1773, 3394 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park

1773 Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau

Posted on 24.07.2015, 25.01.2020
Located on the west coast of the island of Hawaii, Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park preserves the site where, up until the early 19th century, Hawaiians who violated the kapu (sacred laws) could avoid certain death by fleeing to this place of refuge. The offender would be absolved by a priest and freed to leave. Defeated warriors and non-combatants could also find refuge here during times of battle. The complex includes also temple platforms, royal fishponds, sledding tracks, and some coastal village sites. For several centuries, the pu'uhonua and adjacent areas formed one of the primary religious and political centers within the traditional district of Kona.

3394 Ki'is which protect Hale o Keawe

The park contains a reconstruction of the Hale O Keawe heiau, which was originally built by a Kona chief named Kanuha in honor of his father King Keawe'īkekahiali'iokamoku. After the death of the king, his bones were entombed within the heiau, which once held the consecrated bones of 23 great chiefs. It was believed that the mana (spiritual power) of the chiefly bones would offer additional protection to an already powerful place. Situated on a point of land near the sea and surrounded by dramatic ki'i (carved images), Hale o Keawe is still considered very sacred ground. The Hawaiian word ki'i may be heard in other parts of Polynesia as tiki.

3379 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Queen Liliuokalani

 

 

If Kamehameha The Great (c. 1758? - 1819) was the first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Liliuokalani was the last one, ruling from January 29, 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893. Born Lydia Liliu Loloku Walania Kamakaeha on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, in a high-ranking family, she received a thoroughly modern education, which was augmented by a tour of the Western world.

3326 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - King Kamehameha The Great

Born in Kohala, Hawaii Island, Kamehameha I (c. 1758? - 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror who united the Hawaiian Islands, the first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the founder of the Kamehameha Dynasty. In his youth, he accompanied his uncle, King Kalani'opu'u, the ruler of the island of Hawaii, to meet famed English explorer James Cook on his ship the Discovery and fought with him in the 1779 battle during which Cook was killed.

3309 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Pearl Harbour

Located on the island of Oahu, west of Honolulu, near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan, Pearl Harbor is well known as the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, that finally propelled the United States into WWII. Just before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage 21 American naval vessels, including 8 battleships, and over 300 airplanes. 2,390 Americans died in the attack, and another 1,178 were wounded.

2316 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Keiki Aloha

In the Hawaiian language, aloha means affection, peace, compassion, and mercy. It derives from the Proto-Polynesian root *qarofa, and ultimately from Proto-Polynesian, and it has cognates in other Polynesian languages, such as Samoan alofa and Māori aroha, also meaning "love." Since the middle of the 19th century, it also has come to be used as an English greeting to say goodbye and hello. Today, aloha kakahiaka is the phrase for "good morning." Keiki is Hawaiian for "baby" or "child", literally "the little one".

2293 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Lahaina Harbour in Maui

Lāhainā was the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii before Honolulu, and in the 19th century was the center of the global whaling industry, with many sailing ships anchoring at its waterfront; today pleasure craft make their home there. Located in downtown Lahaina, off Front Street behind the banyan and in front of the Pioneer Inn, Lahaina Harbour is in nowadays one of the most popular spots in West Maui to enjoy a variety of ocean activities, including whale watching, sailing, snorkeling, submarine, and more.

1040, 2226 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Merrie Monarch Festival

1040 Hula dancers at Merrie Monarch Festival

Posted on 30.03.2014, 17.01.2016
The early settlement history of Hawaii isn't completely resolved. One hypothesis is that the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaiʻi in the 3rd century from the Marquesas and were followed by Tahitians in 1300, who conquered the original inhabitants. Another is that a single, extended period of settlement populated the islands. Whatever the truth, the fact is that the Native Hawaiians (kānaka maoli) are Polynesian as origin, and their culture is a clear evidence in this regard, even if the different ethnic groups who established on the islands during the past 200 years added elements of its own culture.

2226 Let's hula!

The Merrie Monarch Festival is a week-long (from Easter Sunday morning to Saturday evening) cultural festival that takes place annually since 1963 in Hilo, in honor of the last reigning king of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, David Kalākaua, called the "Merrie Monarch" for his patronage of the arts and credited with restoring many Hawaiian cultural traditions during his reign, including the hula, a uniquely Hawaiian dance accompanied by chant or song that preserves and perpetuates the traditions and culture of Hawaii. The festival is the most prestigious of all hula contests, and many hālau hula (schools) attend it each year.

2205 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Akaka Falls State Park on Hawaii Island

Located about 18km north from Hilo, the park includes Akaka Falls, a 129m tall waterfall, surrounded by a lush green rainforest. Akaka means in the Hawaiian language "A rent, split, chink, separation; to crack, split, scale". The accessible portion of the park lies high on the right shoulder of the deep gorge into which the waterfall plunges, and the falls can be viewed from several points along a loop trail through the park. Also visible from this trail is Kahūnā Falls.

