Hawaiian Traditions | Page 67 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 17, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Pahua Heiau

“The ships were very light, having such a quantity of water expended, and our rigging fore and aft stood much in need of repairing and overhauling …”

“… so that we thought it prudent to quit our present situation and proceed for King George’s Bay (Maunalua Bay,) Woahoo, where we could lie well sheltered from the prevailing winds, and do every thing necessary both to the hulls and rigging of the ships …” (Portlock)

Accounts of early western visitors to the southeast coast of O‘ahu suggest that the area from Waikīkī to Maunalua Bay, including Wai‘alae, Wailupe, Niu and Kuliʻouʻou was well-populated and that food resources were more than sufficient. Anchoring his ship, the King George, in Maunalua Bay in 1786, Captain Nathaniel Portlock reported:

“Soon after our arrival, several canoes came off and brought a few cocoa-nuts and plantains, some sugar-cane and sweet root; in return for which we gave them small pieces of iron and a few trinkets.” (Portlock)

“… as the people now brought us plenty of water, I determined to keep my present situation, it being in many respects an eligible one; for we hitherto had been favoured with a most refreshing sea breeze, which blows over the low land at the head of the bay …”

“… and the bay all around has a beautiful appearance, the low land and vallies being in a high state of cultivation, and crowded with plantations of taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, &c, interspersed with a great number of cocoa-nut trees, which renders the prospect truly delightful. (Portlock)

The name Maunalua (two mountains) is said to have been attributed to Ka Lae o Koko, also known as Kuamo‘okāne (today known as Koko Head), and Kohelepelepe (today known as Koko Crater.) (Coleman)

Pahua Heiau is one of dozens of recorded archaeological sites and one of four confirmed heiau sites in Maunalua and is one of the most significant sacred sites remaining in Maunalua (now known as Hawai‘i Kai) on the southeastern shore of the island of O‘ahu.

Consisting of stacked stone terraces arranged in a rectangular shape, Pahua is a heiau (temple or shrine, place of worship.) It measures 68 by 40 feet and is set against the base of the ridge dividing the Kamilonui and Kamiloiki Valleys. (Coleman)

“The heiau sits high on the hillside above the far inland head of Kua-pā Pond, also known as Keahupua–o–Maunalua Fishpond… In former times one could look out from this vantage point over the broad plain surrounding the pond below and stretching eastward across the “saddle” behind Koko Crater to Kalama and Wāwāmalu beyond.” (Bertell Davis; Coleman)

Archaeologists suggest that Pahua was once an agricultural heiau, constructed between the fifteenth and eighteenth century, although there are many theories surrounding its traditional usage and function. (Coleman) Some suggest I may be a ko‘a (fishing shrine.)

The interpretation of the word pā–hua as “an enclosure of fruits” has been used as a support the thought that it was an agricultural heiau.

The word hua not only has meanings associated with fruit, ovum and seeds, but also with general fertility and fruitfulness (particularly as applied to a high agricultural yield; the verb hua means to sprout. (Coleman)

When the archaeologist J Gilbert McAllister first documented Pahua as a field site in the 1930s, the heiau had been abandoned for some time; he was unable to definitively ascertain its function and significance, either from previously published works or from interviews with kamaʻāina living in the area.

If Pahua was an agricultural heiau, it is likely that the kapu surrounding it were not exceedingly strict, and it is possible that low-ranking ali‘i of the area may have constructed the site and worshiped there.

Pahua was the only name recorded for the heiau as given by a native Hawaiian informant to McAllister in the early 1930s. Despite the possibility that Pahua was not the original or proper name for the site, limited historical evidence suggests that it was.

For example, Pahua is also documented as a name for the area in nūpepa (Hawaiian language newspapers) during the early and mid-1800s.

Reference to Pahua as a place is found in one of the first kanikau (chant of mourning) ever printed in the nūpepa. In the August 8, 1834 issue of Ka Lama Hawai‘i, David Malo used the phrase “noho anea kula wela la o Pahua,” (tarrying in the vibrating heat of the hot plains of Pahua.) (Coleman)

One meaning of the word pahua is “down–trodden,” which can be used to describe grass that has been flattened. Although rare, this understanding of pahua correlates to the description of Pahua as a kula (plain) that is found in the kanikau (laments) printed in the nūpepa.

