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THE HILL OF MANY STORIES

History as well as legend is rooted on Ka'uiki Head, an extinct crater almost four hundred feet high on the south side of the entrance to Hana Bay. Ka'uiki Head appears to be an island but a narrow strip of land connects it with the shore near Hana. It is a many-storied place. Some say the demi-god Maui, for whom the island is named, once lived on Ka'uiki hill.

In one legend, it is said that the hill arose from the dead body of the goddess Puuhele, a younger sister of the more famous Pele and Hiiaka. According to the legend, Puuhele was born as a "foetus of blood." Unsure of how to care for the little one, her older sisters secretly discarded the deformed child without their parents' knowledge, throwing it into the sea.

The magical foetus traveled along the eastern coast of Maui, landing first at Nuu in Kaupo. When she touched land, Puuhele appeared to be a beautiful woman. Apparently, her overriding goal was to find a place of her own, where she could abide in beauty and peace.

After wandering around some of the most beautiful country on Maui with a number of different companions, Puuhele stopped at what we now call Hana Bay. The land was so beautiful she immediately decided that she would remain, even though the surrounding area was so sacred that staying meant her death. It was inevitable: Puuhele was challenged and killed as a trespasser by a warrior who guarded the place. From her body the hill grew. The warrior called the hill Ka'uiki, "the glimmering."

Many people agreed with the goddess that this was a most beautiful place. They said,
"He aloha no Ka'uila la
Auana i ke kai la meha manu ala.

(Beloved is Ka'uiki
Stretching out in the sea like a rising bird.)"

The ancients also said, "At the hill of Ka'uiki the heaven is nearer the earth than elsewhere, in fact so close that it could be reached by a good strong cast of the spear." Another name for the hill is Lani haahaa, "low-lying heaven."

Maybe heaven was closer to earth in those days. (Either that, or the hill shrank.) When chief Kaeokulani was recruiting men for an army to help Kahekili oppose Kamehameha's invasion of the island of Maui, he climbed the hill and threw his spear up into the air. He exclaimed, "It is said of old that the sky comes down close to Hana, but I find it quite high...."

Hana bore the brunt of the warring between the island chiefs of Maui and Hawaii. It was such a strategic landing place, located just 35 miles across from the Alenuihaha Channel from the Big Island. Control of the district was a bone of contention between the chiefs of the two islands.

The Kumulipo recounts that 20 generations before the great Maui chief Piilani ruled in the 16th century, Maui-Loa was the first independent sovereign of Maui. Born in Kaupo, Maui-Loa battled many of the district chieftains, establishing his rule at a young age. His uncle Haho, the king of Hawaii, was instrumental in helping Maui-Loa establish his authority. In gratitude, Maui-Loa ceded the district of Hana to the Big Island, setting the stage for centuries of warfare between the two islands.

It was here that an early Maui king, Hua a Pohukaina, built a heiau called Honua'ula, to gain the favor of the gods in his expedition against the warriors of the island of Hawaii. Evidence of the Honua'ula heiau could still be seen in 1908 when surveys were made of the area to determine the location of the lighthouse.

There was a fortress at Ka'uiki that was reputed to be impregnable. In 1782, Big Island chief Kahekili captured the fortress by cutting off its water supply and slaughtering the desperate defenders who tried to flee from the death-trap. The battle was intense and everyone was slaughtered. Many corpses fed numerous ovens of the nearby Honua'ula and Kuawalu heiau and were left to dry in the sun. There were so many that the battle was named Kaumupika'o, "the dehydrating ovens."

These days, Ka'uiki, the hill that grew from a woman's dead body, is most famous for being the birthplace of one of the most famous women in Hawaiian history. Queen Kaahumanu, the favorite wife of King Kamehameha, was born to Chiefess Namahana in a cave at Ka'uiki in 1768. At the time, Kaahumanu's father Chief Keeaumoku was in hiding from Chief Kahekili, against whom he had rebelled. He had suffered defeats at Waihee and off Molokai where Kahekili had pursued him.

The beautiful, tempestuous Kaahumanu caught the attention of the King when she was a child of seven growing up in Hana. At sixteen, she married him, and held his attention throughout his lifetime.

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Standard English:  I'm sorry. We've run out of potato salad.
Braddah-Nics:  Auwe! No 'nuff, da salad.

Standard English: Go ahead; there's no need to be afraid.
Braddah-Nics: Geev'um, brah! no sked 'um

Standard English: Oh, dear, what a mess
Braddah-Nics: Ho! Only kapulu, stay!

