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September 11, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Ho‘ohano

“Farewell to the beautiful flower of the doctor’s garden;
It has fallen and vanished away;
The flower that budded first and blossomed fair.
Its splendor was seen; its fragrance exhaled;
But the burning sun came and it withered.
And that beautiful blossom has fallen!
The occupant of the garden then wondered
That a certain flower should have fallen. …
How beautifully did the plant flourish;
Great compassion for the tenant resident;
Mourning and searching with great lamentation;
Whither, O Gerrit, hast thou gone?
When wilt thou return to thy birthmates?
Alone hast thou gone in the way that is lonely;
Thou hast gone a stranger in an unknown path.”

Gerrit Parmele and Laura Fish Judd’s first child, Gerrit Parmele Judd II, was born March 8, 1829; he died November 13, 1839. Ho‘ohano an assistant of Dr Judd was much attached to the boy. The night after he died he watched by the body, and composed the above poem in Hawaiian. (Owen)

The Judd’s were part of the 3rd Company of missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM,) arriving in the Islands in 1828.

Judd, a medical missionary, had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician, intending to treat native Hawaiians for the growing number of diseases introduced by foreigners. He immersed himself in the Hawaiian community, becoming a fluent speaker of Hawaiian.

Ho‘ohano, a graduate of Lahainaluna, was a medical student, of whom Mrs Judd said, “He was a valuable assistant both in the preparation of medicines and prescribing for office patients.” (Judd)

Dr Judd sought to learn of Hawaiian traditional medicine and incorporate it with his Western practice. Western medicine in the 1820s and 1830s was not as advanced as many people assume it to be. There were few endemic diseases before Western contact. The physical treatments of Western doctors and Kahana Lā‘au Lapa‘au were actually very similar. (Mission Houses)

“It has been an object with me not to oppose the practice of the native physicians in mass, but to endeavor by the best means in my power to correct and modify their practice so that it shall save, not kill, the people.”

“It is my intention, if possible, the coming year to make Ho‘ohano acquainted with the native practice as it now exists and make him the agent for collecting facts upon the subject.”

“It is out of the question for us to think of putting down the native practice unless we will attend to all the sick ourselves, since it is not in human nature to be sick and die without seeking some means of alleviation”

“The idea of improving the native doctors has therefore suggested itself to me as an exceedingly important on demanding immediate attention.”

“These investigations occupied several weeks of the year and have been continued as opportunity afforded. We also instituted a series of experiments on native medicines which resulted pretty much as all experiments of the kind usually do.” (Judd, 1839 Medical Report)

“The names of Medicines and diseases so far as we have proceeded are in the Hawaiian language. … Ho‘ohano is competent to do what in our common language is called giving out medicine, bleed, cup, dress wounds, open abscesses &c &c.” (Judd, 1839)

The student rooster of Lāhaināluna Seminary has a Ho‘okano listed for the class of 1833 who attended for four years from Honolulu on the island of O‘ahu. Ho‘okano would have graduated by 1837 and then could have returned to Honolulu to be employed by Dr. Judd. (Mission Houses)

“Some attention has been likewise been bestowed in teaching him to read proof sheets, which he is now qualified to do with tolerable correctness, for which he is paid a small sum out of the appropriation for the Printing Department.”

“His board I have furnished at my own expense & have drawn about 25$ for his clothing from the Department. Whether this experiment will prove a successful one is yet quite uncertain, although thus far appearances are favorable.” (Judd)

“It has been my object to place the common Office practice as much as possible into the hands of native assistants, and this has been attended with much encouraging success.”

“Hoohano & Kalili (another medical assistant) have both rendered themselves useful the former however much the most so as his previous acquirements and habits of mental application render him much the best qualified for the profession.” (Judd, 1839 Medical Report)

“Ho‘ohano died the last of June (1840) … his death must therefore be regretted as a loss to his people.” (Judd) He “followed his little friend along his ‘lonely pathway,’ both leaving some evidence of having been reconciled to God through the death of his Son.” (Bingham) (Judd’s assistant has been referred to as Ho‘ohano and Ho‘okano.)

