood, coming down from the mountains to deposit their burthens in the royal store houses, and then depart to their homes–wearied with their unpaid labors, yet unmurmuring in their bondage.”

“In fact, the condition of the common people is that of slaves; they hold nothing which may not be taken from them by the strong hand of arbitrary power, whether exercised by the sovereign or a petty chief. (Journal of Tyerman & Bennet, April 18, 1822)

“Even in the time of Kamehameha I the sandalwood had been much depleted, so that this monarch put a kapu (ban) on the cutting of young trees.” (St John)

By 1849, “The Oahu Sandal-wood, the Iliahi, or Laau ala (fragrant wood) of the Hawaiians, is now to be found in only one place, called Kuaohe, where it grows on the slopes of hills, close to the sea.”  (Seemann, in Journal of Botany)

“Of the splendid groves, with the produce of which formerly so many ships were laden, but a few isolated bushes, which do not exceed three feet in height and an inch in diameter, remain, and these would probably disappear had they not been protected by the law, and thus escaped being converted into fuel.” (Seemann, in Journal of Botany)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Rock Walls

Uhau humu pōhaku, or dry stacking, is masonry without mortar or metal joinery. “Each layer is locked into place by the one below.” (Gino Bergman; Simon)

Other gravity-resistant touches include inwardly tilting facades and adjacent stones that clench together like upper and lower jaws of teeth. (Simon)

“[S]tone structures of the old Hawaiians … were of rough stone, dry laid, and consist of pyramidal and enclosed temples which will properly be considered with the Ancient Worship, and extensive walls enclosing fish preserves on the fringing coral reefs, which belong again to the Fisheries.”

“In both these stone works it was the great labor expended in collecting, transporting and placing the stones rather than any architectural skill that made them noteworthy. … Cut stones for building purposes were rare, and in all cases they were shaped from slabs of lava by patient hammering.”

“The stone walls of the heiau often tumbled down on Hawaii in the frequent earthquakes, but I do not know that they were ever made the objects of the victor’s destroying wrath in the interminable petty wars, while the walls of the fish ponds were usually broken down to let out the fish and so materially injure the conquered owners.” (Brigham)

The Great Wall, or Pā Puʻuhonua, is a massive L-shaped structure that bounds the puʻuhonua on its eastern and southern sides. The wall stands nearly 12 feet tall, 18 feet in width, and stretches 965 feet in length. Constructed over 400 years ago, the Great Wall continues to protect the puʻuhonua, the people, and ceremonial sites contained within from the outside world.

The Great Wall was built using traditional, dry masonry techniques in which unmodified cobbles and boulders were fitted together without the use of mortar. The structure was originally constructed with two outer walls faced with ‘alā (volcanic stones, often water worn and with smooth faces).

Archaeological investigations conducted in the 1919 and 1963 revealed two distinct techniques of masonry design within the interior of the structure.

The first style, known as pa’o (caverned), is an open work construction technique accomplished by laying lava slabs on top of upright columns. This architectural style is unique to the Pu‘uhonua o Honaunau park lands and, thus far, has been documented nowhere else on the Hawaiian Archipelago.

The other type of interior construction noted within the Great Wall is haka haka or vacant spaces. Commonly used throughout Hawaiʻi Island, haka haka uses broken, angular stone rubble to fill the interior cavity of the outer walls. (NPS)

However, not all of the rock walls you see were built by Hawaiians.  “Although the role of Japanese immigrants in shaping Hawaiian plantation culture is frequently acknowledged, their contributions to paniolo culture have been underemphasized.”

“The first Japanese contract laborers arrived in Hawai‘i in 1885, primarily to harvest sugarcane and pineapple. The Humu’ula Sheep Company made use of the same labor pool, particularly in the summer when most sheep shearing took place.”

