PU'UKOHOLA HEIAU NHS • KALOKO-HONOKOHAU NHP • PU'UHONUA O HONAUNAU NHP A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island

CHAPTER IX:
PU'UHONUA O HONAUNAU NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK (continued)

F. Description of Resources: Pu'uhonua Area (continued)

2. Pahu tabu (Sacred Enclosure), Great Wall

     a) Early Descriptions

The Reverend William Ellis described the refuge enclosure as being "of considerable extent" in the form of an irregular parallelogram. Walls enclosed one side and both ends, with the other side open to the beach. A low fence ran across the northwest end. Ellis's party measured the wall and found it to be 715 feet long and 404 feet wide, with walls 12 feet high and 15 feet thick. Ellis saw holes in the top of the wall that had supported large images spaced about four rods apart along the entire extent. [71] A 1966 study by Apple and Macdonald of the shoreline area just north of the Great Wall confirmed that a dryland access route to the refuge had existed. It is now submerged during periods of high tide. Their study showed the water there had risen about one foot per century. [72]

Samuel Kamakau describes the Great Wall as follows:

The famous pu'uhonua of Honaunau in North Kona had the walls of a fortified heiau (pa kaua heiau), made of large rocks placed on top of each other. Its two walls made an angle (huina pa'ewa) between Honaunau and Keamoali'i. One wall was a furlong (kesadia, or kekakia) and 19 fathoms (anana) long, and the other 67 fathoms long; the height was 2 fathoms, and the breadth, 2-1/2 fathoms. [73]

Thrum further elaborates upon the writings of Kamakau, stating that:

Honaunau . . . was a stone walled enclosure resembling a fort, with a kind of temple within. Perhaps only mate persons were rescued by this place of refuge at South Kona. Honaunau was a celebrated puuhonua, its stone walls having the nature of a war temple with large stones placed on top of others. It had a cornered shape, two sides being built of stone which were between Honaunau and Keamoalii, and on the makai side was the rocky seashore, and a large stone called Keoua. There were two temples within the stone walls, one situated on the northeast corner adjoining the tomb called Haleo-keawe . . . and one at the end, facing North Kona, the (women's heiau) temple of Akahipapa.

Haleokeawe was sheltered by a surrounding fence of carved wooden images, and on the north side was the bottomless pit (lua pau) where you enter the enclosure. Carved images also graced the main walls of the enclosure toward Keamoalii and Keokea. [74]

Illustration 170. Plan of "City of Refuge, Honaunau," drawn by W.A. Wall in 1907. From Neasham, Historic Sites Survey Report, Place of Refuge, p. 37. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Illustration 171. Plan of south wall of pu'uhonua at Honaunau, after Stokes, 1957. Figure 13.40 in Stokes, "Archaeological Features of the Pu'uhonua Area," p. 207. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

     b) Construction Details

The local informant quoted earlier gave Stokes the following information in 1919 in regard to the pu'uhonua and the process of forgiveness:

From Lot 19, where Keawe dwelt, a trail formerly led through lot 20 and the ground now occupied by the young cocoanut grove, between the Hale O Lono and Keawe's cocoanut house, and arrived at an entrance at the northern end of the mauka wall of the Puuhonua — the situation of the present entrance. Thence it continued a few feet to the Kauila gate of the Hale O Keawe [opposite its door], which Keawe and his family alone used. The entrance which preceded the present one to the Puuhonua was on a level with the ground, not raised as now, and the northern end of the mauka wall originally extended full height to the line of this entrance. (There is now a bench made in the end.) The original entrance passed between the end of the mauka wall and the Hale O Keawe and continued in a straight line past the chief's platform. The low wall at present on the south side of the passage opposite the chiefs' platform is modern according to Mainui [the informant, said to have been born ca. 1823]. Another wall running to the s.w. from the end of this wall, was ancient. The entrance here referred to was not for people under the rank of chief, and was closed by Kauila rail set up on a line of the mauka wall and the Kauila gate to the Hale O Keawe.