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Judd_Dispensatory-MissionHouses
Judd_Dispensatory-MissionHouses

Filed Under: General, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Hawaii, Gerrit Judd, Medicine, Hoohano, Hookano

September 8, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

‘Oʻopu Nōpili

The five native freshwater fish of Hawai‘i are referred to as ‘o‘opu. Scientifically, they are actually two distinct families. The family Gobiidae (Goby – one of the largest fish families in the world) includes four species of ʻoʻopu, the nakea, naniha, nōpili and ‘alamo‘o. The ʻoʻopu ‘akupa is in the Eleotridae family. (Wascher)

All species of Hawaiian ʻoʻopu begin their life in the streams. Newly hatched larvae are swept out into the ocean, where they continue development.

After about six months in the ocean ʻoʻopu nōpili, now called “hinana” (together with the larvae of the other four freshwater fish species,) return to the streams. (Schoenfuss)

Different ʻoʻopu are found in different parts of the stream; the distribution is mainly influenced by the climbing ability of each species. (Schoenfuss)

Many gobies can inch their way up waterfalls with the aid of a sucker on their bellies formed from fused pelvic fins. The Nōpili rock-climbing goby, on the other hand, can climb waterfalls as tall as 330-feet with the aid of a second mouth sucker.

“For a human to go the equivalent distance based on body size, it’d be like doing a marathon, some 26 miles long, except climbing up a vertical cliff-face against rushing water.” (Researcher Richard Blob; Choi; LiveScience)

Spawning occurs between August and March and eggs are deposited in crevices under rocks and pebbles. Nests are laid in territories defended by males. Eggs hatch within two to three days and larvae are washed out to sea as oceanic plankton.

Post-larvae can be found in schools just after recruitment. After recruitment ʻoʻopu nōpili remain in estuaries for at least 48 hours before they begin migrating upstream.

While in the estuaries of the stream, this change in head structures occurs rapidly (within 36 hours) and enables the fish to continue its migration upstream. (Schoenfuss)

During this time, they undergo a significant metamorphosis. Their snouts enlarge and lengthen and their heads increase in size.
Their upper lip also enlarges and their mouths move to a sub-terminal position. (DLNR)

Their pelvic fins are fused together to form a suction cup which helps them fasten to rocks, the stream bottom, and even to climb waterfalls. (NTBG) This metamorphosis allows the ʻoʻopu nōpili to climb waterfalls using its suction cup and lips. (DLNR)

Most other gobies feed on small invertebrates or other fish, but the Nōpili rock-climbing goby prefers to scrape tiny bits of algae, called diatoms, off rocks using a mouth-sucking motion mirroring the same movements it uses to climb walls.

Researchers report that they found that the nōpili rock-climbing goby’s climbing and feeding movements differed significantly. In other words, the fish are using different movements for feeding and for climbing. (Smithsonian)

Video of ʻoʻopu nōpili summary (Schoenfuss)
http://science360.gov/obj/video/12ad0dd3-195e-4ebf-a347-487c1d259179/waterfall-climbing-fish-performs-evolutionary-feat

The goby, which can grow up to 7 inches long as an adult, feeds by cyclically sticking the tip of its upper jaw against rock to scrape food off surfaces. This behavior is quite distinct from other Hawaiian gobies, which feed by sucking in food from the water. (Choi; LiveScience)

There is a visible difference between males and females. When not engaged in courtship behavior, males resemble females, having a yellow-green, brown, or gray base mottled with brown or black. During courtship, however, the male’s body darkens and it develops an iridescent “racing” stripe down its sides. (Sim; PBRC)

Besides being a favorite food fish, ‘O‘opu Nōpili was also used ceremonially. The name of this ‘O‘opu comes from the Hawaiian word for cling (pili). It refers to the fish’s ability to climb up waterfalls by clinging to rocks.

It was used in the mawaewae (weaning) ceremony for first-born children, so that blessings and luck would cling to the child. It was also used in house-warming feasts, with the intent that good luck would cling to the house. (Sim, PBRC)

‘Oʻopu nōpili have been used as an “indicator species” to signify high water quality in streams and the possible presence of ʻoʻopu ‘alamo‘o, which is rarer than the ʻoʻopu nōpili. (DLNR)

Video of ʻoʻopu nōpili at waterfall (Spanish language narration)

https://youtu.be/84afw2mptv0

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Oopu_Nopili-SicyopterHanawi_rs-(BM)
Oopu_Nopili-SicyopterHanawi_rs-(BM)
On left has regular pelvic fins- on right has a suction cup instead of pelvic fins
On left has regular pelvic fins- on right has a suction cup instead of pelvic fins
Oopu_Nopili-Sicyopterus Stimpsoni-NPS
Oopu_Nopili-Sicyopterus Stimpsoni-NPS
Oopu_Nopili-Life_Cycle_Environment-DLNR-Schoenfuss
Oopu_Nopili-Life_Cycle_Environment-DLNR-Schoenfuss
Fish Spacing in the stream-DLNR-Schoenfuss
Fish Spacing in the stream-DLNR-Schoenfuss