Maunalua was also known for cattle in the 1880s. Other variations of pahua also suggest a link to cattle; the meaning of the word pāhu‘a is similar to that of kīpuka (a clearing, an oasis, a change in form.)

And it especially refers to an area that is free of brush and vegetation, such as a pasture where it was easy to rope cows. The word pahu‘ā, (pahu, to push; ‘ā, to drive, as in cattle) also suggests a strong association with cattle. (Coleman)

Pahua Heiau was excavated and restored during a volunteer community service project directed by Bertell D Davis with the Outdoor Circle and others in 1985.

Excavation uncovered evidence that the heiau was constructed in several stages, but Davis was not able to determine the chronology of the construction sequence. (Jordan)

Pahua heiau sits on land gifted to Office of Hawaiian Affairs by Kamehameha Schools in 1988, OHA’s first land holding. The site is located on the slope at the south end of the ridge between Kamilo Nui and Kamilo Iki Valleys, overlooking the top end of Makahuena Place.

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Pahua_Heiau-OHA

Pahua heiau in Hawaii Kai, Honolulu, Oahu

Pahua_Heiau-maunalua

Pahua_Heiau-OHA

Pahua-Heiau-view-OHA

Pahua-Heiau-Outdoor Circle Sign

Pahua heiau in Hawaii Kai, Honolulu, Oahu

Pahua_Heiau-OHA

April 14, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Protection of Traditional & Customary Practices

Several Supreme Court Cases have reviewed and clarified Native Hawaiian rights to Traditional & Customary practices. The Court noted:

“Our proud legal tradition in this State of protecting Native Hawaiian rights is not of recent vintage, for even as far back as the days of the Hawaiian Kingdom, protections have been in place to ensure the continued exercise of traditional Hawaiian rights amidst the pressures exerted by countervailing interests of a changing society.

“[A number of legal cases have been appealed to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court. Decisions by the Court in those cases have defined, explained and clarified. The Supreme Court’s] “evolving jurisprudence concerning Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights has conceived of a system in which the State and its agencies …”

“… bear an affirmative constitutional obligation to engage in a meaningful and heightened inquiry into the interrelationship between the area involved, the Native Hawaiian practices exercised in that area, the effect of a proposed action on those practices, and feasible measures that can be implemented to safeguard the vitality of those practices.”

“When an individual of Native Hawaiian descent asserts that a traditionally exercised cultural, religious, or gathering practice in an undeveloped or not fully developed area would be curtailed by the proposed project, the State or the applicable agency is “obligated to address” this adverse impact …”

“Consequently, if customary and traditional Native Hawaiian practices are to be meaningfully safeguarded, “findings on the extent of their exercise, their impairment, and the feasibility of their protection” are paramount. … To effectively render such findings, it is imperative for the agency to receive evidence and then make “[a] determination … supported by the evidence in the record.” (Pollack, SCAP-14-0000873 2015:3-10)

Following are some of the cases that address Native Hawaiian rights to traditional and customary practices.

Oni v Meek (1858)

In 1858, Oni, a tenant of the ahupua‘a of Hono‘uli‘uli, O‘ahu, filed suit against John Meek, who had a lease over the entire ahupuaʻa. Oni brought suit when some of his horses, which had been pastured on Meek’s land, were impounded and sold.

Oni claimed that he had a right to pasture his horses on the land division as one of his traditional tenant rights (by custom and by language in the Kuleana Act).

On September 22, 1858, the Police Court of Honolulu rendered a judgment for Oni. Meek was ordered to pay $80.00 for two horses and $4.00 in court costs. At the request of the defendant (Meek), the case was appealed to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court was concerned with the right of a private property owner to use the land as he individually wished without having to share its use. The court said “the custom contended for is so unreasonable, so uncertain, and so repugnant to the spirit of the present laws, that it ought not to be sustained by judicial authority.”

The court also said “…it is perfectly clear that, if the plaintiff (Oni) is a hoaʻāina, holding his land by virtue of a fee simple award from the Land Commission, he has no pretense for claiming a right of pasturage by custom.” (Judicial History Center) The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Meek.

