Today, Puʻu Hōkūʻula is known as Busterbrown and is now used as pasture land for cattle. Hōkūʻula is also known in the community of Waimea as a place for hiking, taking pictures, and of course the paniolo traditions of Waimea being practiced on that Pu’u.
I chose to focus on moʻolelo surrounding the area of puʻu Hōkūʻula and the surrounding area of Waimea because there are no recorded stories or information that are easily accessible telling us how people properly interact with this area. I want to show people that there is a way to understand land through moʻolelo. Another reason why I chose to focus on moʻolelo is that a lot of people from the Waimea community know about this place and its profound beauty but don't know the traditional names that can teach us a lot about this place. Lastly, I choose to focus on the area of Hōkūʻula for the sense of remembering. To remember not just the place names and the stories of the past but also remembering how to interact with the wahi kūpuna of Waimea, the tradition of remembering could also help in the sense of remembering how Waimea could produce for its own community in the past and how we can improve now for a more productive future.
Drone Shot from above Waiauia (Annas Ranch)
https://www.ethantweedie.com/blog/tag/PUU
Purpose
This website was created for kamaʻāina of Waimea who are trying to learn more about this area of Hōkūʻula and the Waimea area in general. The purpose of this website is to educate people form Waimea on this wahi kupuna of Hoku'ula and how to best interact with these type of spaces. By interviewing Kamaʻāina about the area of Hōkūʻula in the Ahupuaʻa of Lalamilo, we learn that this Puʻu is not just a hill to admire but it is a wahi pana, a place with a pulse, a heartbeat, a place with many moʻolelo associated with it and the surrounding area.
In the re-telling of these old and recent moʻolelo in the form of a website we can begin to recover the natural features that surround it, remember their purpose and functions, how to better understand the history of this landscape over time, and more importantly, begin to help create/build a deeper connection or a sense of pilina between Kanaka and ʻĀina in order to begin making our own stories of place. This is important because when hearing and analyzing moʻolelo about wahi pana we can begin to reflect on these places and start to understand the fullest potential of this landscape.