On Thursday we will see a new moon that has special significance to Hawaiians. It will be the first new moon since the constellation Makali'i (Pleiades) rose in the eastern sky at sunset last Monday. This signaled to Hawaiians of old that it was time for the makahiki—and it speaks just as loudly today.

The full Hawaiian name of this celebration is makahiki na o Lono—“;time of the coming of Lono”;—a religious occasion welcoming the return of the god Lono, known for bringing wind and rain. It appears we're getting a head start.

Hawaiian religion regulated the timing of many events, according to Isabella Aiona Abbot, University of Hawaii botany professor emeritus, Bishop Museum researcher and author of “;La'au Hawai'i: Traditional Hawaiian Uses of Plants”; (as well as many scholarly books on seaweed). Planting and fishing, among many activities, were based on a lunar calendar linked to the principal Hawaiian gods Ka, Kane, Lono and Kanaloa.

In those ancient times, makahiki was celebrated at the Hiki'au heiau on the shores of Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii, one of the best preserved of the old Hawaiian heiau, according to Abbott.

Drawing from David Malo's “;Hawaiian Antiquities”; and Handy and Handy's “;Native Planters of Old Hawaii,”; Abbott explained the seasonal calendar. During certain periods, planting and certain kinds of fishing were prohibited, and other forms of work, such as kapa (tapa) beating were forbidden. The nights of Kane were thought to be a good time to plant banana (mai'a). Planting 'uala (sweet potato) and kalo (taro) was recommended for a full moon—as was caring for kalo (weeding, mulching).

Abbott knows her sources. Mary Pukui was one of her mother's Sunday school students and friends on the Big Island. The young Isabella Aiona listened when her mother, Pukui and folklorist Laura Green spent hours discussing the Hawaiian language and tradition. On walks along the beach she gathered seaweed with her mother. These lessons turned into a life's passion and pursuit.

  It's easy to remember makahiki only for the games and sports played in school yards and at community centers.

But the wind and rain we experienced this weekend remind us that the observance occurred during the season when southerly (Kona) cyclonic storms start in Hawaii, giving the islands' leeward slopes a good drenching—and flooding other parts of the islands.

Although the exact date varies with the cycles of the moon, in Hawaiian historic time, makahiki has always fallen between mid-October and mid-December, Abbott said.

For priests involved in preparing and participating in all of the elaborate ceremonies, the makahiki could go on for four months, according to David Malo in “;Hawaiian Antiquities,”; but Abbott said it lasted only half as long for the maka'ainana, or common folks, who had to get back to work.

It's easy to focus on food kapus (prohibitions), but many makahiki kapus stabilized the community. There was a kapu on fighting, for example—no war during makahiki.

And there was the procession in which the ranking chief and other alii and priests set out to visit each land division around the islands. The procession would stop at a stone altar (ahu) topped with a block of kukui wood representing a pig (pua'a). And here we have the pieces and parts of the word that has come to describe the (somewhat) pie-shaped land divisions that divided the (somewhat) circular islands—the ahupua'a.