Ewa – Honouliuli “Leina a ka Uhane” Wahi Pana - The Sacred Spirit Leaping Sacred Place
The Leina a ka 'uhane actually became an important discussion issue between FTA,
DLNR (acting for SHPD) and the predecessor of HART
DLNR (acting for SHPD) and the predecessor of HART
The Federal Transit Administration decided the rail route and stations would not interfere with the very important sacred flight vector for departing native spirits called the Leina a ka 'uhane. The pathway very conveniently begins just south of the East Kapolei station track end point.
By John Bond Kanehili Cultural Hui
The west and the setting sun are associated in Hawaiian and Polynesian traditions with the land of the dead. It is also a tradition among aviators who use the term "went west" to mean the same concept.
One of the very important places (wahi pana) on Oahu where the native spirits of the dead are said to leap into the after world is from a location on Aliamanu crater above Pearl Harbor in a vector over Honouliuli -Ewa and leaving a point of land near the westernmost tip of Barbers Point - Ka Lae Loa.
The north star, known in Western culture as Polaris, was used as a key soul leap reference point. Any hour of the night, at any time of the year, you can find Polaris in a due northerly direction. Everything in the night sky rotates around it. For ancient Hawaiians the night sky was their TV Internet providing Google answers to just about everything.
While many believe that Kaena Point is the spirit leaping place for Oahu because it is the western most point on the island of Oahu, the dominant native Hawaiian culture centered around the Moku of Ewa and Honouliuli for approximately 1000 years, believed that the Leina a ka 'uhane (spirit leaping place) departed from Aliamanu crater near Leilono, an important heiau.
The Leina a ka 'uhane actually became an important discussion issue between FTA, DLNR (acting for SHPD) and the predecessor of HART. They clearly wanted the spirit flight vector to NOT have any impact on the rail line and Ewa Plain rail stations. In fact the "spirit air space" vector they happily agree is EXACTLY JUST BELOW the East Kapolei Station end point! How convenient is THAT!
All the land in this spirit outbound departure vector (using an aeronautical reference) was considered very sacred to native Hawaiians who consider the ancient homeland to be Kahiki, the original place they all come from.
Perhaps by considerable coincidence (or not), the Ewa Plain of Kanehili and Kaupe'a contain hundreds of thousands of burials in karst caves and sinkholes as well as beach sand dune areas. So really Ewa Plain residents live atop a mass iwi kupuna cemetery. But land developers really don't want people to know that. Ewa people who have a sensitivity for the spirit realm are very aware of the spirits and mostly get along with them pretty well, especially when they are respected.
Not respecting the spirits can lead to trouble, especially disturbing their burial sites.
The fortunate souls who leave via Aliamanu assisted by their aumakua find their way back to the ancient homeland while the unfortunate lost souls remain, wandering around the area forever in the spirit realm.
For those who have actually spent some time walking around the Honouliuli Ewa area, especially in areas that have not yet been ripped apart and bulldozed by developers, the presence of spirits is noticeable. Staying on their good side is important. Pissing them off is really asking for trouble. Many long time Oahu residents believe this, just like they believe on the Big Island that you never want to piss off Pele. Let her do what she wants.
Pele and her beautiful babe sister Hi'iaka actually have a "history" in the moku of Ewa and Oahu where Pele likes her ancient volcano sites, such as Aliamanu, and Hi'iaka liked adventure hiking and canoeing around on quests and special missions and making up some really good chants. Her chants also help to locate certain places on the Ewa Plain. This was generally around 1000 years ago.
And then there are the night marchers, the dead warriors of past Ewa Moku battles which were very furious and bloody at times. The deceased warrior spirits of which there are many, march at certain times on the ancient Honouliuli trails. Wise people like to stay out of their way and ideally developers haven't put in homes or buildings where they will pass through. However this happens and certain places and buildings are known to be very haunted on the Ewa Plain.
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Determination of National Register Eligibility
The study documented 49 sites, including ahupua’a. Of these 49, 26 are wahi pana. This includes the Leina a ka ‘uhane as a single property, rather than its multiple constituent parts (see below), but excludes Po‘ohilo as it was addressed in correspondence dating to April 20, 2012 (Attachment A).
