Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 6, 1 June 1988 — Damaged but not Completely Destroyed [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Damaged but not Completely Destroyed

Five-Year Search for Kanahau Heiau Ends Happily

By Earl (Buddy) Neller Archaeologist/OHA Cultural Specialist Luali'i was a chief of Hawai'i who wanfed to carve an image to help him with a difficult task ahead. He would wrap the carving in white kapa and plaee it in the hale ki'i of the heiau near his home. He went to the mountains, found a log of the ohia lehua and carried it to his home in the lowland to work on. He prayed and worked for five days and was almost finished when he discovered a rotted spot. He tossed the image aside and went to find another log to carve. As he worked on the second log he heard the first one say: "Kalai o Luali'i i ke ki'i a 'ike i ka 'ino ha'alele." ("Luali'i carved an image but, because of a flaw, deserted it") Upon hearing this, Luali'i felt sorry for discarding the beautiful image he had created. He went back to it, cleaned out the rotted spot and finished it. He knew that even though it was not perfectly symmetrical like the other images at the heiau, it was special and unique and was blessed by a god of the forest. This god later helped Luali'i rid O'ahu of evil beings. Archaeologists today are a lot like Luali'i when they overlook the value of damaged and destroyed Hawaiian archaeological sites. Sometimes you will hear an archaeologist say "these sites don't have to be preserved, because there are better examples somewhere else;" or "these sites are nothing special and ean be destroyed after conducting limited test excavations of a representative sample." Oftentimes it is reported that a site has been destroyed, and archaeologists will recommend that a plaee no longer has historical or cultural value. This is a mistake. By failing to investigate destroyed sites, they are discarding the last traces of unique and special places, and abandoning the spirit of archaeoiogy . Sites may seem to disappear, but they are never destroyed beyond the ability of an archaeologist to search for clues and answer questions. The idea of destruction is born in the attitudes of the speaker. Some would say that Kanahau Heiau in Kailua was destroyed in 1819 when the sacred images were taken away and the sacrificial altar and drum house and other religious structures were taken down, burned and abandoned. A hundred years later some would say that Kanahau Heiau was destroyed when the old road to Waimanalo was being made, and eight five-ton trucks, making 10 to 15 loads a day, spent two weeks hauling rocks away from the heiau site. Bishop Museum archaeologist Gilbert McAllister reported in 1933 that only tbe facing of one rock terrace remained at Kanahau Heiau. In 1970-71, when archaeologists in the Department of Land and Natural Resources conducted an inventory of historic sites on O'ahu, they did not relocate the site, and recorded it as destroyed. Thus, current information about the site is not on file in the statewide inventory of historic places, and the site has not been nominated to the Hawaii Register of Historic Places.

I began searching for Kanahau Heiau five years ago, at the request of the landowner who wanted to sell his land to a developer. We spent two hours in the woods beneath the dark peaks of Olomana, Ahiki and Paku'i, and found nothing. Subsequent trips by myself and others turned up nothing as well. Archaeological survey work ean be tougb on the slopes of Olomana. Dense Christmas berry bushes clog the stream valleys, forcing one to crawl or turn back. On the hillsides, one has to wade through shoulder-high grasses, and on the ridges one has to fight through java plum trees and a fishnet of vines that is exhausting. Almost three months ago on Apr. 18 I eame upon a mass of laua'e ferns in the shape of a terrace or step, 100 feet long and 50 feet wide. Brushing away the ferns I could see carefully stacked stones of basalt forming a wall that had been built by Hawaiians perhaps more than 200 years ago. I

had found the destroyed heiau. The platform was almost completely intact, although difficult to see because of the dense vegetation. As I worked my way down the ridge I could see occasional alignments of stones and boulders and large flat areas that marked the former locations of other platforms, stretching for 500 feet down the hillside. What a magnificent heiau it must have been. Now it lies abandoned, stripped of stones, obscured by vegetation, and forgotten. But not completely destroyed, and still a valuable historic site worthy of preservation. Damaged sites like Kanahau Heiau have a eon-

tribution to make in our studies of the history and culture of Hawai'i. Eaeh site is unique and has its own peculiar story to tell. Eaeh site has the potential for containing that special elue that provides an answer to an archaeological question. No matter how damaged, even if apparently destroyed, a site is always worthy of scientific investigation. A good archaeologist will always be able to dig up something of archaeological interest. As the old Hawaiians used to say: "He i'a kokoke ka lawai'a." A fisherman always finds fish nearby, (refers to any expert who succeeds because he is smart).

It was at Kanahau Heiau that the appetite of Hi'iaka for taro tops, her favorite food, was finally satisfied. She said: "I have gone to Hawai'i, Mau'i and Moloka'i and finally to O'ahu. i've eaten my favorite food, the luau, in some of these places but I have never found an abundance like this when I could eat no more." Hi'iaka then blessed the plaee and left her spirit in the large rock at one end of the heiau as a gift. "In the future when I am angry, I will beappeased withagiftof the luau, for whieh I have given you this sacred pohaku."