October 29
I did not add comments for the 28th. The morning was just a wonderful sunrise, followed by some paragliding. Mokulele Airlines cancelled all their flights for today out of Maui, so I had to quickly book a seat on a Hawaiian Airlines flight to the Kona airport on Hawaii. Yes, Hawaii is also known as “The Big Island”, not just as the 50th State. This altered my schedule such that today I could only visit two of the western shore parks. The third, Pu’ukohola Heiau NHS, will now be seen on Tuesday.
Kaloko-Honokohau is just a few minutes south of the airport, on route 19.
This park covers 1,160 acres. The official VC is a small open-air contact station, staffed by a park ranger who was mentioning to two other visitors how to access the park’s beach where green sea turtles could be seen. I listened intently. One can either hike the Ala Mauka Makai Trail for 0.7 miles, or drive to a commercial sea operations area one more exit south off route 19, and take a short path from a parking lot. The trail, though, includes petroglyphs, so I decided to go that way. Before I left, a trio of Spartys had joined the discussion. For those of you who do not follow college athletics or do not live in the Big Ten conference zone, this means Michigan State University.
Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail has a short distance (2.3 miles) of its length within Kaloko, though this specific trail is not part of the official 425 park count. It does connect the two fishponds and fishtrap in the park.
When I reached the fishtrap, the couple from the VC were there looking at the sea turtles. Turns out the gentleman graduated from West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. Elizabeth, my wife, grew up near the boundary between West Springfield and Lake Braddock, with her subdevelopment of Kings Park going to Lake Braddock. I mentioned my WT Woodson Cavaliers would play his Spartans every year in all the sports. We did agree that Fairfax County has the best public school system in the country.
From the beginning of recorded history if one lived next to a large body of water it stands to reason fishing would be a primary activity. I have not yet met anyone who does not like to eat. The ancient Hawaiian people knew their Ichthyology and how to catch. The park preserves the Kaloko and Aimakapa fishponds and the Ai’opio fishtrap from historic times. The fishponds were originally small inland bays. But a bay is not a pond. The locals created seawalls (kuapa) out of lava rock. Are not seawalls subjected to the constant pounding of ocean waves? This is where the Hawaiians earn an A+ in Engineering. They constructed angled walls to counter the energy of the waves, adding a makaha (sluice gate) to control the flow of water between a pond and the ocean. At first thought one might ask why was a makaha needed since a pond is an enclosed body of water. There should not be a need to regulate water flow with the sea. But lava rock is porous, allowing sea water to gently move into the pond. What a simply efficient circulation system. In contrast, a fishtrap was an area of water that was affected by the changing tides. During low tide, a dune of sand would emerge, forming a pond, separated from the ocean. At high tide sea water would fill in the area. Fish would unknowingly swim into the trap at those times. When the tide receded, the fish would be trapped, with no escape route to the ocean. Research of the 1.7-acre Ai’opio fishtrap suggests it was used for over 600 years.
40 minutes down the road on route 19, then route 11, is Pu’uhonua o Honaunau. This is a fee-entry park. The sign read $20 for one vehicle. There is a small amphitheater which shows a short film, but the main attraction is the one-half mile self-guided tour which sends visitors in a counterclockwise direction to view 16 points-of-interest, including games, tree mold, the Great Wall, and fishponds. Each of the numbered stops has information in the park’s brochure/unigrid (ranger gives one to each vehicle) to help one understand what they are viewing. The brochure shows artist Herb Kane’s conception of the Pu’uhonua. Aside from these sites, the trail gives spectacular views of coconut groves and shore scenery. Most of the path is packed sand, making for easy walking. One stop is at the royal papamu (stone playing surface), where two players would square off in a game of Konane.
