Kapalama

This area was favored by King Kamehameha. With it's long sloping hill and stream which leads into the calm waters of the sheltered harbor.

 

 

King Kamehameha enjoyed a Hōlua slide that was wide enough for two lanes to be ridden, as if for racing. A section of it was still visible up until the mid-1900's until even that was finally bulldozed for new developments.

 

 

More royal palms marking the Hawaiian presence...

This old graveyard centered at the foot of the mountain has a small section reserved for the Ka'ahumanu society. The entire graveyard has recently been cleared up and made more open feeling with the relation of the area. The headstones are still dilapidated and some graves are simply marked with single pohaku.

 

Below North School St. across Helena's Hawaiian Food. You will find Lo'i Kalo Park. It is a prime example of a modern Hawaiian garden. Using endemic plants, water ways, and pohaku in functional harmony. Alewa Heights has another park where traditional Hawaiian fauna and elements were used. Kapalama got it's name from a secured area surrounded by Lama wood. Where chief and chiefess would gather to be paired up for marriage.

A Lama tree can still be found here and the rock formations at the top of the park surround a larger stone in the center. Could this be the spot where the pairing of Ali'i gathered from across the island, over the Koolau, and from the ocean up Kapalama stream? 

 

No heiau exists intact in this ahupua'a. Remains of one was discovered on the campus of Kamehameha School during a new construction, noted as agricultural in use. O'omaunahele and Paepaenuileimoku are names of heiau only existing in oral tradition. The 36 Lo'i once surrounding this area were fed by two streams and Kunawai Spring.

 

 

 Bishop Museum once the original location of Kamehameha School for Boys, is located in Kapalama and houses large pohaku from the surrounding area. One, a bell stone taken from beside the road where it once stood at 3550 Kalihi St. Another is believed to be a phallic stone that was reportedly admired while chewing sugar cane from across the valley. It once stood on the western ridge of Kapalama directly in line with the last building of Kamehameha School and Violet st. in Kalihi Valley. It looks like a crouching animal and to some, a very large...um yeah.