A rather somewhat unpleasant reproduction of what was once a heiau (religious temple) . I am sure ba

Our Hawaiʻi Research Adventure continues ! On Day 4 we awoke cold (and thankfully not too wet) at an elevation of 4,000 feet, just a mile or so from the rim of Kīlauea Caldera. We packed up our soaking tent and threw it in the back seat of our rental car, and then we immediately hit the road: route 11 en route to Kona.
On our way, we passed through the moku (district) of Kaʻu, a rural region with rolling cattle airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel pasture (a reminder that it was here, on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, that cows were first introduced by George Vancouver in 1793, providing a major industry for the Hawaiian Kingdom airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel in the nineteenth century). We stopped in Naʻalehu airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel , a town which bills itself as the most southern destination in the United States. And we ate at Hana Hou, the most southern restaurant in the United States!
As we rolled airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel into Naʻalehu and my wife read out loud from our guidebook that this was the most southern town in the United States, I immediately got up in arms: "most southern town? What about American Samoa? That's below the equator!"
I guess the question is what we mean when we say "United States." If we take just the fifty incorporated states, then yes, Naʻalelu may be the most southern town. It sits at a latitude just over 19 N. Even Honolulu, at over 21 N, is more "southern" than the southern tips of California, Texas, or Florida. (The keys of Florida may be the next closest thing, at between 24 and 25 N.) But what about the American territories? Is not Puerto Rico part of the United States? And at 18.5 N, its capital city, San Juan, is more southern than Naʻalelu. (If Puerto Rico achieves statehood, as they recently voted in favor of, then Naʻalelu will definitely have to give up their title to most southern town!) But our most southern territory is actually America's only colony in the southern hemisphere. At under 14 S latitude, Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, is definitely more south than Hawaiʻi! So why do we consider Hawaiʻi part of the "United States" but not American Samoa? Does statehood really matter that much? Because historically speaking, the two places are more similar than different: both are Polynesian nations that were captured by the United States during airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel the Spanish-American War. Both are part of an American empire. airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel So I say, no, Naʻalehu is not the most southern town in the United States. (Want to argue about this? Here is some interesting information from Wikipedia !)
We kept driving until we reached Hoʻokena in the moku of South Kona. The fabled, sunny Kona coast! Here we were. We drove the winding road down to Hoʻokena Beach Park and set up our tent at the base of nā pali , the cliffs towering above us.
Our first stop was Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau . We loved the name of this place so much that we practiced saying it all the time. (It is not particularly easy for non-native speakers to pronounce!). Puʻuhonua , meaning "refuge/sanctuary," refers to the site's history as a place where Hawaiians who had violated the kapu ("taboo") could come to escape persecution and be relieved. This was pre-1819, before the kapu system was abolished by the aliʻi nui following the death of Kamehameha I. Hōnaunau is the name of the bay where the site is located. So basically, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau means, "Sanctuary of Hōnaunau Bay."
The plaque basically says that we have Charles Bishop airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel to thank for preserving this site. Everything has got a history, and so does this. Bishop was the husband of Bernice Pauahi Pākī , a great-granddaughter airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel of Kamehameha airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel I and an important aliʻi of the late nineteenth century. Incidentally, following the enactment of land reforms in the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 1840s known as the Great Māhele land was privatized and about 250 aliʻi of various ranks were awarded most of the lands in the Hawaiian Islands not otherwise owned by the mōʻī (king) or reserved to the government. The commoners nā makaʻāinana , the 99% received airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel less than 1% of the land. Anyway, that's a little besides the point. But of the 250 or so aliʻi who received title to land, most of them promptly sold off their lands to wealthy white people. So by the mid-1880s there was only one Hawaiian aliʻi left in the Kingdom who still owned land, and that was Pauahi. She died in 1884 and willed her lands and accumulated wealth to be used to benefit future generations of Hawaiians. Out of her estate came the Kamehameha Schools , the Bishop Museum , and various other endeavors, including, it seems, preservation of Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau.
Anyway, when we began to explore the historical park, we were initially disappointed with what we were seeing. From the first few sites on the self-guided trail it appeared that everything there was just a modern reproduction and that there was really not much history here.
