Spirit of Aloha | Features | July/August 2007

Remembering Waikīkī
By Scott J. Whitney


Tales of the land and the chief-eating sands

TThere is a black-and-white photograph that has stuck in my memory for many years. Taken in the early 20th century by someone standing near the carriage entrance to the stately old Moana Hotel in Waikīkī, the photo de­picts an astonishing scene for anyone familiar with the retail storefronts and hotel and condominium skyline that can be viewed in the same location to­day. Looking at this rare photo carefully, one can see wetlands in the foreground, then taro terraces (lo‘i) and final­ly the gradual narrowing and contouring of the two deep, graceful valleys of Mānoa and Pālolo. It is, to me, a magical scene.

I thought I’d first seen the photo hang­ing at the Moana Hotel, but the hotel’s media relations people, after con­sideration, told me it was not in the Moana collection.

I then sent an e-mail to noted archivist DeSoto Brown at the Bishop Museum, who is the acknowledged expert on images of Old Hawai‘i. “I do remember one photo from the en­trance of the Moana Hotel looking mauka [toward the mountains],” he an­swer­ed. “It’s from the 1920s and it’s not in our collection and I don’t remember where or when I saw it.

Directly across the street from the hotel were the Moana Cottages, which were two lines of two-story buildings facing each other across a lawn. A small school and a church were located there when the hotel was first built.” I thought: Mystery not solved.

If you stand at the carriage entrance to the Moana today, you will have your feet planted above a place known in ancient times as Helumoa, the seat of power of Kāhuhihewa, the 16th-century chief who controlled all of O‘ahu. There is also evidence that Waikīkī was considered the capital of O‘ahu from as early as the 14th century, when the high chief Mā‘ilikū­kahi founded the settlement.

In ancient times, the land division of Waikīkī included a whole pie-shaped ‘ahupua‘a that went from the breaking reef to the top of the Ko‘olau range, and extended on land from the plain be­tween Honolulu and Waikīkī, and all the way to Maunalua Bay. It included the two valleys of Mānoa and Pālolo. There were six ‘ahupua‘a that made up the Kona, or southern moku (district) of O‘ahu. (Kona actually comes from a proto-Polynesian word that means “in the direction of Tonga.”)

This Waikīkī, as you might imagine, is gone forever.

The Sport of Kings

Native Hawaiian cultural historian Nathan Napoka says that the beach at Waikīkī was known as ke one ‘ai ali‘i, the chief-eating sands. This was be­cause no matter which outlying chiefs tried to invade or conquer the island of O‘ahu, Kāhuhihewa was able to defeat them—and these battles almost always happened at the perfect landing spot for invasions, on the beach at Waikīkī.

If Honolulu is the seat of Hawai‘i’s prosperous contemporary economy, it was Waikīkī that was the pre-contact hub of an equally affluent traditional economy. The move of the capital, in 1809, from Waikīkī to Honolulu was made for one reason: the greater depth of the harbor at Hono­lulu. Wai­kīkī was perfect for the Native Hawaiian economy and technology. The protection of an outlying reef and the gradually inclining sea-to-land slope was the ideal landing spot for native canoes. And the protection of the reef allowed for the placid harvesting of reef fish, seaweed, salt and shellfish.

Almost as important, the unique sea­floor contours, the open ocean swells, the breaks caused by the reef and that same, gentle seafloor slope sculpt some of the most perfect surfing waves imaginable. In ancient times surfriding, he‘e nalu, described both the activity of riding the waves in an outrigger canoe, and riding on hewn and polished wooden planks. There are many traditional tales of the surfing exploits of the chiefs at Waikīkī.

One of the stories of this famed area that has been passed down to us through the generations is about Kewalo, a notable young Kaua‘i chief who came to Waikīkī during Kāhuhihewa’s reign to challenge other young chiefs in wres­tling and surfing matches at Ulukou. Where he wrestled and gambled with the other young nobles is still marked by a stand of coconut trees on the property of the Royal Ha­wai­ian Hotel. On this journey he fell in love with a lovely woman named Kou. The love chant he sang to her is one of the few ancient compositions that has been enshrined in Wai­kīkī lore, and that remains part of its identity today:

Aloha Kou e, Aloha Kou,
Ke aloha mai nei Kou ia‘u
Ka hoa hele I ka makani

Farewell to thee, farewell Kou,
The love of Kou is within me,
My companion of the windy days

“But much of the pre-history of Wai­kīkī has been lost to us,” says Napoka. There are a few narratives that remain in ancient hula chants and in the writings of 19th-century Na­tive Hawaiian his­torians, including John Papa I‘i, whose uncle was a retainer in Kamehameha’s court in Waikīkī.

