Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 9, 1 September 1989 — Study of Kualoa artifacts may end [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Study of Kualoa artifacts may end

by Ann L. Moore Assistant Editor, Ka Wai Ola O OHA * Concern for future care and disposition of ancient Hawaiian artifacts discovered during archeological excavations at windward Oahu's Kualoa Regional Park spurred a visit to the park on July 12 by members of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Historic Preservation Task Force. The on-site work and cataloguing of artifacts discovered at Kualoa is scheduled to end Sept. 25 under a directive from the Department of Parks and Recreation. At that time, Jo Lyn Gunnes told the task force, all the artifacts (catalogued or not) will be given to an undesignated staff member for care and storage. The task force's visit resulted from a June meeting at whieh Gunnes presented materials on the area's historic aspects to task force members at the OHA offices. Gunnes is an archeologist with the Department of Parks and Recreation, city and county of Honolulu. She has done extensive work at Kualoa and is now cataloguing and documenting the finds preparatory to the proposed end to the research at Kualoa. At the park, task force members saw stone adzes found at what Gunnes believes is the site of an ancient stoneworking shop. "Usually a few adzes are found at every dig," she said, "here we have hundreds." So far just 100 of the manyfound have been documented and catalogued," she said. Opening drawer after drawer of labeled and catalogued stones, Gunnes said, "Most people look at these and say 'What a lot of neat rocks.'" She then showed task force members ab rading coral and abrading stones used as an early form of sandpaper for finish work, 'ulumaika or game stones, stone taro pounders of various sizes, hammer and chiseling stones, adzes, bone fishhooks, a carved, two-headed stone "shark god" and a wooden tapa-beater. All the items were discovered during excavations at Kualoa. Piled on shelves lining the room are boxes ful of materials from Kualoa excavations awaiting cataloguing. Asked by task force member, anthropologist Ben Finney, what he perceived as the main value of the collection, Gunnes said, "We have a huge collection and a specific time frame represented here. lt has value as a teaching tool." She went on to say many strange items of unknown use turned up at Kualoa. "We simply do not know what they are," she said. However, the items could be eom-

pared to artifacts at the Bishop Museum and in other collections and , by coordinating what is known of eaeh discovery, perhaps the use of the object could be extrapolated. Historian Rudy Mitchell of the task force said he thinks keeping the collection together at Kualoa is important. "lt should be in the area where it was discovered, not stored in a basement. People should be able to eome, compare, see what they looked like in the area where they were found." He said the Bishop Museum has so many artifacts now that it cannot possibly display all the items simultaneously. Using maps, Gunnes showed the task force several areas of Kualoa where, it is believed, there may yet be hidden troves of ancient artifacts. Among the areas she pointed out to the task force was a section near the beach where an

ancient heiau may have been. The area has not been excavated yet. Mitchell said heiau were placed at certain points in districts to mark them. Verification of a heiau at Kualoa would be a very important historic find, he said. Historic importance of Kualoa Kualoa is of mythologic and legendary importance to the Hawaiian people, Gunnes reminded task force members, and for those reasons it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In Hawaiian myth, she said, the area is the home of the mother and father of the Hawaiian race, the seat of the priesthood of the god Lono, the residence of chiefs, the plaee where chiefs' children were trained and the end-place for Makahiki processions. Discovery of Ahu pua'a Gunnes showed slides at the June meeting, of one excavation at Kualoa whieh disclosed the full skeleton of a pig arranged with the snout pointing at the ridge-line of the nearby mountain. Linda Delaney, land and natural resources officer for OHA, told the task force the discovery "may be the only physical evidence ever found of the ritual of ahu pua'a used to mark a boundary." At a nearby site, Gunnes said, fire pits (imu), and debris from a stone-workshop area for making tools was discovered. According to Delaney, Kualoa was originally planned (in 1974) as a cultural and historic park. The future of the park is now at a critical phase, she said. The City Council has appropriated $40,000 to eonhnue research and passed a resolution encouraging the city parks and recreation department to coordinate and consult with OHA on the park's future. At the June presentation of OHA's offices, Gunnes also showed the task force maps and slides of previous excavations along the beach whieh have since been eroded. Erosion has caused the loss of many artifacts buried at Kualoa beach and whieh ean now never be excavated as the items have washed out to sea. The presence of artifacts was confirmed during previous site excavations in 1977, 1983 and 1984. Many of the materials gathered then are now in the collection of over 16,000 items whieh Gunnes is now cataloguing.

This tapa beater, held by Jo Lynn Gunnes, is kept submerged in a fungicidal solution to preserve it from decay. She explained Hawaiian wood is so hard that it sometimes cannot be penetrated byanti-decay solutions. Photo by Ann L. Moore