Filed Under: General, Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Hawaii, Oopu, Oopu Nopili

August 22, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kalanianaʻole Settlement

In 1920, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, Hawai‘i’s Republican delegate to Congress, drafted the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. In 1921, the federal government of the United States set aside as Hawaiian Homelands approximately 200,000‐acres in the Territory of Hawai‘i as a land trust for homesteading by native Hawaiians.

The avowed purpose of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was returning native Hawaiians to the land in order to maintain traditional ties to the land.

The Hawai‘i State Legislature in 1960 created the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) for the purposes of administering the Hawaiian home lands program and managing the Hawaiian home lands trust.

The Department provides direct benefits to native Hawaiians in the form of homestead leases for residential, agricultural, or pastoral purposes. The intent of the homesteading program is to provide for economic self‐sufficiency of native Hawaiians through the provision of land.

“For more than a year the subject of the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian people has been prominently before the public. The legislature of 1921 provided for the appointment of a commission that went to Washington and secured the necessary federal assistance.”

“The idea of rehabilitation is not a new one; it has been the endeavor of a strong Hawaiian society, headed by the late Prince Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, to get the people out of the cities and place them on the soil, there to work out their own destiny.”

“The newspapers have been generous in their treatment of this important subject; it has been a topic of discussion in all sorts of gatherings; it has been injected into political argument and has become a political issue, the Republicans being in favor of the plan, the Democrats being largely opposed to the idea.” (Judd, The Friend, August 1922)

Prince Kūhiō died at the age of 50, on January 7, 1922. Six months after his passing, the first Hawaiian homesteaders would move to what was referred to as the Kalanianaʻole Colony (sometimes called Kalanianaʻole Settlement) on Molokai.

Twenty-three lots of approximately 25-acres each, adjoined by 2,000-acres of community pasture were carved out. Later residential lots were added.

“The Commission selected the promising land of Kalamaula, adjacent to the port of Kaunakakai. It has this advantage of closeness to a shipping point; the obvious privileges of proximity to a community possessing a church, or rather three churches, a social hall with the prospects of a library soon to be erected; a school and other features of modern life.”

“Not only has Kalamaula this fine location, but more important is the fact that it has the soil and the water to insure the success of this first experiment in assisted homesteading.”

“Not far from the “Ho‘opulapula” lots, a field of cane has recently produced sugar at the rate of twelve tons to the acre. Kalamaula has identical conditions with the land of Kaunakakai where the cane was grown.”

“The rich soil is at least four feet deep and at one time had a crop of sugarcane, when the American Sugar Company was actively engaged in the cultivation of this staple.”

“When that enterprise was abandoned more than twenty years ago, the kiawe forest sprang up, and for the past two decades this forest has sheltered cattle and pigs, attracted thither by the abundant crop of kiawe beans that fall every summer.” (Judd, The Friend, August 1922)

“Amongst the applicants that reached seventy in number, to go back to the homestead lands of Molokai, the Commissioner of Hawaiian Homes chose last week Wednesday, eight families as the first to go to live on the homestead lands of Kalamaula Kai, and the rest, they will go later, however, only between twenty and twenty-four families total will live at Kalamaula.”

“In the selection of the commission of those eight families, it was done with them choosing full-blooded Hawaiians, hapa Haole, and hapa Chinese. At the same time, considered were their ages and the children in their families.”

The first eight Hawaiians and their families which were selected by the commission to go to the ‘āina ho‘opulapula at Kalamaula Kai were: David K Kamai, Clarence K Kinney, Albert Kahinu, WA Aki, John Puaa, Harry Apo, George W Maioho and William Kamakaua.

“Of these eight families, only three will go first, because only three of the lots have been so far cleared by the commission to be farmed at once, and thereafter, other families will go when their lots are ready.” (Kuokoa, August 17, 1922) Kamai was the first.

“David K Kamai, a full-blooded Hawaiian who is 41 years old, his occupation is a contractor and a carpenter. He has a wife and they have 11 children, 6 boys and 5 girls.”