“The center of chiefly activity in Wai­kīkī was between Ulukou, or Kou, where the Royal Hawaiian Hotel now stands, and Helumoa, where the Moana Hotel is today,” adds Na­po­ka. “Between the two, the ‘Apuakehau Stream emptied into the ocean, and it was this spot that was the favorite break for chiefly surfing contests.”

All things are interrelated: Surfing and chiefly rivalry and native religious practice all came together in Waikīkī. For in­stance, on the slopes of Diamond Head was a heiau, a tem­ple dedicated to surfing. These days, avid surfers grope for their clock radios each morning to hear surfing reports that include the swell heights recorded by outlying buoys. In ancient times, the priests at the surfing temple would fly a kite that would signal to everyone the wave conditions of the day.

Gathering the Ancestors

In the modern era, the growth of tourism and business has led to the unearthing of cultural and human re­mains all around Waikīkī. In 1976, the remains of five ancient burials were found near Fort DeRussy. Three burials were discovered in 1980 at the site of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Tapa Tower. As early as 1901, four skeletal remains were found on the James Castle property where the Elks Club now stands in Kapi‘olani Park.

Over the years, ancient burials from Waikīkī began to collect in cardboard boxes in storage spaces at the Bishop Museum, at Kamehameha Schools and, years later, with the Historic Preser­va­tion Branch of the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). In the late 1990s, I saw some of the Waikīkī human remains, which DLNR kept at the time in battered old lockers in a rented building in downtown Honolulu.

As federal and state law evolved over the years, rules and guidelines were negotiated and promulgated to ensure the culturally appropriate handling of what Native Hawaiians call the ‘iwi of the ancestors. ‘Iwi means bones, but to the kanaka maoli, the Hawaiian people, the term means much more. The re­mains have sacred power and deserve loving, respectful treatment. In Hawai‘i, Burial Councils were set up on each of the major islands.

Napoka credits the federal law, known as the Native American Graves Protec­tion and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), for finally creating required guidelines for modern cultural institutions.

“As a result of NAGPRA,” he says, “the Burial Council decided that the Wai­kīkī remains should be brought to­gether and re-interred at a burial mound that has been designed and constructed just outside the entrance to the Hono­lulu Zoo, at Kapi‘olani Park. Some of those ancestors were out of the ground for a long time, from the earliest years of the 20th century. Many of them came from the inventory of the Bishop Museum.

“When kūpuna [elders, ancestors] were buried, it was with the thought that they would stay in the earth. To put them in cardboard boxes was a desecra­tion in the eyes of most Native Hawai­ians. Culturally it’s important that they be re-interred closest to where they were found.”

How should the visitor act when visiting the burial mound?

“Just be respectful,” says Napoka.

There are dozens of these mom-and-pops scattered throughout the Islands. These businesses are essential to Hawai‘i’s identity. By patronizing them you will not only reward yourself by making your travel experience far richer, you’ll be supporting them to ensure that they pass on to the next generation.

A Feel for the Land

How can a visitor to Hawai‘i get the feel for what Waikīkī was like before the cement and the street signs—and before the Ala Wai Canal cut off the streams and drained the wetlands? What was the area like before the first plastic lei was sold and before the first miniature umbrella was placed in the first mai tai?

There are several possibilities for getting the feel of ancient Waikīkī. The Native Hawaiian Hospitality Associa­tion (on the Web at www.waikikihistorictrail.com) runs tours of Waikīkī by arrangement. You can schedule a fee-based group tour by calling 441-1404. Visitors can also use the Web site to download information for a self-guided tour of the surfboard-shaped historical markers that comprise the Waikīkī Historic Trail.

For the conscientious bibliophile, there are a few books that can help. The local writer Allan Seiden has published two books on Waikīkī: Diamond Head (Mutual Publishing) and Waikīkī: Magic by the Sea (Island Heritage). Another help­ful book is Waikīkī Yesteryear, by Glen Grant (Mutual Publishing). Linguist Veneeta Acson has written a useful guide to walking in Waikīkī, called Wai­kīkī: Nine Walks Through Time (Island Heri­tage). Waikīkī: In the Wake of Dreams, written by Paul Berry and Edgy Lee, is an interesting, accessible history of the area (published by various organizations and businesses, and the Ha­wai‘i Visitors and Convention Bureau and O‘ahu Visitors Bureau).

