Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 12, 1 December 1988 — Preservation Still A Big Concern [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Preservation Still A Big Concern

This experiment allowed her to study carving methods and she ean now look at a figure and tell what tool was used to make it. Ho says her goal was also to disprove the theory that petroglyphs were a kind of ancient graffiti, made for amusement by travQlers. She believes the experiment shows tools were developed and brought in on purpose. Now she is working on a classification of lithic (stone) tools used in petroglyph-making, and a glossary of terms for carving methods, such as "direct," where the tool itself strikes the rock, or "indirect," similar to a hammer and chisel method. In her study of rock art, a field of archaeology, Ho has sought the traditional Hawaiian names of these processes and has consulted with kupuna. While the men recall their grandfathers having tools for eaeh craft, many terms for petroglyphmaking seem to be lost, so the kupuna have helped her develop these terms for rock art forms: 1. Petroglyphs (na kahakaha ki'i pohaku,- or "picture rocks"). Kaha means to carve, make an indentation in a surface. Reduplicated, kahakaha means many strokes. 2. Pictographs (na kahaki'i pohaku) are images made by applying pigment to rock surface. Many are known to exist in Australia and the Americas. Few are known in Hawai'i. 3. Geoglyphs (na pohaku mea la'a, or "sacred

stones") are a category of rock forms, natural or partly altered by humans, whieh have sacred symbolism to a society. Some examples are the kane and wahine stones, ku'ula stones found throughout the islands. Ho was born and raised in Honolulu, but has lived in Kahalu'u for 20 years. Her first career was in interior design, but her life changed when she volunteered in 1978 to be a Bishop Museum docent for the exhibition "Artificial Curiosities." She was fascinated by the many ancient Hawaiian artifacts re-assembled from museums around the world, and decided to take a more active role in studying her culture. In 1979, she went back to school part-time, studying Hawaiian ethnobotany, geology, natural history, language, anthropology. By 1983 she was enrolled fulltime as a double major in anthropology and art. She received a B.A. with high honors in anthropology and a B.A. in art. In her copyrighted honors thesis, she compared the petroglyph motifs of the Anaeho'omalu, Puako, and Pu'uloa fields on the island of Hawai'i. She is presently a part-time employee of the Kalama Beach Park under the City and County of Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation. Further pursuing her studies in art anthropology, with emphasis on pre-contact Hawaiian culture, she has applied, and hopes to be accepted to the doctoral program of the University

of Auckland, New Zealand. Her plans are to look for the origins and relationships of Hawaiian rock art to our Polynesian origins. A second aim will be to further study stone technology and tools, to gain an understanding of how they evolved in Hawai'i. Because Hawaii's petroglyphs were mostly made in an early period well before historic times, Ho believes that to truly understand the significance of petroglyphs in Hawaiian culture, it is necessary to study the traditions of our original homelands. She plans to study whether images similar to those in Hawai'i occur elsewhere in eastern and central Polynesia, and whether legends exist on their function. "Our ancestors brought with them their cultural template, lithic terminology, religious rituals. . .Over time they would specialize and adapt to loeal resources," she says. Ho is a founding member of the Rock Art Association of Hawai'i, whieh plans to establish an archive or rock art research material and to seek out photographs and oral histories concerning the different types of rock art found in Hawai'i. Her long-term goal is to do anthropological research in Hawai'i and Eastern and Central Polynesia.

What was onee a human-like figure was carved into a turtle design by someone in late August, during the recording project period.

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This petroglyph at Luahiwa was recorded in 1920 as a eanoe body and a dog. A sail and outrigger were added some time after 1967 by an unknown person.