Pu'ukohola Heiau, the Temple Kamehameha Built to Unite Hawai'i

King Kamehameha, who united and ruled the Hawaiian Islands. Courtesy of the National Park Service.

Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site, on the Hawai'i Island coast at Kawaihae, is where powerful Hawaiian figures lived and made decisions that changed Hawaiian history and daily life. It preserves structures and sites tied to the Hawaiian people and to Kamehameha the Great, who united all the Hawaiian Islands.

Its centerpiece is Pu'ukohola Heiau, the "Temple on Whale Hill," built under Kamehameha I's direction between 1790 and 1791 — one of the last major temples raised in the islands before outside influences changed Hawaiian life for good.

The rise of Kamehameha

Kamehameha was born around 1758, when a white-tailed star led Hawaiian prophets to foretell a great leader. The son of a high chief and a princess, he trained from boyhood with the na ali'i koa, the chiefly warriors, and was an expert warrior by young adulthood. By 1782 he had inherited land in northern Hawai'i and custody of his family's war god, Kuka'ilimoku, and he hoped to unite the warring islands and bring them peace. By the late 1700s many Hawaiians believed that was his destiny.

By 1790 he had conquered Maui, Lana'i and Moloka'i, but his home island of Hawai'i resisted him under his chief rival, his cousin Keoua Kuahu'ula. Kamehameha sent his aunt to consult the prophet Kapoukahi, who said he would unite and rule the islands if he built a great heiau (temple) to the war god atop Pu'ukohola.

Building the temple

Kamehameha set to work at once, calling in thousands of men; even the chiefs, and Kamehameha himself, did the labor. The prophet laid down strict rules to please the war god, among them that the temple be built of special water-worn lava rocks. To bring them, workers formed a human chain 20 miles long to the seaside valley of Pololu.

By the summer of 1791 the heiau was finished: 224 by 100 feet, with walls 16 to 20 feet high laid without mortar. Kamehameha invited Keoua to the dedication. There an unplanned fight broke out, and Keoua and many of his companions were killed. His body was carried to the top of the heiau as the principal sacrifice to the war god. The event ended all opposition to Kamehameha on Hawai'i, and the prophecy began to come true.

By 1810 Kamehameha had united the Hawaiian Islands — through conquest, through the counsel of his trusted military advisors John Young (British) and Isaac Davis (Welsh), through new technology and treaties, and through his deep spiritual beliefs.

The rest of the site

The end of the kapu

Kamehameha died in 1819, and his son Liholiho went to Pelekane to prepare to succeed him as Kamehameha II. Soon after taking power, Liholiho ended the kapu (taboo) system, the religious and practical code that had kept law and order in Hawai'i for centuries. That changed Pu'ukohola Heiau's purpose forever, and it was abandoned soon after. Its part in the unification of the islands makes it central to understanding Hawaiian heritage.

A self-guided one-hour walking tour takes visitors through Pu'ukohola Heiau, Mailekini Heiau, Pelekane, John Young's homestead and other sites, with their history and mana (spiritual power).

Sources

Rewritten from the National Park Service article "Hawai'i Island: Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site" (public domain), in hubnx's own words. The article spells the war god both "Kuka'ilimoku" and "Kuka'ilimoki"; the page uses the first. It spells Isaac Davis "Issac".