A more re­cent book, Wai­kīkī: A History of Frogetting & Remembering, by Gaye Chan and Andrea Feeser (University of Ha­wai‘i Press), describes how “colonialism and capitalism have changed the look and function of the landscape.”

Finally, though it currently has no specific Waikīkī exhibit, the Bishop Mu­seum (at www.bishopmuseum.org) is also a good place to see the tools and sacred objects that the ancient peoples used in their daily lives.

One stop on the Waikīkī Historic Trail is not to be missed. Site No. 6 is just a bit Diamond Head from the Moana Hotel. The ancient Kapaemalu Healer’s Stones (wizard stones) are said to have come from the visit of four Tahitian leaders, containing their mana, their healing power. People still approach the stones today with a mixture of awe and expectation of their healing powers.

The Face of Dawn

I asked Peter Apo, director of culture and education for the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, to put a face on Waikīkī for visitors. In other words, how can we get a good sense of the place if we don’t know it well? “Waikīkī puts on its best face at dawn,” he says. “If you walk from the Natatorium to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, always keeping your feet on the beach, you will get a sense of this ancient place. If you look out to sea, you can see the dawn patrol, the early-morning surfers who have ap­pear­ed in those same waters year after year for hundreds of years.”

Apo says that the shape of the silhouette of Diamond Head, which can be seen as blue-black against the pre-dawn cobalt sky, is the source of its original name, Lae‘ahi, the brow of the tuna.

“The Villages Appeared Numerous”

If we want an idea of Waikīkī at the point of its greatest flowering as an indigenous civilization, we have to ask our time machine to place us on deck with Capt. George Vancouver in 1792, on the horizon between the Old World and the new, between so-called pre-history and history. On that day, this is how Van­couver described his view toward Waikīkī:

On the shores, the villages appeared numerous, large, and in good repair, and the surrounding country pleasingly deep … with the plains near the sea-side, presented a high degree of cultivation and fertility … we found the land in a high state of cultivation, mostly un­der immediate crops of taro; and abounding with a variety of wild fowl.

If we had been standing there with him, we would have probably first noticed the smell of wood smoke. And we would have seen people everywhere on land and sea. Then, as now, Waikīkī had one of the highest population densities in the Islands. Nestled in a crook in the side of Tuna Brow would have been the giant state temple, known as a luakini heiau. This was the fierce platform for human sacrifices, and it was particularly important at the point of contact, during the reign of Kamehameha I.

The moving horizon that Vancouver rode in on this day marked the end of a world of rambunctious gods, clever stories and a deep knowledge of the animal, marine and floral networks. It was also the end to a realm where war and slavery and bloody human sacrifice existed next to love songs and the graceful foot-lifts and hand swoops of the hula. The New World also had its slavery, and its wars. But at the time of contact, the kanaka maoli had a more thorough and complete pharmacopoeia than the Europeans and Americans.

Across the time boundary, the New World would be one where the One God had written down his instructions in a book, and where the land was divided in lines and words on pieces of paper. The New World would bring good and useful things. Hawaiians loved the idea of books and reading and their literacy rate in the early 19th century exceeded even that of today’s population. They loved nails and steel axes and cast aside their stone tools gladly. But the kanaka maoli would suffer terribly from imported disease and from the theft of their lands. By the early 20th century, they suffered from the great dispiriting that comes to those who have lost everything. They called this loha, the hanging of the head that comes to those who have endured too much.

While we think of Waikīkī in terms of sand, surf and the fishlike contours of Diamond Head, the early Ha­wai­ians would have associated it with water—in all its forms. There is the water of the sea, which is kai, and the freshwater from the streams and springs, which is wai. In ancient times we would have seen the coastline of Wai­kīkī looped with rock fishponds known as loko. Further inland, we would have seen the stepped terraces of the lo‘i or taro beds, all steeped in water brought down from the mountains in cleverly engineered irrigation ditches known as ‘auwai.

If you wanted to say a man was wealthy in ancient Hawai‘i, you called him wai wai—lots of water. And this land division called Waikīkī, this classic Polynesian fiefdom, was wealthy beyond imagining.

Kobai SCOTT WHITNEY is a Buddhist meditation teacher and writer who lives in Hoquiam, Wash. He is now guiding teacher for Plum Mountain Refuge, a meditation center. He can be reached at plum.mountain.yahoo.com

Features Archives