You're tuned to a new show called Mostly Maui.
We are going through the Akaku vaults to find gems from Maui's past.
But we also want to see the videos that you send in, so if you'd like to contribute to
Mostly Maui, please call Dana Fulton at 871-5554, because it's your show.
Mostly Maui.
I'm a clown. I like Akaku and I'm not fooling around.
Akaku is good for you. Nobody does Maui like Akaku.
You're the hard rock bottom of your heart, you're the hard rock bottom of your heart.
You're the hard rock bottom of your heart, you're the hard rock bottom of your heart.
You're the hard rock bottom of your heart, you're the hard rock bottom of your heart.
You're the hard rock bottom of your heart, you're the hard rock bottom of your heart.
In this place called Kaleppo Lepo, within the Moku or district of Kula and the Akaku Pua'a of Ka'ono'ulu,
the sea creeps up to the land as it always has done, creeps backward, creeps forward.
As the tide begins to ebb, stones appear above the surface of the water, first one, then another,
and another, until a thousand foot-present of wave-washed rock is revealed.
This is the Wall of Kō'i'e'i'e, an ancient Hawaiian loko'i'a, or fish pond that sits here today like a smile upon the sea.
A royal fish pond, for the raising and fattening of fish that at one time produced more than 2,000 pounds of prized mullet a year
for some of Hawaii's most renowned ali'i, or chiefs.
Constructing these ku'apa'a or sea walls was no easy task.
Kō'i'e'i'e covered an area of 6 acres, its rock walls were 6 feet high, 30 feet wide at the top, and 42 feet at the base.
Legend has it that they were built in a single night by Minehune, a race of Hawaiian leprechauns.
It is just as likely that they were built over months or years by armies of Kanaka, human beings, 10,000 strong, passing rocks of heavy basaltine
from far in the uplands all the way down to the sea.
Since in the life of the ancient Hawaiian, gods were forever present.
Two stones in every fish pond took on special significance.
An upright kū stone, representing the fish god Kū'ulakai, was placed on the east side of the wall, and on the west, a pahina stone
to signify the regenerative female power of the moon and the perfect balance contained in all of nature.
Of the six types of fresh and saltwater fishponds known throughout Polynesia,
the design of loko kuapa is unique to Hawaii.
These enclosed semi-circular rock wall fishponds were built on shoals or reef flats near a freshwater stream or spring.
The shoreline served as the inner wall of the pond, and the outer walls facing the open sea had puka,
or openings called auaikai, channels installed with makaha or sluice gates.
These makaha made of ohi'a or lama wood allowed sea water to flow in and out of the pond.
In the Hawaiian way of thinking, it is maka, or eyes that would see the fish in the ha, the breath of the living sea that would circulate the water.
Fish would swim into the pond through the bars of the makaha,
and since fish are a lot like people, they would eat and eat and eat,
feeding upon seaweed and algae in the shallow, nutrient-rich water.
Until, like this o'opuhue or puffer fish, they grew too fat to get out.
Hawaiians would find all kinds of sea life in the lokoi'a.
Sometimes they would find papua'i, opa'i, ava, amaama, aholehole, veke, kumo.
Ava'ua, o'io, manini, palani, pualu, papio, ulua, nehu, akule, moi'i, kaku, uhu, inalea, kahala, kala, puhi, o'opuhue, nahavele.
As the saying goes, fishponds were things that beautified the land,
and a land with many fishponds was called a fat land.
When fish trapped in the pond became plentiful, they were harvested in various ways.
Some were speared, large ones were scooped up by hand, and others gathered up by nets.
Sometimes the lova'i'a fishermen trained fish, such as mullet or ala,
to swim near the shoreline or sea wall by feeding them taro, sweet potato, or breadfruit.
And some were poached by four-legged thieves.
In Hawaii, there is as much variety in fresh and saltwater fishponds as there is in the topography in which they lie.
This pahunu, for instance, on O'ahu, was designed for the harvesting of turtles for the dinner tables of those who held noble rank.
But all fishponds in Hawaii had at least one thing in common.