The refugees' entrances were two, different from those previously mentioned — they entered by the beach either on the north or on the south. The latter was also their point of departure after being pardoned. Refugees approaching the Puuhonua from the north, passed along the tidal Pahoehoe Flat makai of Lots 10 and 11 and swimming reached another flat of Pahoehoe north of the Hale O Keawe and stretching out towards that first mentioned. On the outer point of the second flat was an idol, on reaching which the laws of the place regarded the fugitives as saved. After landing, they entered the Puuhonua, passing to the west of Hale O Keawe and to the northeast and east of Alealea Heiau. The procedure from there on was not definitely stated. On the south stood another idol a little to the south of the former west end of the wall which extended almost to the sea. The pursuers were compelled to abandon the chase when the fugitives reached the imaginary line between this idol and the wall's end. To this same place, the pardoned men were escorted and delivered to their friends. The idols were of wood or of stone. Guards were always patrolling the boundaries, to enforce the refugee laws. [75]

Measurements taken during archeological work by Archeologist Edmund Ladd showed the wall to be 17 feet thick, 12 feet high, and almost 1,000 feet long — an L-shaped structure enclosing an area of about five acres. The north wall that existed in Ellis's time is gone. Part of the north end was rebuilt to accommodate construction of the Hale-o-Keawe. The wall forms two sides of the enclosure, which is open to the sea on the other sides. As with all Hawaiian masonry structures, notably the heiau described earlier in this report, the pu'uhonua enclosure is composed of two outward facing walls with a central core of rubble fill. The wall material comprises uncut, mortarless, basalt blocks that fit together with the smoothest surfaces of the stones facing outward. The stones used on the outside veneer wall were probably specially selected for their smooth surfaces and were probably collected nearby. Small stones were used for the infilling, or chinking, between the large rocks, and the rubble core between the two outside walls is comprised of broken, more irregular, stones. In the wall at the north end are some very large boulders, many of them weighing more than 1,000 pounds. They must have been moved to the site with great difficulty, possibly with the use of wooden pry bars, rollers, and skids. The foundation of the wall rests on solid pahoehoe primarily, although several sections are built over sandy areas or sinks. The wall's structural weakness results not only from a weak foundation in several places, but also from its mortarless construction. [76]

     c) Restoration Efforts

A great deal of restoration work has been accomplished on the Great Wall. By 1902, more than eighty years after abandonment of the pu'uhonua, the wall lay in ruins. Archeological evidence indicates that several hundred feet of the west end of the wall were destroyed by tidal waves. As mentioned, S.M. Damon, a trustee of the Bishop Estate, commenced repairing this structure and the 'Ale'ale'a Heiau and 'Akahipapa ("women's Heiau Hale o Papa) at his own expense. W.A. Wall supervised the reconstruction of the wall, basing his work on known facts and oral traditions of local informants. No official records of this project were kept, although Stokes attempted to gain some knowledge of the level of work accomplished by talking with Wall years later and with some of his workmen in 1919. In addition, Wall drew a plan of the refuge and related sites that was reproduced in The Hawaiian Annual for 1908.

     d) John F.G. Stokes's Observations

In 1919 Stokes and a Bishop Museum crew began excavation work and limited restoration of the stone platform of Hale-o-Keawe and repair of the Great Wall. A diagram by the Reverend A S. Baker in 1921 shows the details of structures at that time. [77] Stokes made several observations in the course of his work on the Great Wall. He believed, for instance, that the south wall had probably originally extended out onto the flat west as far as the sea, with an opening somewhere along it. More than 100 feet of the west end of the south wall that had been destroyed by tidal waves had been restored in 1902, but the wall was moved slightly north of the original line during restoration. By comparing photographs taken in 1889 and 1919 of the middle part of the outer face of the east wall, it was apparent that the 1902 reconstruction had taken a foot or two in height off the original wall. Stokes also determined that the north-running wall continued through the platform of the Hale-o-Keawe, suggesting that at one time it extended clear to the water's edge. The platform of the Hale-o-Keawe merely incorporated the base of that wall in its construction. (Dr. Emory inserted a comment into Stokes's written notes on the Great Wall that a break in the east wall close to the north end for an entrance had been installed prior to 1846 and may have been one of the original entrances that Ellis mentioned.) Stokes measured the largest stone in the outer (east) facing of the north-running wall and found it measured 6-1/2 feet high, a little more than 5 feet wide, and 2 feet thick. For most of its course, the east wall rested on bare lava; those sections that had collapsed by 1902 were on soft ground.