“He is a land owner and he has knowledge of taro cultivation, sweet potato, corn, cabbage, alfalfa grass and melons. He is prepared to go at once and live on the land when his application is approved.” (Kuokoa, August 17, 1922)

“This lot, like all the others, has a frontage of five hundred feet on the government road that leads up to Kalae. The second lot is the demonstration lot, as already stated. Then come two more lots, after which is the plot reserved for the school, the playground, the reservoir. It is on higher ground than the rest of the country.”

“Laborers are now clearing the lots. The kiawe trees are being pulled out by their roots and the wood cut into proper lengths, for shipment to Lāhainā and other places. The land will soon be ploughed and prepared for the homesteaders by the Commission.”

“Seed corn is now growing near Kalae and chickens are being raised for the “Ho‘opulapula.” Efforts are being made to secure suitable varieties of taro and sweet-potatoes for the use of the farmers.”

“Alfalfa will likely be a popular crop. It does exceptionally well at Kaunakakai where as many as thirteen crops have been cut in one year. This is said to be a world record.”

“The first eight farmers have now chosen their locations and are ready to live there as soon as the lands are cleared and their houses erected. There are many children in these pioneer families; between thirty and forty young people are looking forward to being located at Kalamaula in a short time.”

“The eight heads of households are industrious, self-reliant and progressive men of promise. The policy of the Commission is not to get incompetent people out of the tenements and send them to the country regardless of their fitness and ability to make a living from the soil.”

“The idea is rather to secure picked men to make this initial attempt a success and thereby create a momentum that will spell victory in other places where the Homes Commission may undertake work in the near future.” (Judd, The Friend, August 1922)

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Molokai-USGS_Quadrangle-Kaunakakai-1952-portion
Molokai-USGS_Quadrangle-Kaunakakai-1952-portion

Filed Under: Economy, General, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Hawaii, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Prince Kuhio, Molokai, Kalanianaole Settlement

August 13, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Konohiki

For generations the small, slowly growing population clustered around shore sites near streams that supplied them with water. Such sites are best for inshore fishing.

In the course of native settlement, as the early Hawaiians spread from fishing sites on the shore to inland areas and fanned out over the plains and hills from original centers of settlement, households with ties of relationship became scattered.

Neighborly interdependence, the sharing of goods and services, naturally resulted in the settling of contiguous lands by a given ʻohana rather than in a scattering over an entire district. In this way there came to be an association of particular ʻohana with various areas.

The heads of the ʻohana groups were called haku or haku ‘āina. He came by his responsibility through seniority and competence. His authority was a matter of common consent rather than formal sanction; he was not appointed, he was not elected. (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

“(I)n the earliest times all the people were aliʻi … it was only after the lapse of several generations that a division was made into commoners and chiefs”. (Malo)

Kamakau noted, in early Hawaiʻi “The parents were masters over their own family group … No man was made chief over another.” Essentially, the extended family was the socio, biological, economic and political unit.

Because each ʻohana (family) was served by a parental haku (master, overseer) and each family was self-sufficient and capable of satisfying its own needs, there was no need for a hierarchal structure.

Kamakau states that there were no chiefs in the earliest period of settlement but that they came “several hundred years afterward … when men became numerous.”

As the population increased and wants and needs increased in variety and complexity (and it became too difficult to satisfy them with finite resources;) the need for chiefly rule became apparent.

As chiefdoms developed, the simple pecking order of titles and status likely evolved into a more complex and stratified structure. The actual number of chiefs was few, but their retainers attached to the courts (advisors, konohiki, kahuna, warriors, etc) were many.

In ancient Hawai‘i, most of the common people were farmers, a few were fishermen. Tenants cultivated smaller crops for family consumption, to supply the needs of chiefs and provide tributes.

Access to resources was tied to residency and earned as a result of taking responsibility to steward the environment and supply the needs of aliʻi. The social structure reinforced land management.

The traditional land use in the Hawaiian Islands evolved from shifting cultivation into a stable form of agriculture. Stabilization required a new form of land use and eventually the ahupua‘a form of land management was instituted.

A typical ahupuaʻa (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today) was a long strip of land, narrow at its mountain summit top and becoming wider as it ran down a valley into the sea to the outer edge of the reef. If there was no reef then the sea boundary would be about one and a half miles from the shore.

Ahupuaʻa served as a means of managing people and taking care of the people who support them, as well as an easy form of collection of tributes by the chiefs.

For hundreds of years since, on the death of all mō‘ī (kings or queens), the new ruler re-divided the land, giving control of it to his or her favorite chiefs.