Common Law – Hawaiian Usage (1892)

In 1892, the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom and Queen Liliʻuokalani passed a law that recognized Hawaiian usage as part of the common law of the Kingdom, together with the common law of England. (McGregor & MacKenzie)

Act to Reorganize the Judiciary Department, ch. LVII, § 5, 1892 Laws of Her Majesty Lili‘uokalani, Queen of the Hawaiian Islands, provided for exceptions to the English common law that were “established by Hawaiian national usage.” (McGregor & MacKenzie)

This law, which is today known as Section 1-1 of the Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS), provided the basis for the rights of the makaʻāinana (common people) beyond the rights reserved under the Kuleana Act, so as to include whatever was broadly customary as Hawaiian usage prior to 1892. (McGregor & MacKenzie)

State Constitutional Amendments (1978)

In 1978, the State convened a historic constitutional convention that included recommendations that reaffirmed its commitment to Native Hawaiian interests and values.

The 1978 Constitutional Convention recognized the need to “preserve the small remaining vestiges of a quickly disappearing culture [by providing] a legal means … to recognize and reaffirm native Hawaiian rights.”

“The State reaffirms and shall protect all rights, customarily and traditionally exercised for subsistence, cultural and religious purposes and possessed by ahupua’a tenants who are descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778, subject to the right of the State to regulate such rights.” (Hawaiʻi Constitution, Section 7)

Kalipi v Hawaiian Trust Co (1982)

In 1982, plaintiff William Kalipi, a Moloka‘i taro farmer, sought access to private land in order to gather “ti leaf, bamboo, kukui nuts, kiawe, medicinal herbs and ferns.”

The Hawai‘i Supreme Court held that “lawful occupants of an ahupua‘a may, for the purposes of practicing native Hawaiian customs and traditions, enter undeveloped lands within the ahupua‘a to gather those items enumerated in HRS § 7-1.” (Belatti & Garcia)

The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court noted: “The statutory exception to the common law is thus akin to the English doctrine of custom whereby practices and privileges unique to particular districts continued to apply to residents of those districts in contravention of the common law.”

“This, however, is not to say that we find that all the requisite elements of the doctrine of custom were necessarily incorporated in § 1-1. Rather, we believe that the retention of a Hawaiian tradition should in each case be determined by balancing the respective interests and harm once it is established that the application of the custom has continued in a particular area.” (Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, Kapili, 656 P.2d 745 (1982))

Public Access Shoreline Hawai‘I (PASH) v Hawai‘i Planning Commission (1995)

In PASH, developer Nansay Hawai‘i, Inc. applied to the Hawai‘i County Planning Commission for a Special Management Area permit to develop a resort community covering over 450 acres of shoreline area on the Big Island of Hawai‘i.

The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court explained in PASH case that “the State’s power to regulate the exercise of customarily and traditionally exercised Hawaiian rights … necessarily allows the State to permit development that interferes with such rights in circumstances. Nevertheless, the State is obligated to protect the reasonable exercise of customarily and traditionally exercised rights of Hawaiians.”

In PASH, the court reaffirmed the State’s affirmative duty to protect customary rights as it regulates the development of land “previously undeveloped or not yet fully developed” in Hawai‘i. The court admonished State agencies, stating that they “[do] not have the unfettered discretion to regulate the rights of ahupua‘a tenants out of existence”.

The PASH Court also clarified that “those persons who are ‘descendants of native Hawaiians who inhabited the islands prior to 1778,’ and who assert otherwise valid customary and traditional Hawaiian rights under HRS 1-1, are entitled to protection regardless of their blood quantum.”

Pele Defense Fund v Paty (1992)

Plaintiff Pele Defense Fund challenged the exchange of more than 27,000 acres of public lands, including areas designated as Natural Area Reserve lands, between the State and a private landowner.

Related to this, it was determined that, “The nature and scope of the rights reserved to hoaʻāina (tenants) by custom and usage are to be defined according to the values, traditions and customs associated with a particular area as transmitted from one generation to the next in the conduct of subsistence, cultural, and religious activities.”

That case also found that residency of a particular ahupuaʻa was not required for gathering, noting, “Unlike other areas in Hawai‘i, Hawaiians historically crossed ahupua‘a boundaries in the Puna district. …”

“…The hunting and gathering patterns in the Puna district are unique because they are influenced, to a large extent, by an active volcano, Kīlauea. It can be reasonably inferred that volcanic eruptions in the Puna area force hunters and gatherers to change areas to find plants and animals for subsistence purposes.” (Circuit Court of the Third Circuit, Civil No. 89-089 2002)

The Pele Defense Fund decision extended rights to non-Hawaiians, noting, “Accordingly, non-Hawaiians could have the same right as Hawaiians, irrespective of Article XII, § 7, if they could prove that their rights were based on custom and usage.”