0518, 2170 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Hawaii map

0518 Hawaii map (1)

Posted on 24.02.2013, 31.12.2015
"These island were born of the night, sired by the sun, cradled in the sea, with clouds and trade-winds for playmates, and a hula-moon for godmother", write on this postcard. I don't know who is the godmother of this archipelago, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, at 3,200km southwest of the North American mainland, but the godfather was James Cook, who discovered it in 1778 and named it the Sandwich Islands, in honor of his sponsor John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Can't be said that Europeans were even a blessing for the Polynesian locals, because by 1820, Eurasian diseases, famine, and wars among the chiefs killed more than half of them. In nowadays only 10.0% of the inhabitants are Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, and less than 0.1% of the total population are native speakers of the Hawaiian language.

2170 Hawaii map (2)

The Kingdom of Hawaii was sovereign from 1810 until 1893 when the monarchy was overthrown by resident American businessmen, because it opposed to integration in the United States. In 1993, the President Bill Clinton gave a formal apology for the American role in the revolution and the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. The archipelago was an independent republic from 1894 until 1898, when it was annexed by the United States as a territory, becoming a state in 1959. As is known, Hawaii was the target of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan on December 7, 1941, which brought the United States into WWII.

2049 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Papalaua Falls in Molokai

Located east of Oahu and north of Lanai, Molokai Island developed from two distinct shield volcanoes known as East Molokai and the much smaller West Molokai. Today, East Molokaii volcano is what remains of the southern half of the original mountain. The northern half suffered a catastrophic collapse about 1.5 million years ago and now lies as a debris field scattered northward across the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. What remains of the volcano on the island include the highest sea cliffs in the world.

2034, 2035 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea, also called Mauna a Wākea in Hawaiian culture, is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii, standing at 4,205m. Much of the mountain is under water; when measured from its oceanic base, Mauna Kea is over 10,000m tall, significantly taller than Mount Everest. It is about a million years old, and last erupted 6,000 to 4,000 years ago. In Hawaiian mythology, the peaks of the island of Hawaii are sacred, and Mauna Kea is the most sacred of all.

1957 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Byodo-In Temple in Oahu

Located on the island of Oahu, at the Valley of the Temples, The Byodo-In Temple is a shrine dedicated in August 1968 to commemorate 100-year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. The temple is a replica of a 900-year-old Buddhist temple at Uji in Kyoto prefecture of Japan. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a functioning Buddhist temple in the proper sense as it does not host a resident monastic community nor an active congregation.

1047-1051, 1825 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - Kauai

1047 Kauai - Nā Pali Coast State Park

Posted on 06.04.2014, 15.08.2015
Kauai, the oldest and northernmost island in the Hawaiian chain, the fourth largest of the archipelago, was formed by the passage of the Pacific plate over the Hawaii hotspot. Discovered by Captain James Cook in 1778, it was one of the last islands which joined the Kingdom of Hawai'i, during the reign of King Kamehameha. Draped in emerald valleys, sharp mountain spires and jagged cliffs, it is surnamed The Garden Isle. Kauai's most striking geographic feature is the Nā Pali Coast State Park, located in the center of the rugged 26km along the northwest side of the island. Result of millions of years of wind and water erosion, it stretch southwest starting at Ke'e Beach until the Polihale State Park, and is formed of high cliffs (na pali), which rise until 1.200m hight along the shoreline, but also of green valleys, towering waterfalls and hidden sea caves. These cliffs can only be seen from the sea, by air or by hiking the Kalalau Trail, which runs 18km and crossing five major valleys before reaching Kalalau Beach at the base of Kalalau Valley.

1048 Kauai - Kalalau Valley

Actually the Nā Pali Coast State Park was formed to protect the Kalalau Valley, surrounded by lush cliffs more than 610m high. The valley bottom is broad and relatively flat, with an accessible region about 3km long and almost 1km wide. The abundant sun and rain provides an ideal environment for flora and fauna. Many native Hawaiians lived in the valley into the 20th century, farming taro from a vast complex of terraced fields. Unfortunately these terraced gardens are being threatened and destroyed by the introduced and invasive trees, which created an extensive underground root network which invaded the rock walls of the terraces. The valley is home to many rare species, including the endangered plant Dubautia kalalauensis which was named for the valley and is found nowhere else in the world. Other endemics include the endangered Schiedea attenuata.

1049 Kauai - Waimea Canyon

 

To the east of the Nā Pali Coast State Park is the Hono O Nā Pali State Natural Reserve. Hiking trails and hunters roads have access to the sharp ridges from Koke Road in Waimea Canyon (16km long and up to 900m deep), also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. Waimea is Hawaiian for "reddish water", a reference to the erosion of the canyon's red soil. It has a unique geologic history, because it was formed not only by the steady process of erosion, but also by a catastrophic collapse of the volcano that created Kauai. Roughly 4 million years ago, while Kauai was still erupting, a portion of the island collapsed, forming a depression, which then filled with lava flows. In the time since, rainwater from the slopes of the island's central peak (Mount Waiʻaleʻale, which is among the wettest places on earth) have eroded Waimea Canyon along one edge of the collapse.