“H. Hackfeld & Company also owned a number of sugar plantations and moved Japanese contract laborers seasonally depending on where they were needed.” (Peter Mills)

Maly notes that the primary tasks for the Japanese employees at the sheep station included, “construction of stone walls, fences, and carpentry; sheering and herding sheep; baling wool; trail and road work; garden work; setting of phone poles and lines; weeding thistle and gorse; and general facility maintenance.” (Kumu Pono)

By 1885, the Humu‘ula lease was held by the Humu‘ula Sheep Company, which in that year obtained the lease for the east side of Ka‘ohe, while Parker Ranch continued to lease the west side. The company hired immigrant stonemasons to build stone walls around their grazing lands in the 1890s; portions of these are still standing. (CARA)

“Through 1890 and the summer of 1892, the names of 29 Japanese laborers and 12 Chinese laborers appear in August Haneberg’s journal. They worked on various tasks, including shearing sheep, building walls, weeding, working on a cart road between stations, and constructing a telephone line between Kalai’ehā and Hopuwai.” (Peter Mills)

“Between 1893 and 1895, many miles of stone walls were built by several Japanese laborers who camped at the Humu‘ula headquarters.  The fence along the south boundary, the kīpuka [oasis within a lava bed] of ‘Āina hou near Pu‘u Huluhulu, is still intact in portions along the Saddle Road.”

“Parts of the wall were buried in the 1935 lava flow.  The north wall can still be seen meandering steeply up the Mauna Kea slope from the Humu‘ula-Mānā Road near Pu‘u‘ō‘ō.”  (Billy Bergin)

“Billy Paris was saying that [with the] 1928 or ’29 earthquake, he was thinking too, that out at Pu‘u Wa‘awa‘a when the earthquake happened, they brought in a lot of Japanese stone wall masons and they went into the mountain … to go rebuild the walls that were required.” (Kepa Maly)

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Kūpeʻe Niho ʻIlio

“The hula was a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s minds.”

“Its view of life was idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.”

“As to subject-matter, its warp was spun largely from the bowels of the old-time mythology into cords through which the race maintained vital connection with its mysterious past.”

“The people were superstitiously religious; one finds their drama saturated with religious feeling; hedged about with tabu, loaded down with prayer and sacrifice. “

“They were poetical; nature was full of voices for their ears; their thoughts came to them as images; nature was to them an allegory; all this found expression in their dramatic art.”

“The ancient Hawaiians did not personally and informally indulge in the dance for their own amusement, as does pleasure loving society at the present time.”

“We are wont to think of the old-time Hawaiians as light-hearted children of nature, given to spontaneous outbursts of song and dance as the mood seized them …”

“… quite as the rustics of ‘merrie England’ joined hands and tripped ‘the light fantastic toe’ in the joyous month of May or shouted the harvest home at a later season. “

“The genius of the Hawaiian was different.”

“With him the dance was an affair of premeditation, an organized effort, guarded by the traditions of a somber religion. And this characteristic, with qualifications, will be found to belong to popular Hawaiian sport and amusement of every variety.” (Nathaniel Bright Emerson.)

The costume of the hula dancer was much the same for both sexes, its chief article a simple short skirt about the waist, the pa-u.  When the time has come for a dance, the halau becomes one common dressing room. At a signal from the kumu the work begins. The putting on of each article of costume is accompanied by a special song.

First come the ku-pe‘e, anklets of whale teeth, bone, shell-work, dog-teeth, fiber-stuffs, and what not. While all stoop in unison they chant the song of the anklet:

Aala kupukupu ka uka o Kane-hoa.
E ho-a!
Hoa na llma o ka makani, he Wai-kaloa
He Wai-kaloa ka makanl anu Lihue.
Alina lehua i kau ka opua
Ku’u pua,
Ku’u pua i‘ini e ku-i a lei.
Ina ia oe ke lei ‘a mai ia.

Fragrant the grasses of high Kane-hoa.
Bind on the anklets, bind!
Bind with finger deft as the wind
That cools the air of this bower.
Lehua bloom pales at my flower,
O sweetheart of mine,
Bud that I’d pluck and wear in my wreath,
If thou wert but a flower!
(Anklet Song, Emerson)

“In times long past anklets made from hundreds of dog teeth which, strung on a foundation of olona netting in much the same manner as feathers were woven into the fabric of a fiber mesh to make the famous feather capes, were worn in the hula to accentuate the rhythms of the feet in dancing. They were called kupee niho ilio, dog tooth bracelets.” (Roberts)

’The canine teeth of dogs (’ilio) with holes drilled through the root and strung on a cord have been regarded as dog-tooth necklaces (lei ’ilio).’

