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Wahi Pana of Waipao:
“The majority of that ‘āina that we care for is an ‘ili ‘āina called Waipao,” Keoni says, “In that ‘ili ‘āina, or just adjacent, we have two sites from mo‘olelo. We have Kapuna, which was formed by one of the many exploits of Kāne and Kanaloa, in their desire for a refreshing drink of ‘awa. Kapuna is a spring—it’s probably actually more of a spring complex—and it feeds our lo‘i. We don’t draw water from the stream to feed our lo‘i. The lo‘i is spring fed. “At least half of the ‘āina that we utilize for lo‘i production is leased not from Kamehameha Schools—most of our land is Kamehameha Schools land—but half of the lo‘i area is from a Japanese family named Fujii. Early on we realized that Kapuna and that area would be important. It’s really close to the warehouse. It’s kind of central to approximately 70 acres that we mālama. We realized that would be an important part to have. And we started off with eight to ten-foot kūkaekōlea—Job’s Tears—and other sorts of weedy grasses and stuff, and now it’s an evolving lo‘i system. “We have approximately 70 acres, given both the Kamehameha Schools ‘āina that we mālama, and some of the parcels within there. We also have Ha‘akōlea, a pond connected with Papa and Wākea and some of their exploits. So those, at least within our ‘āina, those are two of the primary wahi pana. “There are people who have memories of that space that span decades, and just recently a classmate of mine, we had a kanikapila-like workday session up at Waipao. He brought his parents and his dad was the last paperboy that did the whole route all throughout He‘eia, so he got to know quite a few areas. He was telling us where the piggery was and where the house used to be and the family that lived in that house and things like that. “So I think there’s a lot of opportunity to uncover more knowledge of the space. From what I know, we haven’t gone through any systematic knowledge-building around the space. That’s one of the areas that we’re looking at. If your work can bring people together and talk story about mo‘olelo, the area, things like that, and capture those things, that would be beneficial.” |
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