Illustration 172. Albert S. Baker's plan of "City of Refuge," 1921. From Baker, "How to Spend a Day in Kona," p. 104.

Where the interior of the wall had been exposed either by collapse or removal of stones, Stokes found a remarkable feature. This was pao, a hollow construction technique that saved labor and materials and was invisible behind the solid facades. This caverned, honeycomb construction was accomplished by laying several tiers of lava slabs or columns across the space between the outer and inner retaining walls. This technique has only been found at Honaunau, where it was also used in the platform of Alahaka Heiau to the south. It takes advantage of the properties of the local lava rock, which is fragmented, and probably comprised a later development of the construction technique used in the stone chambers or vaults of house and burial platforms in which a row of slabs a foot or two apart are bridged over with other slabs. Although Ellis stated that he had seen holes along the top of the wall for images, none have been noted by excavators. According to native tradition, stones for the Great Wall came from Paumoa and Alahaka in Keokea ahupua'a to the south. Most of it could certainly have come from nearby sources in the vicinity of the refuge where the lava surface is broken and from which pieces appear to have been appropriated. There are few loose stones in the vicinity, indicating they were used for building purposes. [78]

Although we do not know precisely when the Great Wall was built, in terms of how it was built, Stokes noted that

Our examination, as far as it goes, brings out a probability that there were at least seven units of construction, .or seven groups of workmen engaged in building these walls, and that the groups worked simultaneously. In this connection, what my Hawaiian informants said about the building of the wall by the men impressed for the work from the ahupua'a land sections extending 4 mi to the north and 5 to the south, is highly interesting and seems probably true. The number of ahupua'a land-sections within these miles is nine. With such a labor force working simultaneously, it does not seem impossible for the great wall to have been erected in five days, each of the nine or so groups erecting a section in a day. [79]

Illustration 173. Diagrams showing stabilized sections and cross walls of the Great Wall. Figures 1 and 2 in Ladd, "Great Wall Stabilization," pp. 132, 138. (click on images for an enlargement in a new window)

     e) Later Stabilization Efforts

In the earlier stabilization work on the Great Wall, Wall's men had tried to utilize the same construction techniques used originally. Because dry-laid core fill construction does not withstand heavy use or remain stable without periodic upkeep, new methods were tried in 1963 to preserve the original appearance, make the area safe for visitor use, and insure minimum future maintenance. During this project, nearly eighty percent of the wall was rebuilt. Although slightly modified, the finished wall closely resembled the original. The single outside face of the wall gained additional support through construction of an inward facing wall. Carefully selected long header stones laid in the wall with their ends towards the face of the wall reinforced the outside and inside faces. [80]

The 1963 stabilization work located three burials in the Great Wall, those of an adult and two children. Because many bones were missing, it was thought the burials had been washed out by high seas, with some of the bones then being retrieved from the beach area and reburied in the walls after the 1919 restoration work. These are considered intrusive burials. [81]

Archeologist Lloyd Soehren, in noting the extreme thickness of the wall, suggested that this might have constituted an effort to protect refugees within the enclosure from the "radioactivity-like mana of high chiefs whose living quarters were located just inland from the sanctuary." [82] Marion Kelly suggests also that, despite the protection afforded by the sanctity of the area, "the presence of this heavy wall could be interpreted as evidence that a certain degree of physical protection was necessary as insurance against intruders." [83]