Return to Hawea Heiau

 

Every second Saturday of the month Hawea Heiau Complex and Keawawa Wetlands hosts a volunteer clean up of the five acre parcel. This was my second visit and I actually got to become sort of a steward for the new visitors this time. Some of the volunteer students from Kalani High School and I made a human chain to help clear out the rubbish bags from the ridge. Then a couple of them helped me plant a couple of ti leaf plants at the entrance. Later I got to conduct my own tour with a third grade teacher and was able to pass on what I have learned about the complex so far.

The importance of Hawea as a ceremonial heiau is evident with the two types of coconut trees found here. The football shaped Hewa would have been used to carry water and the spherical Nelo would have contained the awa during Awa ceremonies to honor the akua...

 

Kaleo told me that these offerings were placed on the corners of the five acre parcel lot. As a blessing by the caretakers when the landowner agreed to sell it to them for preservation. Just in the back ground you can see the honu petroglyph that I also posted on my first visit. Kaleo says one should offer the opposite to the akua. A mountain should receive something from the see and an akua on the shore should receive something from the mountains. This area is somewhere in the middle of either during present day. Although it would have been just at the foot of the ocean in the past...

The main volunteer, Sam is just doing some awesome work. He's done so much within the last month and has rediscovered so much more things that were lost to overgrowth. Here is a small wall that was just waiting to be revealed....

Here is a terrace wall on the upper perimeter slowly being brought out to the light of the sun again.

 

 I missed the information from Kaleo about this curved wall the last time. She pointed out that curved walls aren't really found at Oahu sites. Most of them are on Molokai and she suggests that this heiau may have had practitioners from across the Kaiwi in Molokai during it's construction.

 

Another lesson I learned was about these little ili ili stones. They don't really gather like this naturally and Kaleo suggested that ili ili are used to level ground within terracing. While terracing holds ground and prevents it from eroding...

Here is a wili wili tree almost in the center of the ridge at the top of what has already been cleared. It seems to have significance to the structure like those of the Hewa and Nelo. Wili wili wood would have been used as floaters for fishing nets, outriggers and wa'a for the canoes, and surboards for ali'i even though surf might not have been too good in the fishpond of Maunalua. Wili wili trees are indigenous and in quick decline due to a certain wasp infestation. Wili wili would have been abundant in the leeward areas in dry land forests.

 

Lower near the marsh and just under the coconut grove are more structures. Such as this other small curved wall... 

 

...and this large terrace wall which contains some faint petroglyphs...

 

Here is one of the nelo trees we planted last month next to a dead one and an upright stone altar. Kaleo suggested that it may be a kapua stone....

 

Here is a view of the marsh and where the students were sent to gather tennis balls from the nearby courts of the country club...

 

I heard Kaleo mention that there was a survey marker at the top of the ridge and by this time in the day my curiosity took over and I skipped out to see if I could find it.

 

 

Here is the view from the top of the ridge.