Ahupuaa of Moanalua

Grade 4 Aloha ʻĀina - Moanalua Ahupuaʻa - 2 OUR AHUPUAʻA How did people in old Hawaiʻi live in our ahupuaʻa? ____________________________________________________________________________________ ACTIVITY AT A GLANCE Hawaiʻi State Standard Students draw and label a map of their ahupuaʻa Benchmarks showing key geographic features that provided resources for people in old Hawaiʻi. Students Social Studies 6: Cultural Anthropology create cut-outs of important plants that Hawaiians SS.4.6.2 Describe how individuals or gathered or grew and place them in the appropriate groups deal with conflict, cooperation, sections (ma uka and kula) of the ahupuaʻa. and interdependence within the ahupuaʻa. KEY CONCEPTS Social Studies 7: Geography: • Ahupuaʻa are traditional Hawaiian land units World in Spatial Terms usually extending from mountain summits to • SS.4.7.2 Collect, organize, and the outer edges of reefs. analyze data to interpret and construct geographic representations. • In the upland section of the ahupuaʻa Hawaiians gathered resources such as plant Common Core Benchmarks fibers for cordage and wood for tools, houses Language Arts: Writing: Text Types and and canoes. Purposes • In the lowlands of the Moanalua ahupuaʻa, • LA.4.W.2 Write informative / Hawaiians constructed loʻi to grow kalo and explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information six large fishponds to grow fish. clearly. • People have made many changes to our ahupuaʻa over time. Nā Honua Mauli Ola ʻIke Honua: Sense of Place Pathway NHMO.8.5 Recognize and respond to SKILLS • the people, places, and natural Mapping, reading comprehension, identifying elements in their community. patterns and relationships • NHMO.8.9 Understand the TIME symbiotic relationship between 3 - 4 class periods humans and their environment. ASSESSMENT Students: • Construct an enlarged ahupuaʻa map and label important geographic characteristics and Hawaiian place names. • Write a descriptive label for their map that explains the patterns and relationships among geographic features and human use of resources. © 2012 Pacific American Foundation and Moanalua Gardens Foundation 31 Grade 4 Aloha ʻĀina - Moanalua Ahupuaʻa - 2 • Place plant cut-outs on their maps in the appropriate sections to illustrate where Hawaiians VOCABULARY gathered or grew plants they relied on for various ahu – heap, pile, mound, altar needs. ahupuaʻa – traditional Hawaiian land unit usually extending from mountain MATERIALS summits to the outer edges of reefs; this Provided: system ensured that everyone living in ✓ Student Assessment Overview (provided in the ahupuaʻa had access to natural the Unit Introduction) resources ✓ Learning Log 2 geographic feature – stream, ridge, valley, ✓ Student Reading forest, fishpond, salt pond, ocean ✓ Moanalua ahupuaʻa map kai – the ocean or sea ✓ Moanalua Ahupuaʻa PowerPoint (presentation kula – the region inland of the coast where provided on CD) Hawaiians grew many of their crops Needed: lawaiʻa – fisher ✓ Chart paper and colored markers loko iʻa – fishpond ✓ Large sheet of blank chart paper (for each pair mahiʻai – farmer of students) ma kai – toward the sea ✓ Folders or large construction paper folded in ma uka – toward the mountain half (one per student to use as Learning Log) moku – island and also large districts or ✓ Overhead projector(s) land divisions on the Hawaiian Islands ✓ Colored markers that were further subdivided into ✓ Children’s book: From the Mountains to the ahupuaʻa. [Six moku on the island of Sea: Early Hawaiian Life (see Suggested Oʻahu: Kona, Koʻolaupoko, Koʻolauloa, Resource at end of lesson) Waialua, Waiʻanae, and ʻEwa.] mokupuni – island ADVANCE PREPARATION ʻohana – family Make a copy of the Learning Log cover paʻakai – salt and Student Assessment Overview puaʻa – pig (provided in the Unit Introduction). puʻu – hill, peak, cone Make a copy of the Learning Log and resource – wood, fish, plant fibers, plant Student Reading for each student. foods, salt, rocks Make transparencies (one for each uka – (also ma uka) - mountains and upland overhead projector available) of the regions that Hawaiians depended on for ahupuaʻa map provided with this lesson. important forest products Preview the Moanalua Ahupuaʻa PowerPoint presentation provided with the unit and prepare to share it with the class. 32 © 2012 Pacific American Foundation and Moanalua Gardens Foundation Grade 4 Aloha ʻĀina - Moanalua Ahupuaʻa - 2 TEACHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION Ahupuaʻa are traditional units of land in Hawaiʻi families or commoners (makaʻāinana). that vary in shape and size. They are political Konohiki were responsible to chiefs of greater and ecological land units designed to meet a rank (aliʻi nui or aliʻi) who ruled over a moku community’s need for food and materials. (an island or district). Within the ahupuaʻa, Ahupuaʻa generally range from summit peaks or individual families were allowed to cultivate and ridge crests, extending down the mountain, inhabit smaller sections of land or ʻili. The becoming wider as the land slopes to the outer konohiki