Mai Kahiki Mai: Later Arrivals From Tahiti

As both the stories and the archaeological research show, Waiheʻe held a place of significance in supporting the early Hawaiian community, and possibly in its development of traditional Hawaiian culture.  Although we cannot say for sure exactly when voyages stopped between Hawaiʻi and other parts of Polynesia, Hawaiian historians have documented these faint glimpses in brief stories of visitors arriving from foreign lands. Perhaps the best known of these later visits comes from a story first drafted by Kamakau, and retold by Fornander. This story describes the arrival of a group of foreigners (haole) who landed at a location in Waiheʻe known as Kiwe (whose exact location remains unclear) on a canoe known as Konaliloha during the reign of Chief Kakaʻalaneo, which Fornander claims dates to the late 15th or early 16th century. Two of these foreigners, who claimed to have come from Kahiki (foreign lands, likely Tahiti), were named Kukanaloa and Peleʻie (or Pele).  Upon their arrival in Waiheʻe, they were treated with kindness and respect, and brought into the village (presumably Kapoho village, although Fornander does not specify), and were given food, water and shelter. 

Eventually these foreign visitors became close friends of Kakaʻalaneo, and were given the honorary names of Kanikawa and Kanikawi, in memory of the flowers on the sacred hau tree Kalaukekahuli, which the goddess Haumea had planted in Waiheʻe. Both Kukanaloa and Peleʻie married Hawaiian women, and became the ancestors of many people in Waiheʻe. When reflecting upon their homeland, they described their wahi hānau (place of birth) as a place of abundant fruit, and large animals. They also described their homeland as the interior of the island, with their parents living in the forest on the side of a mountain. Kukanaloa and Peleʻie also mentioned their familiarity with the ʻulu, maiʻa, ohiʻa ʻai, and the kukui tree. 

This group of foreigners, who probably came from the ancestral homeland of the people inhabiting Hawaiʻi, had differentiated enough that their language seemed foreign, described as “sounding like a bird.”  This seems to demonstrate that regular contact between Hawaiʻi and Southern Polynesia had in effect ended by the time of Chief Kakaʻalaneo, with the exception of this story from Waiheʻe, and some other stories from around the islands (Keʻei in South Kona, Hawaiʻi Island has a story that is remarkably similar). While one might speculate why these foreign arrivals did not specify their knowledge of arguably the most important crop in both Hawaiʻi and Kahiki: kalo; their knowledge of the other crops clearly suggests that they came from somewhere in Polynesia.  However, after this time, it does appear that voyaging to the northern most point of Polynesia ended, leaving the Hawaiian people to create their own destiny. 

While the precise reasons these travelers left their homelands has been lost to time, it seems reasonable that such voyages were undertaken in order to find both new lands, and perhaps more importantly, new opportunities. Like many cultures around the world, younger children of high ranking individuals in traditional Polynesian societies may have sought out new lands in order to discover new opportunities. This certainly happened for both Kukanaloa and Peleʻie. However, their description of their ancestral land, particularly, that they lived in the upland and inland areas, suggests, that they descended from relatively modest ancestry.

Around this time, during the reign of Kaʻulahea and his son Kakaʻalaneo, a new way of understanding our relationship to ʻāina arrived on Maui from the island of Oʻahu. The moʻolelo suggest that a chief on Oʻahu who lived on the ʻEwa plain could see a rapid decline in the abundance of resources on both the land and the sea. This chief, Maʻilikukahi, developed the idea of the moku-ahupuaʻa system of land boundaries and resource management, a system that both evolved over time, and more importantly spread across the archipelago with the speed that only good ideas that promise a new way of living can do. 

Maʻilikukahi’s idea seems very straightforward when we look at it from the vantage point of approximately 600 years, and its power has been demonstrated all over the islands, with land and resource managers only now reawakening to its efficacy. The idea illustrates both elegance and simplicity; each island has a center point, or a piko (literally a navel). From this piko, Maʻilikukahi suggested, one can divide the island by the watersheds, using the natural boundaries these watersheds provide, such as valley walls, or other features that would provide an observable and definitive border between one unit and another.

Larger units were described as moku (translated as ‘district’), while smaller units, ahupuaʻa, serve as the basic unit of Hawaiian life.  Both moku and ahupuaʻa looked very similar in their general shape, with the apex reaching the piko at or near the summit of the mountain, and the base (the widest part) extending into the ocean, ending where the transition occurred between the deep, purple of the ocean (lipo) and the shallower offshore waters.  Each moku had its own chief, known as the aliʻiʻaimoku, whose authority derived from the high chief of the island, or aliʻiʻaimokupuni. The ahupuaʻa’s ruler held the title of konohiki (sometimes referred to as aliʻiʻaiahupuaʻa), generally a lower ranking aliʻi who served the aliʻiʻaimoku. 

Within the boundaries of the ahupuaʻa, families who lived there could both farm and obtain resources from both the ocean, and the upper portions of the ahupuaʻa (generally described as the wao akua, or forest of the gods, as opposed to the wao kanaka, or the human forests, where people dwelled and farmed). Fishing beyond the boundary of the moku-ahupuaʻa, in the deep waters of the lipo remained open to the entire population of the mokupuni (island). Among the most serious offenses among Hawaiian natural resource management sensibilities derived from the taking of resources that did not belong to that individual, by stealing vital resources from an adjacent ahupuaʻa. The ahupuaʻa system worked most effectively when the people who depended on its resources, who had the greatest stake in its preservation, managed the system and benefited from its abundance and productivity.

Although the numbers vary somewhat, by the time of European arrival in the late 18th century, Maui held approximately 212 ahupuaʻa in 12 moku.  The two piko of Maui consisted of Puʻu Kukui at the summit of Mauna Kahalawai, and a single, large rock known as Pohaku Palaha on the Hana Mountain area of Haleakala. Maui was unique in two ways, both in having more moku than any other island (compare with Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi Island’s 6 moku, and Kauaʻi’s 5 moku) and by having two piko on one island.  While I am speculating, I believe the two piko of Maui are one of the last remaining vestiges of the two kingdoms of Maui, as the moku-ahupuaʻa system developed before these two kingdoms united under the leadership of Chief Piʻilani.   

The boundaries of Waiheʻe ahupuaʻa, like the entire moku of Wailuku, extended from the piko at Puʻu Kukui at the summit of Mauna Kahalawai, and radiated downward along the edge of Mauna Alani and the valley and stream of Kalepa (at the Waiʻehu-Waiheʻe boundary). Today, this cuts through the Hawaiian Homestead lands at the last phase of Waiʻehu Kou, through the muliwai at Kalepa stream, and into the ocean, beyond the fringing reef offshore. The north western boundary of Waiheʻe ahupuaʻa, served as both the edge of the ahupuaʻa (adjacent to Makamakaʻole ahupuaʻa), and Kaʻanapali moku. This boundary also radiated from Puʻu Kukui, and followed the edge of the deep and lengthy valley of Waiheʻe until approximately one mile inland. While Waiheʻe valley makes a turn to the south, the ahupuaʻa-moku boundary extends generally straight down to the ocean, with Hulu Island serving as the last terrestrial marker before the ocean, and ultimately the lipo not far offshore. Within these boundaries, from Kalepa stream to Hulu Island, so much of Hawaiian history has taken place. Waiheʻe serves as a prism to understand how ka moʻolelo o Hawaiʻi, the history of Hawaiʻi unfolded.

— Dr. Scott Fisher