They were all situated in a traditional pie-shaped land division called an ahupua'a
that extended from its narrow origin high in the mountains to its widest span culminating at the reef line in the sea.
This balanced form of land management granted every inhabitant access to fresh water, food, medicine,
and building materials for shelter and canoes, all the ingredients necessary to sustain life.
An ahupua'a was called rich according to the number of fishponds it contained.
At the time Captain Cook arrived in Hawaii in 1778, more than 350 thriving fishponds were spread out along the coasts and uplands of the island chain feeding thousands by 1900, less than 100 remained.
By the dawn of the 21st century, there were only four working fishponds left in all of Hawaii. Time, erosion, natural disasters, development, and the changes in lifestyle have taken their toll.
Yet along the coasts of our islands, where ghostly remnants of a glorious time command our gaze, there are some who still remember the Mo'olelo a Kapoe Kaiko, the tales and traditions of the people of old.
This place was known to our ancestors as Koieie, rushing waters, and way way back in the 16th century in the time of the bad chief Umi.
There was one arrogant, you know, sassy Haimaka Maka Overseer, who was Konohiki of the Moku, the district of Kula. It was he who summoned the people of Maui to rebuild the fishponds in Kaono'u Lukai.
When the Konohiki told the people to build fishponds for the king at Kaono'u Lukai, one man, Kikao, a reader of portents,
protested that no such works could be completed without the help of the Menahune, a Hawaiian race of elves who lived in the forest.
For his insubordinate, Kikao was told that when the king's ponds were completed, he would be baked in the emu, an oven in the ground.
Until that time, he would have to work like the others in stacking the rocks to build the pond.
There were thousands of workers stretched out from miles, passing stones from hand to hand.
The lifting of stones and the trampling of so many feet raised so much dust, the Konohiki made fun of them and called them
Ka'anaka e ka'lepo lepo e kuwi ka'lepo.
Or the men of ka'lepo lepo root in the dirt. That is how ka'lepo lepo got its name, the dirt.
Just then, the Ka'umuku wind that still blows today blew a blast of dirt in the face of the Konohiki.
Thinking that Kikao and his friends were mocking him, he went into a rage.
As their punishment, he ordered them to dive and bring up heavy stones from the bottom of the sea to make the walls of the ponds.
And so it went over and over again. Every time the fish pond walls were almost complete, the Konohiki would taunt Kikao,
telling him he would still die a horrible death in the emu.
But Kikao, he wasn't scared. He knew that the Amako spirits of the men who were all powerful
and that they would render a Konohiki's work to nothing before a last stone was laid.
That night, a great storm came up. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning.
An earthquake and heavy sea spent its fury on ka'lepo lepo.
Under cover of the storm, the Menehune's were seen tearing down the sea walls,
undoing the work of the Konohiki so Kikao might not die.
And by the break of day, all the work had been undone. The sea walls, gone.
It took a long time.
But eventually, the Konohiki came to his senses and asked Kikao for help.
Kikao summoned his elven brothers. And as the story goes,
Chok Menehune came from the uplands and the fishponds of Koiyeie at Ka'lepo Lepo
were rebuilt in one glorious night. The rocks you see today are still there.
And the sand dunes. And the sand dunes.
And the coconut trees. And the coconut trees.
And the Menehune shore condominium. And the Menehune...
Auntie, tell us about the mo'o. What's a mo'o?
A mo'o bahine is a female lizard who sleeps in the pond
and can take human form whenever she wants.
The one who comes here to Koiyeie is mo'o Mokuhinia in Aumakua,
or spiritual guardian from Lahaina, who showed herself here at the exact time
of the death of Kapua'ifa, the beloved son of Kamehameha I.
If you ever see foam on the surface of the water, no ita fish, it's Kapu.
Does she eat children?
She might, eh? You like to try to swim in.
He aloha wale. He aloha wale no kihawahine na Kamehameha iho omanae.
He aloha wale. He aloha wale no kihawahine na Kamehameha iho omanae.
No mo'o ike alihi.
No mo'o ike alihi.
Kuhahuakua.
Kuhahuakua.
He mo'o akua.
He mo'o akua.
He aloha wale.
He aloha wale.