Water Use Permit Applications (2000)

“The Waiāhole Ditch System collects fresh surface water and dike-impounded ground water from the Koʻolau mountain range on the windward side of the island of Oʻahu and delivers it to the island’s central plain.”

“Beginning in Kahana Valley, the collection portion of the system proceeds along the windward side of the Koʻolaus, then passes under the Koʻolau crest to the leeward side at the North Portal. … The ditch system was built in significant part from 1913 to 1916 to irrigate a sugar plantation owned and operated by Oʻahu Sugar Company, Ltd. (OSCo).”

“Diversions by the ditch system reduced the flows in several windward streams, specifically, Waiāhole, Waianu, Waikāne, and Kahana streams, affecting the natural environment and human communities dependent upon them.”

“Diminished flows impaired native stream life and may have contributed to the decline in the greater Kāneʻohe Bay ecosystem, including the offshore fisheries. The impacts of stream diversion, however, went largely unacknowledged until, in the early 1990s, the sugar industry on Oʻahu came to a close.”

In 2000, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court noted “we continue to uphold the exercise of Native Hawaiian and traditional and customary rights as a public trust purpose. … [T]he mandate of ‘conservation’-minded use subsumed in our state’s water resources trust contemplates ‘protection’ of waters in their natural state as a beneficial use. … [T]his state bears an additional duty under Article XII, section 7 of its constitution to protect traditional and customary Native Hawaiian rights.”

Ka Pa‘akai o ka ‘Āina v Land Use Commission (2000)

In the dispute before the LUC, Native Hawaiian community organizations opposed the re-classification of over 1,000-acres from conservation to urban lands for the Ka‘ūpūlehu Resort Expansion, a luxury development project on the island of Hawai‘i.

Within the reclassified lands, the Court noted that the coastal point known as Kalaemanō and the historic 1800-1801 Ka‘ūpūlehu Lava Flow were two well-known physical features associated with native Hawaiian culture and history. The Court also noted the association of two historical figures to the petition area, Kame‘eiamoku and Kamanawa, two chiefs who served as advisers to Kamehameha I.

The Court reaffirmed special protections for Native Hawaiian cultural practices when it ruled that the State Land Use Commission (LUC) failed to satisfy its statutory and constitutional obligations to preserve and protect customary and traditional rights of Native Hawaiians.

Ultimately, the Court held that the LUC’s determinations were “insufficient to determine whether [the LUC] fulfilled its obligation to preserve and protect customary and traditional rights of native Hawaiians.”

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Hawaii Supreme Court

Oni v Meek (Hawaiʻi Judiciary)

Bill Paty signing 1978 Con Con Document (Honolulu Advertiser)

Pele Defense-Wao Kele o Puna Geothermal Well (WKOP Transfer Celebration)

PASH-Kohanaiki Beach Park (Live in Hawaiʻi)

Waterfall believed to be at Waiāhole (CWRM)

April 11, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

‘Upolu

In 1779, Captain Cook explored the North Kohala area and noted: “The country, as far as the eye could reach, seemed fruitful and well inhabited … (3 to 4-miles inland, plantations of taro and potatoes and wauke are) neatly set out in rows.”

“The walls that separate them are made of the loose burnt stone, which are got in clearing the ground; and being entirely concealed by sugar-canes planted close on each side, make the most beautiful fences that can be conceived …” (Cook Journal)

“The district of Kohala is the northernmost land area of the island of Hawaii. ‘Upolu Point, its northwesterly projection, fronts boldly out into Alanuihaha Channel toward the southeastern coast of Maui, and is the nearest point of communication between the two islands.”

“To the south, along Hawai‘i’s western coast, lies Kona; to the east the rough coast of Hāmākua District unprotected from the northerly winds and sea.” (Handy & Pukui)

“Kohala was the chiefdom of Kamehameha the Great, and from this feudal seat he gradually extended his power to embrace the whole of the island, eventually, gaining the suzerainty of all the Hawaiian Islands.”