The name Pu’uhonua o Honaunau signifies two adjoining parcels of land. The Pu’uhonua was a place where islanders could seek shelter from conflicts between chieftains, escape death after breaking a kapu law, stay alive post-humiliation of being a vanquished warrior, or lay low from the wrath of the royal family. Reverend William Ellis coined the phrase “City of Refuge” in 1823 to reflect the purpose of this area. A village commoner could run to the refuge for just simply looking at the chief or walking in his footsteps. Women had it worse than men. Women were not allowed to prepare food for men (maybe that was a blessing in disguise), nor eat in the presence of a man. But those seemingly slight offenses were more civil in nature. What if someone violated one of the most sacred laws? Each transgression was punishable by death; no exceptions. The villagers were afraid that if they let one act escape the death-sentence the gods would forcibly punish the village by acts of nature, such as Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa (the two great volcanos on the island) exploding and raining death across their land. It had happened before. The Pu’uhonua itself is an old lava field. An islander who found himself in the predicament of breaking a sacred law, there was but one recourse if he wanted to live. A chief would endlessly pursue the lawbreaker until captured and executed. So, the option of hiding anywhere on the island was never given a second thought. The indicted party had to make a run for it to reach the Pu’uhonua. Sometimes it was a combination of running and swimming. There are stories of villagers arriving at the Pu’uhonua from the sea. Once on the lava rocks of Pu’uhonua the chief’s warriors could not continue the chase. One of the most sacred kapu was no blood could be shed in the Pu’uhonua. Even the cutting surface of the sharp and jagged lava probably mattered little to one whose only other option was death. The chased was finally safe. The Honaunau, the adjacent piece of property is royal land, figuratively on the ‘other side of the rail tracks’ from the Pu’uhonua.
Since the ‘lower class’ was not allowed onto royal grounds, a fundamental aspect in monarchies, something had to be done to keep these two areas separated. An enormous wall was built to separate the Honaunau from the Pu’uhonua. Constructed in 1550 with lava rocks and the uhau humu pohaku method (dry-set masonry), the wall was nearly 1000 feet long. When combined with the other two spatial dimensions, 12 feet high and 18 feet thick, one might be speechless. The barrier has survived 450 years of man and nature. At the entrance to, and just on the Pu’uhonua side, of the wall stood a most revered structure; the temple of Hale o Keawe, a heiau. Chiefs built this heiau around 1650 with the purpose of having a final resting place for themselves. Twenty-three ali’i were interred over a couple hundred of years, including Keawe-‘I-kekahi-ali’i-o-ka-moku, Kamehameha I’s great-grandfather. Tradition held the bones had mana, great spiritual power, to protect the village and villagers. This was especially important for most of the people who found themselves in the Pu’uhonua, needing all the help they could get.
A most famous use of the Pu’uhonua involved King Kamehameha I and his favorite wife, Queen Ka’ahumanu. All marriages have a fight now and then, right? No exception for these royals one day. The queen left the royal compound, after a spat, accompanied by her pet dog. They swam across Honaunau Bay and came to rest at Inanui, on the shore of the Pu’uhonua. The king’s warriors searched up and down the coast. The dog began barking, disclosing their hiding place. Fortunately, the king and queen resolved their disagreement, she was exonerated, passed through the wall, and life returned to normal.
The property was declared an NHP in 1961. The NPS began restoration of the Great Wall, and stabilized Hale o Keawe. Sketches and descriptions of Pu’uhonua o Honaunau by travelers in the early 19th century were instrumental in these efforts, especially those of Reverend Ellis’ documents. It is interesting to note in the brochure/unigrid there are shown nine stops on the royal grounds, colored red, while there are fewer stops (seven) in the Pu’uhonua, colored yellow. The Great Wall continues to divide the land, with Pu’uhonua still seeming to be second-tier. A side trip in the park is to the ruins of the village of Kiilae, reached via a two-mile round-trip hike (on the 1871 Trail or the Coastal Trail). Kiilae provides visitors a chance to see what the transitional period, from Polynesian traditions to Western lifestyle, looked like, before 1926 when Kiilae was deserted. Kiilae residents built straw houses for their abodes, though embraced newer technologies such as tin roofs and glass windows.