Honouliuli Ewa Traditional Cultural Properties: Traditional Cultural Place

Showing posts with label Traditional Cultural Place. Show all posts

Sunday, December 28, 2014

CIA Helps Establish Honouliuli Ewa As A Traditional Cultural Property - Place

by John Bond, Kanehili Cultural Hui

As part of an Environmental Assessment for the DHHL - DeBartolo Ka Makana Ali'i Mixed Use Complex a Cultural Impact Assessment was done by Pacific Legacy of Kailua, Oahu and managed by Paul Cleghorn, Ph.D. Paul Cleghorn has also served as the HART rail project Kakoo, overseeing the HART Programmatic Agreement.

http://www.honolulutransit.org/media/98321/20120405-notice-of-award-pa-proj-manager-kakoo.pdf

The Programmatic Agreement (PA) is a very important legal document which basically describes how the Federally funded HART rail project conducts its scope of activities to meet the requirement for the identification and mitigation of historic and cultural sites and properties within the Area of Potential Effect (APE) of the project.

Below are some abstracts from the CIA which outlines the large scale, approximately 1000 year old native Hawaiian ahupua'a of Honouliuli in the moku of Ewa. Further below are links to documents and information that describe what Traditional Cultural Property - Places (TCP) are and how they are evaluated.

The ahupua'a Honouliuli has many highly important cultural features and practices that define it as a very eligible TCP...

What are traditional cultural properties?

http://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb38/nrb38%20introduction.htm

One kind of cultural significance a property may possess, and that may make it eligible for inclusion in the Register, is traditional cultural significance. "Traditional" in this context refers to those beliefs, customs, and practices of a living community of people that have been passed down through the generations, usually orally or through practice. The traditional cultural significance of a historic property, then, is significance derived from the role the property plays in a community's historically rooted beliefs, customs, and practices. Examples of properties possessing such significance include:

a location associated with the traditional beliefs of a Native American group about its origins, its cultural history, or the nature of the world;
a rural community whose organization, buildings and structures, or patterns of land use reflect the cultural traditions valued by its long-term residents;
a location where Native American religious practitioners have historically gone, and are known or thought to go today, to perform ceremonial activities in accordance with traditional cultural rules of practice; and
a location where a community has traditionally carried out economic, artistic, or other cultural practices important in maintaining its historic identity.

A traditional cultural property, then, can be defined generally as one that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community's history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Varona Village residents worry they will lose homes to developers

A Retrospective of the Continuing LONG STORY of the City Mismanagement of Varona Village

A Virtual Tour Of Historic Varona Village - The Ewa Plantation Village The City Forgot About

http://kanehili.blogspot.com/2014/12/virtual-tour-of-varona-village.html

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Varona Village residents worry they will lose homes to developers

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/01/29/news/story03.html

"Seeing all the construction and everything that's going on, that's why the sudden push now," said Patrick Hange, a Varona resident who started a petition among residents asking for a chance to buy their homes.

Hange, the son-in-law of a former plantation worker, imagines how easily developers would be enticed by Varona Village because all the residents are only renters.

"It'd be very easy, and it could be a way for the city and county to pull more money out of the area," he said.

Varona Village still waiting for private developer

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Aug/08/ln/ln26a.html

'EWA VILLAGES — City officials continue to bring down dilapidated homes in Varona Village for health and safety reasons, but have no solid commitment yet from a private developer to build a proposed community center there.

The city, which this month began tearing down about 20 Varona homes in poor condition, said it is looking for a private developer to commit to the proposed Varona Village Community Services Project, which would include a day-care center for children and seniors, and possibly classrooms for preschool and other programs. The site could also include ball courts and other recreational facilities.

The city earlier this spring completed a final environmental assessment report for the project.

Varona Village Residents feel ousted by progress

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2000/05/04/news/story4.html

A planned revitalization of this part of Ewa Villages is making some families feel squeezed out
omes with boarded-up windows and rotting walls line the dusty streets of the once-vibrant Varona plantation camp in Ewa Villages.

Enter a nonprofit organization that wants to revitalize a six-acre section of Varona, about a third of it, by fixing up the aging houses and putting up a preschool, adult job center and other social service facilities there.

Ewa plantation home project is bittersweet

http://archives.starbulletin.com/96/06/18/news/story2.html

It's being hailed as the most ambitious historical renovation ever attempted in Hawaii. It's garnered kudos from historic preservationists and community leaders alike.