Each ahupua‘a are plotted in Figure 1. Individual ahupua‘a have not been considered as wahi pana or TCPs in this study for the reasons put forth in the Management Summary (SRIF and Kumu Pono 2012:42). The ahupua‘a are considered parts of the land division system that lend context to individual wahi pana:
“Ahupua‘a are generally land divisions that extend mauka to makai and contain within them different resource zones ranging from mountain forests to the coastal plain and the near shore ocean (see the discussion on the traditional resource management system, above). Within each zone, a variety of plant and animal life was traditionally collected for use by the Hawaiian people as indicated in many of the accounts provided above.
The brilliance of the ahupua‘a system is that all the resources needed to sustain life were available to the people who lived within each district. Resources were collected by the maka‘aina for sustenance and to provide tribute to the ali’i. The ali‘i, in turn, distributed these as needed or offered them to the akua to ensure the continued flow of mana. The rhythm of life within each district was both a practical and spiritual matter expressed in the concept of aloha ‘aina.
To this day, Native Hawaiians use the resource zones within the ahupua‘a for traditional purposes. We believe the ahupua‘a are constituent parts of a broader Hawaiian cultural landscape within which are undoubtedly hundreds or even thousands of named places. It is within this context that the wahi pana identified in or near the HRTP are next discussed.
Note that in traditional times, the land area known as Pu‘uloa was an ‘ili of Honouliuli, and it was sold as a separate land during the time of the Mahele. Though it is included and listed separately in this study, Pu‘uloa is not an ahupua‘a. The study identified several wahi pana that are related to one another through the same story. This is the Leina a ka ‘uhane, or Spirit Leaping Off Place (SRIF and Kumu Pono 2012:50-53). According to traditional Hawaiian beliefs, the leaping off place is where the souls of the dead leave this world to enter the next. “A breadfruit tree (Ulu-o-lei-walo) near the Leina a ka ‘uhane is used by the soul for this purpose.
To reach the next world, the soul, guided by its aumakua (a deified ancestor), must choose one of two branches resulting either decent to Po, the underworld, overseen by the akua Milu, or passage to the ‘aumakua world (SRIF and Kumu Pono 2012:50)”.
The management summary considers the Leina a ka ‘uhane as a single district of several wahi pana that crosses from Moanalua and Halawa ahupua‘a to Honouliuli ahupua‘a (Figures 2 and 3). Spirits would leap from the five wahi pana in Moanalua and Halawa. If not escorted by an aumakua, spirits would land and wander Kanehili and Kaupe‘a on the ‘ewa side. However, there are no stories associated with the area between the two sides of the Leina. More importantly, there is no tangible element or property referent that binds the two areas together.
National Register Bulletin #38 clearly states “This Bulletin does not address cultural resources that are purely "intangible"—i.e. those that have no property referents— except by exclusion” and “the National Register is not the appropriate vehicle for recognizing cultural values that are purely intangible, nor is there legal authority to address them under 106 unless they are somehow related to a historic property (Parker and King 1998:3)” For these reasons it is best to consider the two sides of the Leina that do retain physical property referents as distinct sites. In this light, the wahi pana associated with the Leina are all outside of the HRTPs APE.
FTA and HART Rail Misrepresent The True Ewa Honouliuli Native Hawaiian Spirit Pathway
Letter to Federal Transit Administration, Region IX, San Francisco
RE: Honolulu High Capacity Transit Corridor Project Programmatic Agreement, Honolulu Hawaii – Leina a ka ‘uhane
Dear Mr. Matley, Mr. Rogers, FTA, Region IX:
Identification of Historic and Cultural Properties
The subject properties:
- The correct location of the Leina a ka ‘uhane within Honouliuli ahupua’a.
Relevance to the Honolulu High-Capacity Corridor Project
The HART Rail study document states that the Leina a ka ‘uhane has “integrity of relationship” and “these Wahi Pana are sacred and storied places on the land” and are “important to the retention and or transmittal of knowledge and beliefs about the land and history of the Hawaiian people on Oahu.”
Many documents and exchanged letters, including April 20, 2012 from FTA to HART exclaiming that the Leina a ka ‘uhane was NOT “within or near” the project- when it FACT a false representation of the Leina pathway was created to arrive at the “no effect” determination.
It was stated in the HART and correspondence reports that the Leina a ka ‘uhane was a “very sacred wahi pana” and National Register eligible under categories A and B.
The most disturbing and KEY POINT of all of this for Kanehili Cultural Hui is that tax-payer funded research for a Federal transportation projected was FALSELY MISREPRESENTED in its spatial area in order to proceed with rail construction.