“’Upolu, which is the old name of the valley in Tahiti now called Papeno‘o; likewise the old name of the island of Taha‘a, northwest of Tahiti, and the present name of the chief island of the Samoan group.” (Handy & Pukui)

Oral traditions trace the origin of Hawaiian luakini temple construction to the high priest Pā‘ao, who arrived in the islands in about the thirteenth century. He introduced several changes to Hawaiian religious practices that affected temple construction, priestly ritual, and worship practices.

“Pā‘ao is said to have made his first landfall in the district of Puna, Hawaii, where he landed and built a Heiau (temple) for his god and called it Waha‘ula.”

“From Puna Pā‘ao coasted along the shores of the Hilo and Hāmākua districts, and landed again in the district of Kohala, on a land called Pu‘uepa, near the north-west point of the island, whose name, ‘Lae Upolu,’ was very probably bestowed upon it by Pā‘ao or his immediate descendants in memory of their native land.” (Fornander)

“In this district of Hawaii Pā‘ao finally and permanently settled. Here are shown the place where he lived, the land that he cultivated, and at Pu‘uepa are still the ruins of the Heiau of Mo‘okini, which he built and where he officiated.”

Mo‘okini temple was last active as a war temple for Kamehameha I in the last two decades of the 18th century. It is said to have housed the Kamehameha family war god, Ku-ka-‘ili-moku, and this feathered god transferred to Pu‘ukohola Heiau, in 1791, when Kamehameha built this new war temple to assure his conquest of all the Hawaiian Islands.

According to Stokes, Mo‘okini Heiau was said to have been built from stones brought from Pololu Valley. It was believed that the stones were passed hand-to-hand by men standing in a line spanning the 15-mile distance from the valley.

“About 2,000 feet west of Mo‘okini Heiau and near the ocean is the birthplace of Kamehameha the Great. At the time of his birth, ca. 1753, the site was occupied by one of the thatched housing complexes of Alapa‘i-nui-a-Kauaua, ruling chief of the Island of Hawai’i.”

“The birth itself took place late at night within d one of the large thatched houses reserved for royal women. The named stone Pohaku-hanau-ali‘i may have been his mother’s couch inside the house.”

“Alapa‘i’s housing complex would have included a number of thatched houses as well as the canoe landing ‘harbor’ along the shore. The complex, with ‘harbor’ was called by the place name of Kapakaj, within the larger Hawaiian land division (an ahupua‘a) called Kokoiki.” (NPS)

By the time of contact, numerous coastal villages and extensive dryland agricultural systems were in place in North Kohala. This farming system lasted for several centuries and provided taro and sweet potato (the food staples of the time) to the growing population.

When that ended in the 1800s, it was followed several decades later with the commercial production of sugarcane that lasted for over 100‐years. Sugar production stopped in Kohala in 1975.

On June 25, 1927, an Executive Order set aside nearly 38-acres of the property for an airplane landing field for the US Air Service to be under the management and control of the War Department. In 1933, the Army named it Suiter Field, in honor of 1st Lieutenant Wilbur C Suiter who was killed in action serving in 135th Aero Squadron.

Suiter Field was first licensed in 1928. It was also alternatively referred to as Upolu Point Military Reservation, Upolu Landing Field, Upolu Airplane Landing Field and Upolu Airport.

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Kamehameha Birth Site

Mookini Heiau

Upolu Point Field, Hawaii, February 3, 1929

Upolu Point Landing Field-hawaii-gov)-1933

Upolu Airport-(hawaii-gov)-September 20, 1944

Upolu Air Field-(hawaii-gov)-August 13, 1945

Upolu Point-(hawaii-gov)-1955

Upolu Airport-(hawaii-gov)-May 9, 1973

Upolu_Point-(hawaii-gov)-October 24, 1973

April 7, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hui Lei Mamo

Hawaiʻi’s last King, Kalākaua, has been referred to as a Renaissance man. Concerned about the loss of native Hawaiian culture and traditions, Kalākaua encouraged the transcription of Hawaiian oral traditions, and supported the revival of and public performances of the hula.

He advocated a renewed sense of pride in such things as Hawaiian mythology, medicine, chant and hula. Ancient Hawaiians had no written language, but chant and hula served to record such things as genealogy, mythology, history and religion.

While seeking to revive many elements of Hawaiian culture that were slipping away, the King also promoted the advancement of modern sciences, art and literature.

He is remembered as the “Merrie Monarch” because he was a patron of culture and arts, and enjoyed socializing and entertaining.