‘They may have been used temporarily as such, but it is more likely that they were so strung until a sufficient number had been collected to make the dog-tooth leg ornament characteristic of Hawaii.’

’Dogtooth leg ornaments (kupe’e niho ’ilio), worn by men dancers, are peculiar to Hawaii.’ (Buck)  They could also be considered instruments, as they underlined the sounds of stamping feet.

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Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau

“The ancient system consisted in the many tabus, restrictions or prohibitions, by which the high chiefs contrived, to throw about their persons a kind of sacredness, and to instil into the minds of the people a superstitious awe and peculiar dread.”

“If the shadow of a common man fell on a chief, it was death; if he put on a kapa or a malo of a chief, it was death; if he went into the chief’s yard, it was death; if he wore the chief’s consecrated mat, it was death; if he went upon the house of the chief, it was death.”

“If a man stood on those occasions when he should prostrate himself, (such as) when the king’s bathing water… (was) carried along, it was death. If a man walked in the shade of the house of a chief with his head besmeared with clay, or with a wreath around it, or with his head wet… it was death.”

“There were many other offenses of the people which were made capital by the chiefs, who magnified and exalted themselves over their subjects.”  (Dibble)

The social rules for interaction with gods and members of the chiefly class were legion, and death by human sacrifice was the default punishment in many cases.  (Shoenfelder)

Puʻuhonua were locations which, through the power of the gods and the generosity of the chiefs, afforded unconditional absolution to those who broke taboos, disobeyed rulers, or committed other crimes.  (Schoenfelder)

Ethno-historical literature, and available physical, cultural, and locational data, note at least 57-sites across the Islands.  Puʻuhonua tended to occur in areas of high population and/or in areas frequented by chiefs.  (Schoenfelder)

These range from enclosed compounds such as Hōnaunau, to platforms (Halulu on Lānaʻi), to fortified mountain-tops (Kawela on Molokaʻi), to unmodified natural features (Kūkaniloko on Oʻahu) and to entire inhabited land sections, as at Lāhainā on Maui. (Schoenfelder)

Recognized as one of the significant puʻuhonua, and one that is well preserved and presented for the rest of us to understand was Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau on the Kona coast on the Island of Hawaiʻi.

The Place of Refuge, termed the ‘City of Refuge’ by Rev. William Ellis in 1823, with its adjoining chiefly residences. Beyond the boundaries of the “Palace Grounds”, around the head of Hōnaunau Bay, lived the chiefly retainers and the commoners. South of the Place of Refuge were scattered settlements along the coast and inland under the cliffs of Keanaee.  (NPS)

“The Puhonua at Hōnaunau is a very capacious one, capable of containing a vast multitude of people. In time of war, the females, children, and old people of the neighbouring districts, were generally left within it, while the men went to battle. Here they awaited in safety the issue of the conflict, and were secure against surprise and destruction in the event of a defeat.”  (Ellis, 1823)

“These Puhonuas were the Hawaiian ‘Cities of Refuge,” and afforded an inviolable sanctuary to the guilty fugitive, who, when flying from the avenging spear, was so favoured as to enter their precincts.”  (Ellis, 1823)

“Hither the manslayer, the man who had broken a taboo, or failed in the observance of its rigid requirements, the thief, and even the murderer, fled from his incensed pursuers, and was secure. To whomsoever he belonged, and from whatever part he came, he was equally certain of admittance, though liable to be pursued even to the gates of the enclosure.”  (Ellis, 1823)

“Happily for him, those gates were perpetually open. Whenever war was proclaimed, and during the period of actual hostilities, a white flag was unfurled on the top of a tall spear, on the outside, at each end of the enclosure, and until’ the conclusion of peace, waved the symbal of hope to those, who, vanquished in fight, might flee thither for protection.”

