Archaeologists and
volunteers restoring
Maui historic site

The location along La Perouse
Bay includes a heiau

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By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com

LA PEROUSE BAY, MAUI >> With arid weather and miles of black lava rocks, the coastline along La Perouse Bay appears desolate.

But a couple of hundred years ago, this region in South Maui was the site of four fishing villages and a Hawaiian religious temple, or heiau.

Archaeologists and volunteers hope to eventually restore some stone structures to their former appearance on 65 acres of state land and are moving forward with plans to protect the sites at Keone'o'io from visitor damage.

Starting this week, boulders are being placed to block a section of a vehicle trail that winds on the edge of the Pa'alua Heiau and through the site of a large former native residence.

Volunteers also will be carting wheelbarrows and spreading gravel along trails where sunken paths are causing archaeological sites to collapse.

The sites at Keone'o'io are located at the end of the paved road in South Maui, where the thoroughfare turns to rutted stones for four-wheel-drive vehicles.

State archaeologist Melissa Kirkendall said there is no plan to block the four-wheel-drive road mauka of the archaeological sites.

But drivers will have to get out of their vehicles to walk on the interior road to the sites and nearby ocean.

Kirkendall said the large residences near the heiau could have been the home of a chief, priest or guardian.

"It's obviously a residence of an important individual," she said.

Along the seaside road, some walls and raised platforms of the heiau and residence are still visible, as well a trail named after Ulumaheihei Hoapili, who was governor of Maui, Lanai and Molokai from 1836 to 1840.

The natives had paths connecting various thatched residences and also going upland to the forest.

They hauled soil to grow plants near the coastline and dug shallow wells through the lava rock.

Natives also harvested fish from a large pond within the bay that is now part of the Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve.

La Perouse Bay was named after French navigator Jean Francois De Galaup La Perouse, whose crews went ashore in the vicinity of Keone'o'io in the late 1700s.

Kirkendall said the bay was also the place where Big Island warrior Kalaniopuu landed in an invasion of Maui.

She said the area has been put on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places and that information is being gathered to submit an application to the National Register of Historic Places.

Kirkendall said volunteers are doing virtually all the work to protect the sites, including the gathering and delivery of boulders and gravel.

State officials estimated the value of the work at $25,000. The volunteer businesses included Tavares Trucking, Hawaiian Cement, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., Multiple Crane Services and T.M.C. General Contracting Inc.

T.M.C. official Tom Cook said he was happy to be a part of a "public-private partnership" that brought together various people to get the work done.