All of Kalakaua’s dancers were kept on retainer and were given a place to live on the palace grounds. These dancers, musicians, and chanters were all compensated for performing. Dancing the hula for entertainment was their source of income. (Tong)

Kalākaua believed his nation and people would prosper with cultural rebirth and brought hula teachers from the countryside and neighboring islands to his court. At his 1883 coronation and 1886 50th birthday jubilee, Kalākaua’s dancers performed publicly on palace grounds for about two weeks on each occasion. (Imada)

“Kalākaua always had dancers in his court dancing for his pleasure…. There were parties for his guests from the mainland on their way to Australia with dancers as well. They weren’t only for his friends, but for everyone in Honolulu.” (Kupahu; Tong)

Through chanted poetry and bodily movements, these hula performers celebrated the births and achievements of ali‘i, recorded the genealogies of high chiefs, and relayed Hawaiian epics. Hula was also embedded in a culture of sexual arousal.

In 1886, the same year of his jubilee, Kalākaua assembled Hui Lei Mamo, a group of eight Hawaiian women and girls under the age of 20. Hui Lei Mamo was a ‘glee club’; it performed acculturated hula performance as well as choral music. (Imada)

As a member of the royal family and the reigning monarch of Hawai‘i, King Kalākaua had the rightful authority to dictate when the hula would be performed. (Tong)

While Kalākaua’s older court dancers performed pre-contact forms of hula with indigenous instrumentation and chanting, the young women of Hui Lei Mamo performed only the hula ku‘i, ‘the modern hula’.

An acculturated dance that developed in the king’s cosmopolitan court, hula ku‘i merged Western music and instruments with traditional hula steps. It is suggested that Kalākaua himself was the inventor of this hybrid genre …

“[The king] took some steps out of the old-fashioned [hula] and put them into the modern [hula] with guitar. He was the first one to start this.” (Kapahu; Imada)

Performed in Hawaiian language and accompanied by guitar and ’ukulele, this hula utilized polka or waltz tempos, couplet verses and a vamp that separated the verses.

Every Thursday afternoon from 2 to 5 pm, Kalākaua invited friends and out-of-town guests to Healani, his boathouse in Honolulu Harbor, where his younger court dancers performed hula ku‘i. (Imada)

When Kalākaua died in 1891, the dancers no longer had a place in court. Nevertheless, they continued to benefit directly from Kalākaua’s cultural renaissance through training in hula ‘schools’.

Called hālau hula or pā hula, these schools became gendered institutions through which a critical subset of Hawaiian women received rigorous training in performance, history, religion and protocol.

Namake‘elua (who is sometimes recorded as Nama-elua), a hula teacher Kalākaua summoned for his jubilee, had decided to remain in Honolulu instead of returning to his home on the island of Kaua‘i.

The handful of students undertook training in hula genres associated with Indigenous pre-European contact traditions, very different from the hula ku‘i of the court. (Imada)

Four women entered the hālau hula. Three of them were Hui Lei Mamo dancers. Their intensive training commenced in 1892, with the young women taking residence in the teacher’s home.

For about six weeks, the dancers were kapu (sacred or consecrated). They dedicated themselves to the goddess Laka, the patron of hula, and erected a hula kuahu (altar), imploring Laka to give them knowledge.

They danced for about six hours a day, taking swims in the ocean and meals in between practices. The repertoire was ‘very religious’. Hula practice was a part of a sacred realm and governed by strict rules, because hula performances manifested the gods’ and ali‘i’s mana (sacred power) and rank.

On the day of the ‘ūniki (ritual graduation), graduates of other hula schools came to watch the four women dance. Only after undergoing ‘ūniki were they released from sacredness and became noa (free). The following day, they celebrated their release with a feast and public performance for friends and family.

In 1893, some of these dancers went to the Chicago World’s Fair as part of the Midway Plaisance, a street of themed villages from around the world. The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair was the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

The Midway Plaisance was inspired by the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, where the French government and prominent anthropologists turned representations of the French colonies into ethnological villages featuring people from Africa and Asia. (Tong)

The performers who went abroad directly benefited from King David Kalākaua’s national revival of hula and traditional cultural arts during his reign from 1872 to 1891. (The image is believed to be the members of Hui Kei Mamo.)

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April 3, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mānoa Heritage Center

Mānoa Heritage Center is a non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Hawai‘i. The site consists of Kūali‘i, a Tudor-style house built in 1911, Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau and a Native Hawaiian garden.