“To the spot, on which this banner was unfurled, the victorious warrior might chase his routed foes. But here he must himself fall back. Beyond it he must not advance one step, on pain of forfeiting his life.”

“The priests and their adherents – would immediately put to death anyone, who should have the temerity to follow, or molest those, who were once within the pale of the pahu tabu, and, and as they expressed it, under the shade, or skreening protection, of the spirit of Keave, the tutelar deity of the place.”  (Ellis, 1823)

A structure there, Hale-O-Keawe was erected around 1650 to serve as a temple mausoleum for the ruling chiefs of Kona. It served as the major temple for the “Place of Refuge” until 1819, when the religious laws (kapu) were abandoned.

“The appearance of the house was good. Its posts and rafters were of kauila wood, and it was said that this kind of timber was found in the upland of Napu’u. It was well built, with crossed stems of dried ti leaves, for that was the kind of thatching used.”

“The appearance inside and outside of the house was good to look at. The compact bundles of bones (pukuʻi iwi) that were deified (hoʻokuaʻia) were in a row there in the house, beginning with Keawe’s near the right side of the door by which one went in and out, and going to the spot opposite the door (kuʻono).”  (John Papa ʻĪʻi)

“It is a compact building, 24 feet by 16, constructed with the most durable timber, and thatched with ti leaves, standing on a bed of lava, which runs out a considerable distance into the sea. It is surrounded by a strong fence, or paling, leaving an area in the front and at each end, about twenty-four feet wide, paved with smooth fragments of lava laid down with considerable skill.”

“Several rudely carved male and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure; some on low pedestals, under the shade of an adjacent tree; others on high posts, on the jutting rocks that hung over the edge of the water.”  (Ellis, 1823)

“The zeal of Kaʻahumanu led her as early as 1829 to visit the Hale O Keawe at Honaunau, a cemetery associated with dark superstitions, and surrounded with horrid wooden images of former generations. The regent visited the place not to mingle her adorations with her early contemporaries and predecessors to the relics of departed mortals, but for the purpose of removing the bones of twenty-four deified kings and princes of the Hawaiian race….”  (Bingham)

“… when she saw it ought to be done, she determined it should be done: and in company with Mr. Ruggles and Kapiolani, she went to the sacred deposit, and caused the bones to be placed in large coffins and entombed in a cave in the precipice at the head of Kealakekua Bay.”  (Bingham)

The puʻuhonua was deeded to Miriam Kekāuluohi, a granddaughter of Kamehameha I, in the Māhele of 1848, and it was inherited, upon her death, by Levi Haʻalelea, her second husband. In 1866, the property was auctioned by Ha‘alelea’s estate to Charles Kana‘ina, the father of William Charles Lunalilo.

Kana‘ina, however, did not pay the $5,000 bid, and Charles Reed Bishop stepped in to purchase Ha‘alelea’s land for that same amount on April 1, 1867. In 1891, six years after Pauahi’s death, Bishop deeded the land to the trustees of the Bishop Estate who leased it to one of their members, SM Damon.

Damon was responsible for the 1902 restoration work on the Great Wall and the stone platforms of two heiau, Hale O Keawe and ‘Ale‘ale‘a. The County of Hawai‘i took over Damon’s lease in 1921. That lease expired in 1961 when the then County Park was acquired by the US National Park Service.  (deSilva)

Originally established in 1955 as City of Refuge National Historical Park, Puʻuhonua O Hōnaunau National Historical Park was renamed on November 10, 1978.

Further reconstruction consisted of four terraces and a passage between the southern end of the platform and the northern end of the Great Wall. In 1966-67 Edmund J Ladd directed the excavation and re-stabilization of the Hale o Keawe platform. Ladd’s excavations in addition to historical accounts indicated that the platform did not originally have multiple tiers; therefore, the 1967 work restored the platform to its more authentic form that joins the Great Wall on its south side.

After the platform was restored, the thatched hale, wooden palisade, and kiʻi were also rebuilt on the site. Since the time of Ladd’s initial reconstruction, the Hale o Keawe structure and carved wooden kiʻi have been replaced on two occasions with the most recent efforts being completed in 2004.  (NPS)

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