Day 22: Sacred Sites Tour

Sacred Sited Tour Guide (Uncle Joe)

In a completely spur of the moment move last week I signed up for a daytime ghost tour at the ITT Office. Wednesday morning found me waiting at the Waikiki Resort parking lot, scanning the road for a van marked "O'ahu Ghost Tours" which was to pick me up at 10:20. True island style a loudly painted vehicle cruised into the parking lot around 10:30. A slight Hawaiian man with a huge grin popped out of the driver's seat, called to me from across the lot and introduced himself as Uncle Joe (Uncle & Auntie are terms used by the Hawai'ian people to show respect for older generations. This is part of the concept of ohana, used to show that we are all family).

The next six hours were an unpredictable ride across all parts of the island to sites that are considered sacred to the Hawai'ian people.  Uncle Joe is the son of a Hawai'ian chief and grew up in a village before they were disbanded by the U.S. government in the 1950s. He was loud, charismatic, and spontaneous. Upon boarding the van he told us that he would not be taking us to any of the marked places on the brocure, but would instead be taking us to less touristy, more traditional sacred sites that held meaning for his people. As we drove from Waikiki to god-knows-where, Uncle Joe spewed stories about O'ahu. In response to one woman's question about a local shop, Uncle Joe went into a rant about the tourism crash that O'ahu experienced post-9/11and explained that most of the mom-and-pop stores in the downtown area went under or were bought out by one entrepreneur during that time. He showed a strong sense of understanding when it came to just about anything having to do with Hawai'i's culture, politics, or history.

Grave of many of Hawai'i's great leaders

At one point he compared the Hawai'ian people to native Americans, saying that native Hawai'ians, unlike Native Americans, were not recognized as indigenous people in Hawai'i  and had no place to call their own (here he referenced reservations and ownership of land). Uncle Joe described highways built through ancient burial sites, the corruption of certain aspects of Hawai'ian culture by tourists, and the way that the U.S. Government forced native Hawai'ians out of village living and into houses, field work, and eating processed foods.

At our first stop - the Royal Mausoleum - Uncle Joe showed us the grave where many of the Hawaiian peoples' leaders were buried, excepting Kamehameha I, who is rumored to have died in battle and whose bones were never found. Uncle Joe shared with us some of the legends surrounding Kamehameha I, who was portrayed as a brutally strong leader who occasionally murdered the children of his enemies and ate them (it was believed that eating the innocent made one invincible).

Queen's Bath

The Queen's Bath was fenced off to the public, but Uncle Joe drove us up to an overlook to see the sacred place where only the royals were allowed to bathe. A local judge now owns the land and maintains the bath, but had he attempted to drink from or immerse himself in the waters back in the time when Hawai'ian royalty reigned, he would have been beheaded, as was the punishment for all non-royals who came into contact with the water.

As we continued to drive we passed one of the filming locations for LOST (my dad and sister will be excited to hear) and one of the filming locations for the new Hunger Games movie, in Pali.We continued driving past Kaneohe and eventually came to a stop in the parking lot of a country club, where Uncle Joe, without explanation, led us through some thick brush and onto a private trail that was covered in roots and overrun by vines. As we hiked, Uncle Joe explained that rock path we were walking on was hand-laid by the people of Hawai'i over 800 years ago in a collaborative effort by many villages to create a path that would allow them to transport food and other goods. The rocks (some of them were huge) were carried from each village to a central location where they were taken, a few at a time, to build Likeke Trail over the course of a century.

We followed our guide across red clay, into thickets, and through tunnels of vines. Occasionally Uncle Joe would stop without warning and boom out a chant into the forest in Hawai'ian, asking for permission to enter, praising the gods, and showing appreciation for our surroundings. He stopped several times to collect materials and make offerings out of ferns and branches, which he placed on rocks or in water as we went. The trail dead-ended in a spectacular waterfall that Uncle Joe said was sacred to his people and had healing powers. His mother, a village healer, had brought him to the falls as a young child and would bathe the ill in the healing waters. We were directed to a concealed lookout from one edge of the waterfall where Uncle Joe said the leaders of allied villages would meet and monitor activity in the valley and from the sea.

Ulu'po heiau

The last place we visited was a Hawai'ian heiau - a sacred burial ground piled high with rocks, which Uncle Joe said concealed the bodies of many Hawai'ian warriors. Ulu'po, translation "abundance of breadfruit", was the site of Uncle Joe's village, where he lived until the 1950's when he said the U.S. government pushed him and his village out of their land by intentionally drying up their river and threatening them with imprisonment. I could hear the hurt in our guide's voice as he detailed the changes that the U.S.government forced on him and his people. Hawai'ians were no longer allowed to live in villages and were forced into homes they could not afford, they were made to work for money instead of food, and were paid with currency that they now traded for canned and processed foods.

The average Hawaiian person in his village, Uncle Joe said, lived to be 90 years old before the drastic diet changes that came with the foreigners who overran their island. With obvious pride Uncle Joe walked around the land and showed us where breadfruit, mango, papaya, coconut, and kukui nut trees once flourished, pulling things off of trees and bushes for us to taste as he went. He showed us where his village would gather to eat at the end of each day and where the Quonset hut that had been his home once stood before the U.S. government imprisoned his parents for refusing to leave the village (an act that forced Uncle Joe and many other children in his village into Child Protective Services for 2 years). His story of a displaced people, broken families, and lack of respect for native people changed the way that I think about Hawai'i and the United States.

How to Crack A Coconut (courtesy of Uncle Joe)

Cracking the Outer Husk

Getting to the Good Stuff!