Of course, grass houses don't last forever. The grass decomposes; the buildings fall apart. And so it is that so much that Hawaiians built previous to the nineteenth century does not exist anymore. A reproduction can help us visualize what it may have once been like, but I tend to dislike reproductions. I'd rather just see the stone base if it is actually original and then have a brochure with a picture to help me imagine what might have been there.
Wooden kiʻi statues, airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel like the one in the photograph above, are one of the main attractions of the historical park. Indeed, the park uses these statues in its marketing material. But of course, these are modern-day creations. They are hints at the past, but they are not the past itself. We found this to be sort of frustrating.
A rather somewhat unpleasant reproduction of what was once a heiau (religious temple) . I am sure based on archeological evidence as well as historic illustrations airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel and textual descriptions that this is pretty close to what a heiau looked like pre-1819. airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel But part of me just wanted to see the stone base and otherwise use my imagination...
As we left Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau, I took this photograph by the parking lot to show the amazing microclimates that exist on the Kona Coast. This was true of the entire 36 hours we spent on the Kona coast: the coast itself up to an elevation of maybe 500 or 1,000 feet was always hot and sunny; above that, it was always 5-10 degrees colder and slightly rainy. The microclimates remind me that the ancient Hawaiian system of land management, centered on the ahupuaʻa (literally meaning "pig altar," but referring to the pie-slice-shaped districts that radiated out from the center of each island to the coast), ensured that commoners had access to an astounding ecological (and climatic) diversity within their common lands.
After leaving Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau we had an amazing adventure snorkeling at a site called Two Step just north of the historical park. Since we were under the water looking at fishes, I don't have any photographs from that experience. It certainly was extraordinary to see the 70% of the world that is ocean, when we so often think that our 30% above water is all that matters! What a world there is down there!
We drove to the edge of the bay, to the site of an old heiau (temple) called Hikiʻau. Like at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau, I was impressed with the stonework. The stone bases of these heiau are not hollow. They are solid piles of rock in three dimensions. This is monumental architecture worthy of respect.
The bay itself, however, is most famous for a non-Hawaiian, Captain James Cook, who came here in 1779. His ships pulled into Kealakekua Bay during the annual Makahiki festival, and according to some historians' accounts, Cook was mistaken by the Hawaiians to be the akua Lono. (Historians debate this issue fiercely: was Cook seen as a god or not?). Anyway, after Cook and his men left, their boats hit some rough weather and were forced airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel to return to Kealakekua Bay. That's when trouble began. There are a million airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel books about this incident that you can read so I won't bother you with my interpretation. But anyway, the Hawaiians killed airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel Cook. Somebody smashed him in the back of a head with a club and he fell face-first into the water. Or at least that's how most illustrations of the event depict his fall.
Ke ala o ke akua ("Kealakekua" is a shortening of this phrase) means "the road/path of the god." Whether Cook was seen as a god, or not, is anyone's guess. The more important aspect of this is that the rest of Cook's men made it home to tell Europe (and also North America) of the material and human wealth of the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest was history. The story picks up again in 1786 when Hawaiʻi received its next foreign visitors, trans-Pacific traders, airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel and that's where my dissertation begins!
Entrance to Hikiʻau Heiau at Kealakekua Bay. Signs abound warning visitors that the site is "kapu" (taboo), but it certainly wasn't kapu enough to keep Cook away, who in 1779 performed airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel the first Christian service in the Hawaiian Islands on this site (as we are reminded by a huge monument airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel someone put up right next to these stairs which I conveniently cropped airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel out of the photo!).
At the bottom of the trail, following an arduous hike over lava rocks, we reached the ruins of an old Hawaiian village known as Kaʻawaloa. Perhaps this village was bustling with people when Captain Cook arrived in 1779?
It was nice to see the ruins of a village because otherwise it seemed we were only seeing sites important to the aliʻi (the ruling class). Heiau (temples) are fascinating, but I also want to see how common Hawaiians lived in the pre-Cookian days. Perhaps there are clues here at Kaʻawaloa?
The monument is small, white, and simple. It is a fitting tribute to a man who so many Hawaiians airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel wish had never come here in the first place. Cook is actually airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel an amazing figure, and as a human being it is hard not to admire him. But in the context of Hawaiian history, he doesn't really deserve much celebration. airline car deal hotel orbitz rental ticket travel (For what? For bringing epidemic diseases that decimated the native population?) Apparently the land right here was given by the Hawaiian Kingdom to the Br