Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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It was connecting up into here, into this Waiköloa Stream and the Keanu‘i‘omanö, this
other steam that flows pretty regularly. Remember the one big stream on the side of the
road
Yes.
That flowed pretty much all the time
Yes.
This is where they were running the flume right up into this area here. One of the other
interesting things, and I’m just curious. You see there’s a number of L.C.A.s, the Mähele
Awards of the Land Commission. And this is Lïhu‘e Paddock out here
Yes.
Did you folks ever run across some old...was there evidence still on the ground of even
‘auwai or irrigated
Well, yes, Spencer’s place, the stone wall down there. It’s probably still there.
Yes. I hiked through there, we weren’t supposed to, because of unexploded ordinance,
but I was careful.
During the war
No, it was after the war, this was probably ‘58, ‘59, ‘60. Went all through there, and the
‘auwai are what got me. From the rubbish dump, there’s a main ‘auwai. Rubbish Dump
Road was a main ‘auwai going down to Pä…Spencer’s place [Päpua‘a] [thinking]
Pu‘upä
Pu‘upä, that’s right here [pointing to location on map].
Excuse me, Pu‘upä is here. Päpua‘a is Spencer’s place.
Päpua‘a is Spencer’s place. Yes, that’s right near the road here someplace.
Yes, I think it’s one of these right here.
Yes.
Out here, there were these little ‘auwai, and they would go around and when you go up in
the mountain road Kepä, you look down with your binoculars, you look down and you can
see the stone walls and all this stuff out there.
Out all across there
Yes. That’s where we hiked out and they had their farms. They farmed their land out
there. The ‘auwai were extensive.
Did you hear anything about that, from the old people It seems like this must have been
a really important agricultural area.
They tell me, and I don’t know where I got this, way, way back when I was doing so much
of this Hawaiian genealogy research. This was the old, real Waimea, that was when
there were very few people living here. Because your streams were running all the time.
Then because, when you think of it naturally, those old-timers, it’s cold up here, you’re
not going to live up here.
Well, you look even right here, Lïhu‘e. If you look at place names, Lïhu‘e itself can mean
a cold chill. Things have changed I’m sure, the weather, the water flow and everything.
Lïhu‘e had a stream that William French writes of, that he said, it was the best place to
live in Waimea because that stream always ran. Always ran, that’s in the 1850s and ‘60s.
Yes. You see the Macy and Louzada Grant also
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:18