He aloha wale.
He aloha wale no kihawahine.
By the 1800s, the mo'o in Kō'i'i'e was well appeased.
Kamehameha the Great enlisted the people of West Maui to rebuild the fish pond walls
and over the years, the ponds at Kālipu Lepu, full of choice mullet, became a resort for Hawaiian royalty.
Many reigning monarchs of the post-contact era feasted here, including Kamehameha III and Kamehameha V.
By the mid 1800s, the little seaport village of Kālipu Lepu, with a population of 2,000, was bustling with activity.
Quailing ships plied the offshore waters of Maalea Bay, and the great beasts were brought here to extract their oil.
A famous trading post, the ko'a house was built near the fish pond walls by a man from New York, John Joseph Houston.
Coconut trees and co' grew beside pools of clear water, along the banks, through the taro, and up it.
Kō'i'i'e loko'i'a was fat with fish.
One of the greatest of all Hawaiian scholars, David Malo, preached to his congregation here and at his nearby church.
But he never lived to see what was to become his greatest fear, that one day, a foreign power would come to rule his beloved islands.
The big wave comes in. Large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean.
When they see the small fishes of the shallows, they will eat them up.
The white man's ships have arrived with clever men from the big countries. They will devour us.
It wasn't long before the kaumuku wind brought bad tidings to Kalapulepo. The kula forests were cut for sandalwood.
Cattle trampled the nearby fields. Torrential rain soiled the aina, washed the earth from the uplands, filling the fishponds with silt.
Sand dunes drifted into the ponds, and with less vegetation to keep it cool, the climate got hotter and the land more barren.
By 1876, Kalapulepo took on an abandoned ghostly look. By the turn of the century, it was desolate. Only a few fishermen remained.
Today, at Kalapulepo Beach Park, the days of royal pomp and circumstance are no more, and the fish in the pond at Koieie come and go as they please.
No longer hunted to extinction, magnificent humpback whales still frolic in the bay, and endangered hawksbill turtles still hatch out to make their miraculous journey back to the sea.
They are not the only ones coming back to Kalapulepo. There are more and more every day who still hear the call of the pond.
Ao Ao Na Loko I Ao Maui, the fish pond association of Maui, has joined with native Hawaiians and the Maui Ohana to rebuild and restore Koieie to its former glory and splendor.
Every stone carries the mana or spiritual power of the ancestors. The stones will move, and the walls of Koieie will rise again.
We're wailing under gold, and we don't give a damn when the day is done, how hard the winds did blow.
For what hope was found from the arctic ground, with a good ship taught and free, and we don't give a damn when we drink or rum, when the girls will hold Maui.
Rollin' down to old Maui, hey boys, rollin' down to old Maui, where we're homeward bound from the arctic ground, rollin' down to old Maui.
Once more we sail with an ugly gale through the ice and wind and rain.
Them native maids, them tropical glades, we soon shall see again. Six hellish moths have passed away on that cold camp Chatka Sea, but now we're bound from the arctic ground, rollin' down to old Maui.
Aka Koo, Maui County Community Media.
That's what they do, they just hold still, when something comes by they just open their mouth and suck it in.
He really is something, this guy.
I'm Danielle.
And I'm Lauren.
We're the Bee Girls for Bee Facts.
Hi, I'm Lauren Russert with your Bee Facts.
Inside a full honeybee colony, there could be as many as 60,000 bees.
There are the workers, the drones, and the queen.
The workers comprise most of the colony, they are all female and do the majority of the work.
During good foraging weather, they live about four to six weeks.
The drones, a small proportion of the colony, are the male bees, their purpose is to mate.
If the drones are lucky enough to mate, they will immediately die.
The queen, Herroyal Majesty, has the important daily task of laying eggs, up to 2,000 in one day.
There's only one queen per colony, and she has the ability to live several years.
I'm Lauren Russert for Bee Facts, until next time, be well.
We're the Bee Girls for Bee Facts.
You look cool smoking a cigarette, man.
You know what?
Do you think I look like a monkey?
The Bee Girls for Bee Facts
The Bee Facts
The Bee Girls for Bee Facts