also directed the people in the building, edge of the reef. The boundaries between cleaning, and repair of fishponds whenever the adjacent ahupuaʻa usually conform to valley aliʻi nui commanded. walls or ridges. They are called such because “the boundary was marked by a heap (ahu) of During the Makahiki (annual harvest festival stones [also referred to as an altar] surmounted which began about the middle of October and by an image of a pig (puaʻa), or because a pig or lasted about four months), an entourage of aliʻi other tribute was laid on the altar as tax provided (chiefs) sometimes to the chief (Pukui and Elbert, 1986). numbering 100 people or more, would tour the The general concept of the ahupuaʻa is that the island, traveling from human community living within its boundaries one ahupuaʻa to would be self-sufficient in obtaining the another. At the resources needed for survival such as fish, water boundary of each and land to grow kalo (taro), and forests to ahupuaʻa, the residents gather wood and useful plants. However, due to placed an offering of the wide range of elevation, rainfall and some of their food topography in the Islands, there are a number of crops, fish harvest, and ahupuaʻa that don’t conform to this generalized feathers from forest ideal. For example, on Oʻahu, the ahupuaʻa of birds for the touring Waiʻanae reaches beyond Waiʻanae Valley to aliʻi. The offerings include a wedge of land that extends to the were placed at an ahu summit of the Koʻolau range. In early times, that was adorned with this extended boundary enabled people living in the head of pig (puaʻa). the arid leeward area of Waiʻanae Valley to The people in each gather resources from the wetter Koʻolau area. ahupuaʻa would provide shelter and food for the aliʻi and all those who traveled with them People also shared resources among ahupuaʻa to (Project Kāhea Loko, 2003). obtain plants that only grow in certain areas. Pili grass, which was prized for thatching, grows The Ahupuaʻa of Moanalua best in dry leeward areas. Hala trees, which provide materials for weaving, grow best in wet The ahupuaʻa of Moanalua, which includes windward valleys. Koa trees large enough for Kamananui and Kamanaiki valleys, is located in canoes were found in koa forests that typically the Kona moku of Oʻahu. It is a rich ahupuaʻa grow at elevations above 3,000 feet on the larger blessed with streams, forests and what was once islands. a productive shoreline where Hawaiians constructed fishponds. In the uplands of the Governance in the Ahupuaʻa ahupuaʻa native forests provided habitat for birds that were found only in the Islands. Politically, the ahupuaʻa were governed by a Hawaiians gathered bird feathers, medicinal konohiki (land manager) who oversaw the right herbs, plant fibers for cordage, and trees for to use the resources within the ahupuaʻa and tools, canoes and shelter from the forests. The served as an intermediary between the chief and forests also provided plants that were important the hakuʻohana, or representative of the resident for hula. Moanalua was a center of hula and © 2012 Pacific American Foundation and Moanalua Gardens Foundation 33 Grade 4 Aloha ʻĀina - Moanalua Ahupuaʻa - 2 chanting during the reign of Oʻahu’s King The loko kuapā (shoreline ponds with rock and Kākuihewa in the 1500s. coral walls) were unique to Hawaiʻi. Fish from these loko kuapā were reserved for the aliʻi. The In the lowlands, Hawaiians constructed Hawaiian innovation of the wooden mākāhā extensive loʻi that were irrigated by Moanalua (sluice grates) that were placed in the ʻauwai Stream. allowed young fish fry to enter the ponds. After the fish matured, they were unable to escape “There was an area of loʻi inland of what is through the narrow slats of the mākāhā. now Moanalua Park which was irrigated with water from Kalou Stream, a tributary of Moanalua Moanalua Stream. A large area southwest of Ahupuaʻa lower Moanalua Stream was formerly all Today loʻi. From here taro plantations went right down to the sea. Above Kalou Stream there Today, only were some terraces. Back in the valley the remnants of the land was not suited to terracing. Quantities native forests of semi-wild taro were grown along the stream and on slopes above. Yams, wauke, remain in the and olona were grown here. The seaward uplands of area was one of extensive coconut, wet-taro, Moanalua. In breadfruit, and banana cultivation.” (Handy the lowlands, the reef runway and the roads and and Handy, 1991) buildings of urban Honolulu have replaced the former fishponds. Fortunately, there are still loʻi Loko Iʻa (Fishponds) being tended in Moanalua Gardens and the songs of the native ʻelepaio bird still grace the Water from the loʻi flowed into some of the forests in the back of Kamananui Valley. The large fishponds along the shoreline where Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Hawaiians practiced aquaculture and raised fish. Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife is In Moanalua, there were six large fishponds that overseeing the care of the valley.

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