Each ahupuaʻa in turn was ruled by a lower chief, or aliʻi ʻai. He, in turn, appointed an overseer, or konohiki. (The makaʻāinana (common people) never owned or ruled land.)

Konohiki were appointed to supervise the distribution of land, of planting and harvesting, water rights, the building and maintenance of irrigation ditches and new lo‘i. It was the konohiki who served as tax collectors in the Makahiki festival.

Under the aliʻi system of collecting tribute in the form of produce, these subdivisions of the chiefdom became tax units, each marked at its border with a heap (ahu) of stones, an altar upon which was put a symbol of Lono the god of rain, in the form of the rudely carved head of a hog (pua‘a.)

Within a given ahupua‘a the heads of the respective ʻohana were responsible for seeing that their people met the tax levy prescribed by the konohiki, the ali‘i’s land supervisor.

Under the aliʻi it was competence in meeting the requirements of this levy on produce that determined the rights of the planters to continue to cultivate and dwell on their land.

In addition to his responsibility as an overseer of the lands and their use in the ahupua‘a, the Konohiki was also in charge of along-shore and offshore fishing rights (sometimes referred to as ‘konohiki rights.’)

He enforced the seasonal kapu that protected various kinds of fish during seasons of spawning. He supervised the division and distribution of the catch in communal fishing, when prescribed portions went to the aliʻi and his entourage, to the kahuna, and to the households whose members had participated.

There was a high degree of stability or permanence of tenure despite the general turnover of authority and titles to the land whenever a new aliʻi came into power, owing to the fact that particular ʻohana enjoyed the rights of occupancy and use and faithfully fulfilled their obligations.

In many cases their ancestors had pioneered the area and cultivated it since the earliest era of Hawaiian settlement. Actually it was to the advantage of an aliʻi to maintain the occupancy of diligent cultivators of the land.

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View of southern Oʻahu from ʻEwa in the 1820s
View of southern Oʻahu from ʻEwa in the 1820s

Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions Tagged With: Hawaii, Ahupuaa, Konohiki

July 23, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kōnāhuanui

The Hawaiian Islands were formed as the Pacific Plate moved westward over a geologic hot spot. Oʻahu is dominated by two large shield volcanoes, Waiʻanae and Koʻolau. Koʻolau volcano started as a seamount above the Hawaiian hotspot around 4-million years ago. It broke sea level some time prior to 2.9-million years ago.

About 2-million years ago, much of the northeast flank of Koʻolau volcano was sheared off and material was swept more than 140-miles north of O‘ahu and Molokai onto the ocean floor (named the Nuʻuanu Avalanche) – one of the largest landslides on Earth. Ko‘olau’s eroded remnants make up the Koʻolau Mountain Range.

Mountains are one of ‘āina’s most enduring bodies, not as easily leveled as hills or forests; Kōnāhuanui (among others on the Koʻolau capture rain clouds coming in on the trade winds, and silvery shimmering steams of water tumbling down their pali have come to symbolize the sky father Wākea bringing new life to the earth mother Papa. (Kawaharada)

Ku luna ‘o Kōnāhuanui i ka luku wale e, “Mountainous Kōnāhuanui reveals the onslaught” is the tallest on Koʻolau; Kōnāhuanui is actually two peaks (3,150 feet and 3,105 feet.) It forms the northwest corner of the Mānoa Ahupua‘a boundary.

Kōnāhuanui plays a part in the ‘Punahou’ story told by Emma M. Nakuina, a tradition of the creation of Punahou Spring by a moʻo god named Kakea.

The main characters in ‘Punahou’ are twin rain spirits: a boy named Kauawa‘ahila (a rain of Nuʻuanu and Mānoa) and his sister Kauaki‘owao (a rain and fog carried on a cool mountain breeze.)

The twins were abused and neglected by an evil stepmother named Hawea while their father Kaha‘akea was away on Hawai‘i Island. The siblings fled from their home near Mount Kaʻala, the highest peak on O’ahu (4,020 ft) to Kōnāhuanui above Manoa.

The affinity of the twins for mountain peaks suggests their rain cloud forms and also their moʻo ancestry; their flight from Kaʻala to Kōnāhuanui depicts the movement of rain clouds associated with cold fronts which sweep over the islands from west to east during the rainy season of Ho‘oilo (October to April).

