The ahupua‘a of Honouliuli Has Been A Traditional Agricultural Property For 1000 Years
by John Bond, Kanehili Cultural Hui
Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs)
The ahupua‘a of Honouliuli is the largest land division in the ‘Ewa district. Pre-contact inhabitant
settlements once occupied the makai (seaward) areas along the coast that thrived near the protected bay now known as West Loch in Pearl Harbor that supported abundant marine and estuarine resources. The name Honouliuli is composed of two separate terms: hono and uliuli. Hono is translated as “bay, valley, and gulch” and Uliuli means “dark color including the dark blue sea”.
Therefore, when combined the terms can be interpreted as “dark bay”, “deep blue bay”, or “blue harbor”. According to a mo‘olelo (story, narrative), the ahupua‘a was believed to be the name of a pre-contact ali‘i (chief) called Honouliuli.
The water running under the Honouliuli Bridge originates from the Honouliuli and Kaaikukui gulches of the ahupua’a and flows into Kaihuopala’ai, one of the sheltered bays of West Loch.4 The water once flowed through the lowland terraces of kalo (taro) along the estuaries of Kaihupala‘ai. In these lo‘i (kalo terraces), native inhabitants of the pre-contact period cultivated four varieties of kalo: kaikea, kaikoi, haokea, and lehua.
The connection between Honouliuli inhabitants and kalo is apparent in a well-known narrative referring to the plain in upper Honouliuli called Keahumoa in which a pule (prayer) was composed by the chief Kapa’ahulani who wished that the new leader, Kuali‘I, might serve the people well and blessed his army with the phrase:
“Uliuli ka poi e piha nei ‘o Honouliuli.”
Blue is the poi which appeases [the hunger] at Honouliuli
The term “blue” refers to the waters that feed into Kaihuopala‘ai, estuaries, and the lo‘i. The term “poi” refers to the kalo—thus emphasizing the importance of water to the culture of the pre-contact people in Honouliuli. The sheltered bay of Kaihuopala‘ai is home to the ‘anaeholo, or traveling mullet.
According to “He Moolelo Kaao no Ka Puhi o Laumeki”, the bay was the starting point of the ‘anaeholo’s journey around the island and provided them with essential nutrients important for the
collective ecological balance in Kaihuopala‘ai.
Honouliuli had a network of pre-contact pathways or alaloa/alahele for people to travel within and beyond their ahupua‘a. By 1847, King Kamehameha III enacted the Alanui Aupuni (Government Roads) laws that for the development of new roads over ancient trails, as the John Papa I‘i, an 18th century chronicler of Native Hawaiian life, noted:
Only in instances when a more direct route could be developed (say by installing a bridge), or access was developed to clear wet-lands or newly developed property rights, were the early government roads redirected from the original trails. Throughout the 1800s many trails fell from use because of the steady decline in the native population, changes in land use practices [through] the blocking of mauka-makai accesses as large ranching and plantation interests developed, and the consolidation of population centers evolved.
Thus, the access roads associated with the Honouliuli Bridge (including Farrington Highway), generally follow the pre-contact routes utilized by the native populace. One such alaloa/alahele of the area, described by John Papa I’i, began at the shore of Kaihuopala‘ai, then followed the boundary between Honouliuli and Hoae‘ae ahupua‘a, to the Pōhākea Pass and Kolekole Pass to Wai‘anae.
The people of Honouliuli traded their favored kalo and ‘anaeholo for other food resources along these pathways. During the early 1790s, cartographer Lt. C.R. Malden drafted a map of a portion of Oahu that included Honouliuli providing the earliest cartographic record of the region. The map depicts several clusters of houses, fish weirs, and fishponds in the area. As the record dates from the early period of western contact, the map is believed to represent the basic pre-contact settlement pattern for Honouliuli and the surrounding vicinity; however, given the rapid decline of the native population just after western contact, it is likely that the pre-contact population would have been higher and settlement more dense than indicted by Malden.
A densely populated, fertile area called Honouliuli has existed downstream from Honouliuli Bridge since pre-contact times and retained its extensive agricultural fields and fishponds through the mid 1800s. By the late 1800s, disease and poor grazing practices mauka denuded the hillsides, sending large amounts of sediment downstream that choked the wetland agriculture and fisheries. This resulted in a sharp population decline within the area as residents sought alternative employment opportunities in Ewa.
By the early 1900s, only a small contingent of family farms remained in Honouliuli as it transitioned from a major agricultural center to a mere stopping point along Fort Weaver Road for travellers bound to ‘Ewa Villages, adjacent to ‘Ewa Plantation Mill, that had become the new population
center of the ‘Ewa plain. Eventually, an assortment of Honouliuli businesses were established that took advantage of the increased traffic along Fort Weaver Road including a general store, feed store, gas station, mechanic shop, and barbershop.
By 1927, a community of about 160 homes and a church had grown on the west side of Fort Weaver Road, about ¾ mile south of the future site of the bridge.
The 1939 construction of the Waipahu Cutoff and the Honouliuli Bridge lead to the decline of this Honouliuli community as east-west traffic bypassed it on the new section of road.
‘Ewa Plantation
At the time of the Honouliuli Bridge’s construction, the area immediately to the south included undeveloped land around the small village of Honouliuli, while the rest of the land surrounding the bridge was a large expanse of sugar cane that extended from the Kunia pineapple lands in the north to the OR&L tracks in the south and west past Pu’u Kapolei. In 1940, the ‘Ewa Plantation Company leased over 9,000 acres of the sugar cane fields to the south and west of the bridge and harvested the remainder of the area to the north.
‘Ewa Plantation was founded ca.1889 by Benjamin F. Dillingham, who leased the land from James
Campbell. Dillingham then subleased a portion to William R. Castle, who organized the ‘Ewa
Plantation Company. Adequate irrigation, carefully timed crop rotation, and ample fertilization resulted in unprecedentedly large yields on the thin soil of the plantation. The relatively level terrain of the plantation made fluming of cane to the mill impossible. Therefore, it was transported from field to mill via railroad locomotive until 1947 when trucks became available.
‘Ewa Plantation constructed the majority of the workers’ camps and associated facilities near the mill. Historic maps from the early 20th century indicate that as the number of houses within the residential camps (Verona, Renton, and Tenny) of ‘Ewa Plantation increased, the number of houses in the village of Honouliuli declined accordingly since employees living outside mill camps faced social isolation.
During the first decades of the 1900s, “‘Ewa Plantation was gradually transformed [from a working farm staffed by transient labor] into a community of employees.”
Thus, by the time Honouliuli Bridge was constructed, only a few primarily Korean and Waimanalo worker’s camps of ‘Ewa Plantation were located outside the mill’s immediate vicinity.
