-
Waialua
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Waialua [54.224.124.217] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:33 GMT) Some of J. Gilbert McAllister’s Hawaiian informants for the Waialua District. Annie Keahipaka (Waialua). Daniel Hookala (Waialua). Opposite: Hookala’s three grandchildren (Waialua). served as a place of residence for the warriors’ families and helped supply the army with food.160 Mä‘ilikükahi was raised in Wahiawä, Waialua and at Känewai in the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries. As noted in the dedication, he is remembered for outlawing the practice of human sacrifice, for systematizing the land divisions as economic and political units, for constructing heiau (probably some included in this book), and for contributing to the welfare of the maka‘äinana by giving them land and protecting them from injustice at the hands of lesser chiefs.161 Living later at Waikïkï, Mä‘ilikükahi began an enlightened reign that continued with his children and grandchildren: Kalonaiki, Kalonanui, Piliwale, Kükaniloko, and Kalamakua. Waialua’s most famous kahuna of the eighteenth century was Ka‘öpulupulu, kahuna nui under Kahahana and associated with the heiau of Küpöpolo and Pu‘uomahuka. He and his son Kahulupu‘e were killed on the orders of the ali‘i nui Kahahana, who suspected Ka‘öpulupulu of conspiring with his adversary, Kahekili. Summoned by Kahahana, they were killed as they traveled from Waialua around Ka‘ena Point and through Wai‘anae. As warriors approached, Ka‘öpulupulu told his son to jump into the ocean, and uttered a famous prophecy that foretold the subjugation of the island. Kamakau comments: “The leading counselor of the island being thus dead the people lost courage, for the foundation of the dominion was shaken.”162 Lokai and Pu‘ali, two nineteenth-century kähuna of Waialua, presided at one well-documented kapuahi kuni rite, an ancient ceremony for judging guilt or acquittal. They detected the killer of Kuaiaea, the wife of Kahekilike‘eaumoku ; the killer was thereupon roasted whole in the imu (oven) at Waikele, ‘Ewa. Kamakau comments that “the kukui trees of Waipahu were dried up by the prayers of Pu‘ali.”163 88 waialua he district of Waialua was large, encompassing about seventy-eight square miles, including fourteen ahupua‘a. According to legend, Waialua— which might mean “doubly disgraceful”—arose from the name of a cruel chief who was eventually driven off by the people. As a result some chiefs chose not to live in Waialua, despite its attractive land and seacoast. A more mundane interpretation is that the name refers to the joining of two streams. In pre-Mähele days, Waialua prospered and became famous as an oracle center of O‘ahu and as the home of many kähuna and their schools. Its abundant, wellirrigated ‘uala (sweet potato) crop and two fishponds, ‘Uko‘a and Lokoea, attracted many important chiefs and their warrior families. In postcontact times, Waialua District provided food for Honolulu’s growing population well into the nineteenth century.158 One of the greatest resources of the district must have been fruitful ‘Uko‘a Pond, slightly inland and on the Kahuku side of smaller Lokoea Pond, which functioned until very recently. Now a mile-long freshwater marsh and wildlife refuge, ‘Uko‘a supported an abundance of fish, which in turn supported the dense population along its shores. Hawaiians living in the 1930s spoke of it being linked with the ocean by an underground waterway, but recent core samples have shown that it was once a bay, open to the ocean. We do not yet know exactly when the connection with the ocean was severed or whether the bay still existed in the earliest times of Kanaka Maoli occupation.159 Recent archaeological investigations in Waialua point toward unbroken habitation from very ancient times. Archaeologists found that at Anahulu Valley in Waialua, Kamehameha organized a great deal of construction in 1795; Anahulu Valley was one of the staging areas for Kamehameha’s armies as he prepared for his failed attempt to conquer Kaua‘i. It T waialua 89 Laniwai or Laniwahine, a female mo‘o (lizard guardian), lived at ‘Uko‘a fishpond and was associated with a nearby stone, even as late as the 1930s. She and her brother Puhi‘ula (“red eel”) were supposed to have traveled each day through an underground connection with the sea to bathe in the ocean.165 Ka‘ena Point in Ka‘ena ahupua‘a remains a sacred and cultural landmark. Here, in the westernmost land area of O‘ahu Island...