The site is the former home of Charles Montague Cooke, Jr. Charles Montague Cooke Sr gave the land to his son in 1902. On it his son established Kaimi dairy.

In 1911, Emory & Webb, a major architectural firm in Honolulu, designed this house, and it stands as one of their major works from this period. Other works of theirs from this time include the YMCA and the First Methodist Church.

Amos Starr Cooke came to Hawai‘i in 1837 as a missionary. He and his wife Juliette, were selected by King Kamehameha III to educate the next generation of Hawai‘i leadership (including Kamehameha IV and V, Lunalilo, Kalākaua, Lili‘uokalani and others)

Cooke later founded the firm of Castle & Cooke in 1851, which became one of the ‘Big Five’ sugar companies, which dominated so much of Hawai’ i’s economic, social and political history up through World War II.

Charles Montague Cooke Jr. was the grandson of Amos Starr Cooke and the son of Charles Montague Cooke. His father was the President of both C Brewer, another of the ‘Big Five’ firms, and the Bank of Hawai’i.

Dr. Charles Montague Cooke Jr. was born in Honolulu in 1874, and attended Punahou and Yale. In 1901 he received his PhD and went to Europe to do scientific work in London and Paris.

In 1902 he returned to Hawai’i to work at the Bishop Museum, where he made valuable contributions to the field of malachology, the branch of zoology that deals with mollusks, especially with regards to the study of Hawaiian land snails. He headed a number of scientific expeditions throughout Polynesia and was the author of 45 scientific works. (NPS)

Kūali‘i, the house on the site, is a two-story Tudor revival style house. It is situated at the top of a hill in Mānoa Valley and has a large front lawn gracefully landscaped with several mature monkey pod and shower trees. The front of the house is separated from Mānoa Road by a stone wall, and a circular drive provides vehicular access to the property. (NPS)

The lava rock basement and first floor support half-timber and stucco second and third floors. The home has three bays with a large 2-story porte cochere off the center bay. Two stonewall chimneys anchor the outside bays. The stone was quarried in the front year where the driveway now circles between two stone pillars of the front rock wall.

The house was originally going to be sited where a heiau (temple) was situated – and use the stone from the heiau as the foundation. Instead, the house was located so as not to disturb the heiau. (Ferraro; Pōhaku) The heiau was later restored.

According to legends, the menehune built a fort and heiau at the top of the hill ‘Ulumalu. They were driven away from their fort by the high chief Kūali‘i during his reign (sometime in the 1700s). Kuali‘i rebuilt it after his seizure of the fort. (Cultural Surveys)

This heiau was the center piece of a string of heiaus that strung across the Kona district. The existence of such an important heiau at the mouth of the valley could be taken as an indication of the early importance of Mānoa.

Another legend says that the menehune were driven from their fort and temple by the owls, who became their bitter enemies.
The legends say that the fairy people, the Menehunes, built a temple and a fort a little farther up the valley above Pu‘u-pueo, at a place called Kūka‘ō‘ō.

Surrounding Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau is a Native Hawaiian garden featuring endemic and indigenous plants, as well as Polynesian introductions.

In addition, a Polynesian Introduced Garden offers an array of ‘Canoe Plants’ representing those that may have come with ancient seafarers from the Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa and other South Pacific archipelagoes.

The first settlers of Hawaiʻi arriving by canoe, brought many of their favorite plants for food, seasoning, medicine, making household items and implements to farm, build structures and use for clothing.

Taro (kalo) became the staple of the Hawaiian diet and they developed hundreds of varieties, adapted to suit diverse terrain and weather conditions. Sweet potato (uala) was sometimes substituted for taro in the drier areas.

Tumeric (ʻolena) was used to produce a brilliant yellow orange dye for clothing, coconut (niu) for bowls, drums and roof tops, and kawa (ʻawa) to ease a painful headache were treasured supplies. (Mānoa Heritage Center)

The house, heiau and gardens are part of the Mānoa Heritage Center, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote stewardship of the natural and cultural heritage of Hawai‘i. It was the home of Sam and Mary Cooke and the restoration of the property was through their efforts.

Currently, Kūka‘ō‘ō Heiau and garden tours are available, guided by volunteer docents. Reservations are needed with two-week advance notice preferred.

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