Pursued by their mean-spirited stepmother, the twins fled from Kōnāhuanui to the head of Mānoa Valley. Like a cold north wind behind a passing front, Hawea followed her stepchildren to the head of the valley, so the twins went down the valley to Kukao‘o Hill; then to the rocky hill behind Punahou School.

The movement of the twins down the valley represents the path of the rains called Kauawa‘ahila and Kauaki‘owao sweeping from the wet uplands toward the dry plains. Each stop is drier than the last, with less food.

At Kukao‘o hill, the twins planted and ate sweet potatoes, a dry-land crop, not as prized as the wetland taro of the upper valley. At the rocky hill near the mouth of the valley, they lived on leaves, flowers, and fruits and on ‘grasshoppers and sometimes wild fowl.’ The rocky hill marks a rain boundary: it may be pouring rain in the upper valley, while it is sunny and dry below the hill. (Kawaharada)

Translated “his large seeds (testicles,)” the name Kōnāhuanui is said to come from a story summarized by T Kelsey: “when a man, probably a giant, chased a woman who escaped into a cave, he tore off his testes and threw them at her”. (Kawaharada)

Kōnāhuanui is the highest peak in the Koʻolau Mountains and is the northwest corner of the Mānoa Ahupua‘a boundary. It was the home of the gods Kāne and Kanaloa.

It was where their parents came on their way to and from the east from above and from the right (mai kahiki a mai ka hiwamai), meaning it was the starting and resting point of the gods since the formation of the islands. (Cultural Surveys)

It is home to a moʻo goddess, a large mythic lizard that lives in freshwater pools and streams. Rain clouds gather around its peak, and its Kona side, often ribboned with waterfalls, is the wettest area of Honolulu: here is the source of the waters of Manoa and Nuʻuanu valleys.

On the Ko‘olaupoko side, below Konahuanui, is a stream called Kahuaiki (the small seed,) one of three streams said to be wives of the god Kāne (the other two are Hi‘ilaniwai and Māmalahoa).

The three join together as one, Kamo‘oali‘i (the royal mo‘o), which brings life-giving water to the fields and plains of Kāne’ohe before entering the bay near Waikalua fishpond. Huanui, big seed, and huaiki, small seed, both speak to the fertility of the land.

To the northwest of Konahuanui is Lanihuli (swirling heavens,) a name suggesting rain clouds moving in the wind around the peak; northwest of Lanihuli is Kahuauli, the dark seed. Uli may refer to the dark rain clouds, their shadows on the land below, and the dark green vegetation along the summit and below it. (Kawaharada)

“There is only one famous hiding cave, ana huna on Oʻahu. It is Pohukaina… This is a burial cave for chiefs, and much wealth was hidden away there with the chiefs of old … Within this cave are pools of water, streams, creeks, and decorations by the hand of man (hana kinohinohiʻia), and in some places there is level land.” (Kamakau)

Pohukaina involves an underground burial cave system that connects with various places around O‘ahu and is most notable as the royal burial cave at Kualoa. The opening in the Honolulu area is in the vicinity of the Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) residence (the grounds of ʻIolani Palace,) where also many of the notable chiefs resided. (Kamakau; Kumu Pono)

The opening on the windward side on Kalaeoka‘o‘io faces toward Ka‘a‘awa is believed to be in the pali of Kanehoalani, between Kualoa and Ka‘a‘awa, and the second opening is at the spring Ka‘ahu‘ula-punawai.

On the Kona side of the island the cave had three other openings, one at Hailikulamanu – near the lower side of the cave of Koleana in Moanalua—another in Kalihi, and another in Pu‘iwa. There was an opening at Waipahu, in Ewa, and another at Kahuku in Ko‘olauloa.

The mountain peak of Kōnāhuanui was the highest point of the ridgepole of this burial cave “house,” which sloped down toward Kahuku. Many stories tell of people going into it with kukui-nut torches in Kona and coming out at Kahuku. (Kamakau; Kumu Pono)

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Nuuanu Pali-PP-60-2-043
Nuuanu Pali-PP-60-2-019-00001
Nuuanu Pali-PP-60-2-019-00001
Konahuanui-other peaks-ExplorationHawaii
Konahuanui-other peaks-ExplorationHawaii
Konahuanui-marciel
Konahuanui-marciel
Konahuanui-USGS-marker
Konahuanui-USGS-marker

Filed Under: General, Hawaiian Traditions, Place Names Tagged With: Koolaupoko, Pohukaina, Manoa, Konahuanui, Hawaii, Kailua

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

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