HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK— There’s a man on a horse pecked into the stone of Puuloa, a reflection of a world that was.
HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK— There’s a man on a horse pecked into the stone of Puuloa, a reflection of a world that was.
Little is known about the image’s creator or the rider, whose silhouetted, straight-lined figure is cracked in groves in the years-old surface.
It’s a simple symbol of the park’s history, a place that still thrives today.
And the people of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park seek to maintain both worlds — be it the nene goose, which call the place home, the traditions of animal care or the stones carved centuries ago.
Today, a proud team tries to maintain the park’s history and environment, while protecting its natural habitat.
Not an easy task.
Instead of trying to completely restore the pre-human elements of the environment, they look at getting it as close as reasonably possible.
“You’d go nuts trying to stop all the weeds,” said Kathleen Misajon, leader of the conservation efforts, which have helped blossom the nene population to 250.
West Hawaii Today toured the 330,000 acre park and took a brief trip through a history as involved as the process in place to protect it.
Ancient art
The meaning of the carvings that cover Puuloa is largely lost to time.
One author theorized that one of the petroglyphs recorded an alii riding a horse, or a memory of a travel done on horseback. The ancient Hawaiians left tens of thousands of memories, carved in stone, but their messages are hidden by time, memory and, in places, sheets of lava.
The carvings, called kii pohaku by the Hawaiians, were made by grinding, hammering or chipping against various stones.
Those in Volcanoes were largely made with a hammer stone, or a hammer stone and stone chisel, said Jadelyn Moniz-Nakamura, a doctor of archaeology and integrated resources manager at the park.
The modern Puu Loa Trail follows the ancient one worn by Native Hawaiian feet on lava. Along the way are carved people, dots and names. One of the largest areas of petroglyphs on the island is at Puuloa, which is variously translated as “Long Hill” and “Hill of Long Life.”
The site is dominated by cupules, the small indentations hammered into the stone. About 84 percent of the petroglyphs are a cupule or include it in their design. The predominate theory is they are part of the piko ritual, where an infant’s umbilical cord was placed in a hole in the rock and covered with a stone. If it was still there the next day, it was considered a good omen.
The cupules are small, probably too small to hold an umbilical cord, said Georgia Lee and Edward Stasack in their book, “Hawaiian Petrogylphs.” Instead, they may have served as ritual markers of where the ceremony happened, they wrote.
It would make sense, Moniz-Nakamura said, that Hawaiians perform their rituals here as a way to ensure the long life of their children.
Some of the cupules are surrounded by a ring or rings. The Hawaiians who accompanied the Rev. William Ellis told him it was a way to mark a complete trip around the island, while a broken circle meant it was incomplete.
But a Hawaiian woman born in 1862 gave a different story to anthropologist Martha Beckwith. She said cupule and ring was for a first born, two rings was for the child of an alii.
There is another tradition that says it was the sign of a shark god circling the island, Moniz-Nakamura said, adding it’s possible all these views are correct, due to how many different kinds of people came to the site.
Scattered among the rings and cupules are a few other figures, many of them human. One is interpreted as a surfer, while others are equipped like warriors or alii. There is a triangle figure with what appears to be rays coming from the head, and a dot in the middle of the chest.
Moniz-Nakamura views it the same as any kind of art, where the only way to get an original interpretation is to talk with the artist. Otherwise, the viewer has to develop his own interpretation.
Modernizing what history left behind
The artists may be dead, but the art is not. It is now being made in steel, bronze and copper materials. There are four artists at the Volcano Art Center who reproduce and reinterpret the patterns.
John Ilnicki creates his art out of the surveys and photographs of the petroglyphs, converting them to metal.
“You see them everywhere,” which helps make them so visibly Hawaiian, Ilnicki said.
They are unlike the petroglyphs scattered across the Midwest or other areas, he said. Here there are concentrations, like the more than 23,566 images on and near Puuloa.
Worked in steel or cast in bronze, the patterns make for perfect items for tourists to fit in a suitcase, he said, then hang on a wall.
Having them be “authentic” is critical, said Ilnicki, who has had to prove the petroglyphs truly looked the way he made them.
He is not bound to the patterns that were, especially when working in steel. His art has included the “stick figure” style with hula skirts, or custom works with modern tools.
The petroglyphs record some of the cultural changes brought on by Western contact. Along the trail is a carving of “KE” in the block Roman-style letters used by the missionaries to teach writing. Near the beginning of the trail is the name “Boepoe,” carved without the frills of the other letters.
Ancient answers to modern needs
The highest density of petroglyphs is surrounded by a boardwalk, one that had shown it’s age. Horses and mules were used to bring in the new timbers to replace the loose and cracking tread. The animals and their handlers followed the ancient Hawaiian trail, following the wishes of a Native Hawaiian advisory group which objected to using helicopters to get the materials to the site.
The disruption caused by such a machine often brings complaints from visitors as well, said Jessica Ferracane, public affairs officer for the park.
So the mules, under animal manager Jordan Barthold, came into play. They carried the timbers from the road, along the ancient trail and to the boardwalk.
Except for the hollow steel frames and plastic reinforcements used in the project, the job followed the same vision seen in the park since its founding. That is one of the appeals of the job, Barthold said, as the animals are “so iconic to the park service.”
She and a team of six mules and two horses provide low-impact transportation around that park. Federal law prevents the use of motorized equipment in large areas of the park without extensive permitting.
The animals are also responsible for moving camp supplies and equipment for park workers into sensitive areas, removing human waste — one of the least desirable parts of the job — and the occasional rescue.
In cases of an evacuation from the backcountry or on a local trail inaccessible to wheeled vehicles, it’s a mule or horse that carries people out. That’s happened twice within the last year. In one incident, a couple went too far and both turned their ankles and were carried out on two rescue animals named Dozer and Ohia. Another time a man became dehydrated and Ohia carried him out.
The equipment used has a feeling of modified antiquity. Much of it is made out of the same thick leather that’s been common for generations. The wooden pack saddle is of the same style that saw service in the California gold rush and Civil War, but the panniers that carry supplies are made of plastic-reinforced canvas.
Barthold knows the animals as well as any employer, talking about their relative skills as mounts, how they can be guided and how they work best.
Dozer is like “riding a dump truck,” she said, but he’s a reliable mount for less-experienced riders.
Loading them up is largely an effort of being handed the supplies and equipment needed by the crews.
They’re “good ambassadors,” said Ferracane.
One of the ways Barthold has helped bring that out is by gearing up one of the animals and riding it over to the visitors center, where they met with some of the 1.6 million people who visited in 2014.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series examining the history and modern conservation efforts at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park — a natural wonder and the island’s foremost attraction.