Koloko-Honokohau National Historic Park

The Koloko- Honokohau National Historic Park is located just north of Kailua-Kona village between the Old Airport Beach Park and the Natural Energy Lab Beach and across Highway 19 from the Koloko Industrial Park.  When we lived in Kailua they were in the process of building a new visitors center, but it was not open at that time, but now it is open.  Koloko-Honokohau is part of the National Park System and the new visitor's center is just fantastic.  The park, like many on the Big Island is dedicated to the historical Hawaii.  It spans parts of the makai (seaward) portions of four different ahupua'a.  To get a view of the land divisions of ancient Hawaii the park has this sign at the Visitor's Center:

(In case your monitor makes it hard to read, the text is duplicated to the right)

Mokupuni
Mokupuni were the largest land divisions.  Four of the larger Hawaiian Islands, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Maui and Hawai'i were mokupuni. 

Moku
Moku, of which there were six on the island of Hawai'i, were subdivided into ahupua'a (sections).

Ahupua'a
Ahupua'a typically extended downward from the mountains and out into the sea.

By gathering and harvesting from both land and sea, Hawaiians living on a single ahupua'a could be self-sufficient.  Ahupua'a varied greatly in size.  Some were as small as 100 acres, others as large as 100,000.

Koloko-Honokohau National Historical Park consists of the seaward portion of four different ahupua'a.  Two ahupua'a, Koloko and Honokohau comprise 95 percent of the park.

There is a separate essay on the Koloko Fish Pond area of the park, see: Koloko Fish Pond

The Visitor's Center entrance is marked by this rock sign right at Highway 19.

Posted by Richard Binckley at 3/8/2006 5:47 PM | View Comments | Add Comment |