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LauLau
Yield: 1 Servings

1/3 lb Butterfish or salmon
1 lb Pork butt (brisket o.k)
16 ea Luau leaves (see substitute)
8 ea Ti leaves

Cut fish into 4 pieces and soak in water for 70 minutes. Cut
pork butt into 4 pieces. Prepare luau leaves by stripping outer skin
of stem and leaf veins to prevent itching in throat when consumed.
Wash and remove tough ribs from Ti leaves. Lay 2 ti leaves on
cutting board. Place 4 luau leaves in center. Place a piece of pork
and a piece of fish on luau leaves. Fold luau leaves over meat and
fish to form a bundle. Tie ends of ti leaves and steam for 3 to 4
hours. **** you may substitute 1 to 1 1/2 lb. spinach for luau leaves.

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Kaupo -

Kaupo Gap is a deep and rugged valley with the only lowlands on the section of coast between Kipahulu and Ulupalakua. The village of Kaupo is around the 35-mile marker and is mostly not in evidence. Basically, this is a community of paniolos, many of them third-generation Kaupo Ranch hands.

Kaupo Ranch is one of the largest private land holdings in East Maui and is located about two miles up the slope from the Kaupo Store. Citrus was cultivated on the hillsides in the early 1900s but the venture failed, mostly because it was hard to get the fruit to market from the isolated district. Cattle ranching is the main economic activity these days.

Kaupo used to be a heavily settled area, they say. Numerous fishing villages were scattered throughout the area. The district has 30 recorded heiau. Loaloa Heiau is the largest, a very ancient heiau said to have been built by the menehune, and it was one of the first sites in East Maui to be registered as a National Historic Landmark.

In 1730, Maui's King Kekaulike built Popoiwi heiau, a pu'uhonua (place of refuge) in Kaupo. This refuge sits close to Huialoha Church, a restored Congregational church which was built in 1859 near the shoreline just east of Kaupo Gap, on the rocky black-sand Mokulau Beach. The area was an ancient surfing site and is named "many small islands" for the rocks offshore. The church was restored in 1978.

Numerous churches, many of them mere shells, dot the landscape, marking the locations where the settlements once existed. Some of the churches used abandoned Hawaiian heiau as foundations.

In earlier times, the Hawaiians gathered salt from the depressions in the boulders at Nuu Bay. More than 50 ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs have been recorded in the area. The bay was also a landing, where the cattle were taken by ship to market in Honolulu. In 1997, Nuu Pond, a small pond that sits behind the cobble beach at Nuu Bay, was fenced in to keep cattle out of the area. Sightings of native birds, including the Hawaiian stilts and coots increased.

The scenery is stark and rugged. Most of it is cattle country. Past the Kaupo Store the road is unpaved and rutted for three miles. Even when there is paving, until Keokea the road is narrow, bumpy and full of potholes.

Between Kaupo and Keokea, there are traces of a very large village called Kahikinui, which is now in ruins. The Dept. of Hawaiian Home Lands has 22,000 acres in the area, making it one of the major land owners in Kahikinui. Homestead development in the area for native Hawaiians is in progress through a new kuleana program that allows homesteaders to occupy the land and build before extensive infrastructure is in place.

Through Kahikinui, the road generally follows the old Hoapili Highway, an upland trail built in the 19th century. The road continues west through wide open dry areas with patches of native wiliwili trees and other introduced species. The majority of the plants in this area are thorny and tough. They are the only plants that can survive the arid conditions and the depredations of the cattle and the large wild goat herds. The road has a panoramic view of the rolling hillsides and open cattle range above La Perouse Bay.

It is said that "in the old days," you could walk from Kahikinui to Makawao and never once leave the shade of the trees. This was probably before the lava flows in the late 1700s cut a wide swath through the dryland forests of the district, and before the days of the sandalwood trade, when the chiefs ordered their people up into the mountains to harvest the iliahi, sandalwood, for which there was a great demand in China. The chiefs kept their people in the mountains so much that the work the people needed to do to feed their own families was disrupted, and the people retaliated by uprooting the new sprouting trees so the forest died more quickly...so they could get back to their own lives.

This was also before the free-ranging wild cattle released in the hills in the 1790s caused extensive damage to plant life, denuding the mountain side and changing the wind and rain patterns.

At one time, there was a sizeable Hawaiian population in Ulupalakua and Kahikinui, supported by extensive cultivation of dryland taro and sweet potato, supplemented by coastal fishing. Now it is mostly an arid land below the cloud belt. The cattle are still there.
 

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