Still, for many residents of Ewa's plantation villages, the changes are bittersweet.

While 280 old plantation homes are renovated and more than 250 new "plantation-style" homes are interspersed in the villages at Ewa, some residents are planning to buy at an "affordable" price and stay; others are preparing to move.

Archive of Prominent Section 106 Cases:
April 1999 Ewa Villages Redevelopment

http://www.achp.gov/casearchive/cases4-99HI.html

On February 9, 1999, Council staff toured Ewa Villages with representatives from the Ewa Villages Nonprofit Development Corporation (EVNDC), the Hawaii State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), and members of the Ewa community to assess the progress of the ongoing revitalization effort.

Old homes in Ewa are attracting the attention of lawmakers

http://khon2.com/2013/05/10/old-homes-in-ewa-are-attracting-the-attention-of-lawmakers/

“I pray to God they’re going to help us fix the house,” said Tapoan.

In the 1990s, the City fixed up the homes in two other neighboring plantation villages — Renton and Tenney — and sold the houses and lots.

Varona was supposed to be next.

“Years ago there was a problem in which the housing administrator overseeing the development of Ewa Villages had committed fraud. That was the Michael Kahapea situation. I think after that things came to a halt,” said Menor.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Honouliuli Village TCP - One of Oahu's Most Important Ancient Communities Still Survives Today

Honouliuli Village Traditional Cultural Place - One of Oahu's Most Important Ancient Communities Still Survives Today

Article and video by Ewa Historian John Bond

This 9 minute movie is actually a drive by just to give outsiders an idea of what Honouliuli village looks like today. There is actually a great deal of important cultural history associated with this Traditional Cultural Property.

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Honouliuli village has an ancient Hawaiian past that includes supporting the largest population of pre-contact native Hawaiians on O'ahu due to the very rich soil and abundant mountain streams and springs in the area.

Honouliuli is the largest ahupua'a on O'ahu, covering 43,000 acres. The ahupua'a is the traditional Hawaiian land division. Honouliuli encompasses all of the Ewa coast, part of the western edge of Pearl Harbor, goes up to the summit of the Waianae range, inland as far as up to Schofield Barracks, and bounded by Kunia Road.

Honouliuli is an ancient Hawaiian village community and also a place name for the north end of ʻEwa, lying along Honouliuli Stream between ʻEwa Villages and Waipahu.

Ewa was at one time the political center for O‘ahu chiefs and Honouliuli supported a major population and was the center of many activities on O'ahu prior to Western contact.

The land once belonged to Hawaiian royalty and was named Honouliuli - meaning dark, dark harbor - for the dark fertile lands that stretch from the waters of Pearl Harbor to the summit of the Wai`anae Mountains. Honouliuli includes lands extending from the mountains, to the watered plains where loʻi kalo (taro pond fields) and loko ia (fishponds) were developed.

Honouliuli was the trail head for the British Royal Navy mapped 1825 Malden Trails and was basically like Rome ("all roads lead to Rome") for Oahu because it had ideal agricultural growing conditions with rich volcanic soil and abundant fish pond and ocean resources nearby.

Several features within the ahupua'a of Honouliuli have been given the same name - the Waianae mountain watershed preserve, a US Fish and Wildlife bird refuge wetland on West Loch Pearl Harbor, the village itself between Fort Weaver Road and old Fort Weaver Road and the WW-II internment camp which in fact is not even near Honouliuli village but up in the mountains in Honouliuli Gulch.

Ewa Plantation and mill (in center) once covered the ancient coral reef of the Ewa Plain in a vast sea of green sugar cane. At right in this painting is the WW-II MCAS Ewa air base.

The Honouliuli village is in the Ewa Moku district and within the ahupua'a of Honouliuli. In the late 19th century to early 20th century, ʻEwa was the largest population center in West Oahu, with industry focused around sugar cane production.

The ʻEwa Mill was a major employer that set up residential villages within ʻEwa today known as Ewa Village, today an historic district and National Register eligible.

Honouliuli village also rightfully deserves such recognition.

Honouliuli village has a long and close relationship with the nearby Ewa Villages.

Remains of the once major Honouliuli steam powered pump station supplied the vast amount of the water for the Ewa Plantation and was also connected by the Ewa Plantation railway line.