1050 Kauai - Polihale Beach

 

Polihale State Park is a remote wild beach on the western side of the island, on the south of the Na Pali Coast mountain ridges, and even if is several kilometers long, offers safe swimming only in the area known as Queen's Pond, a shallow pond with a sandy bottom surrounded by a protecting reef, located at the southern end. It is kilometers away from the town of Kekaha and can only be reached via a dirt sugarcane road. Sand dunes along the beach can reach heights nearing 30m. South of Queen's Pond is Barking Sands Beach, also known as Keonekani o Nohili (The Sounding Sands of Nohili). If one walks over the sand here or takes two handfuls of sand in each hand and slaps it together, a sound is produced. This phenomenon occurs due to the formation of the individual sand grains, each of them having small holes in it, and the sound is produced within these small cavities through the vibrations that occur when the sand is pushed together.

1051 Kauai - Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge

Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge is located on the northwest coast of the island, established in 1985 to preserve and enhance seabird nesting colonies. On Kīlauea Point, a narrow, lava peninsula, is located Kīlauea Lighthouse, dedicated in 1913, and built in a Classical Revival architecture style out of reinforced concrete. The tower is a slightly tapering cylinder about 16m high. The lens one of only seven second-order Fresnel lenses remaining in a lighthouse in the US. Barbier, Bernard, and Turenne manufactured the lens in Paris, France. The 4,100kg lens floated on mercury and compressed air, and was rotated by a system of pulleys powered by weights that needed to be reset by an operator every 3.5 hours. The station was manned until 1974 when it was automated. In February 1976 the light was moved to a nearby smaller tower and the tower was sealed.

1825 Kauai - Hanalei River

 

The Hanalei River flows north from the eastern slopes of Mount Waiʻaleʻale for 25km, until it reaches the Pacific Ocean at Hanalei Bay as an estuary. It encompasses areas of the highest recorded rainfall on the planet and plunges precipitously from its headwaters at 1,100m above sea level. The lower, flatter portion of the river flows by Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge and many taro farms. The Hanalei River provides habitat for a number of amphidromous species, including gobies (5 native varieties), two native species of crustacean, the hīhīwai (Neritina granosa, an edible snail), and in its upper reaches, a threatened species of highly adapted snail (Newcomb's snail, Erinna newcombi)..

1814 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - The statue of Buddha at Lahaina Jodo Mission in Maui

Once known as Lele, which means "relentless sun" in Hawaiian, Lahaina is a historic town that has been transformed into a Maui hot spot with dozens of art galleries and a variety of unique shops and restaurants. Once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the early 19th century, Lahaina was also a historic whaling village during the whaling boom of the mid-1800’s. Up to 1,500 sailors from as many as 400 ships took leave in Lahaina including Herman Melville, who immortalized the era in his classic novel Moby-Dick.

1804 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - 'Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu

In 1795, Kamehameha I managed to unify Hawai'i, O'ahu, Maui, Moloka'i, and Lāna'i establishing the Kingdom of Hawai'i, which in 1810 covered the entire archipelago. The monarchical adventure of Hawai'i was concluded in 1893, when several american and european businessmen overthrew the Queen Lili'uokalani , establishing the Republic of Hawai'i, annexed by United Sates in 1896 as the Territory of Hawai'i, which eventually became the U.S. state of Hawaii in 1959. The 'Iolani Palace was the royal residence of the rulers of the Kingdom of Hawaii beginning with Kamehameha III (1845) and ending with Queen Lili'uokalani (1893).

1573, 1591, 1796 UNITED STATES (Hawaii) - USS Arizona Memorial

1573 Hawaii - USS Arizona Memorial

Posted on 11.05.2015, 18.05.2015, 31.07.2015
USS Arizona was a Pennsylvania-class battleship built for and by the United States Navy in the mid-1910s. Although commissioned in 1916, the ship remained stateside during WWI, and practically didn't participate in any battle, until she was bombed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. She exploded and sank, killing 1,177 officers and crewmen. Unlike many of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, Arizona could not be fully salvaged, though the Navy removed parts of the ship for reuse. The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, dedicated on 30 May 1962 to all those who died during the attack, straddles the ship's hull, without touching it.

1591 Hawaii - USS Arizona Memorial (aerial view)

The national memorial was designed by Honolulu architect Alfred Preis who had been detained at Sand Island at the start of the war as an enemy of the country because of his Austrian birth. The United States Navy specified that the memorial be in the form of a bridge floating above the ship and accommodating 200 people. The 56m-long structure has two peaks at each end connected by a sag in the center of the structure. It represents the height of American pride before the war, the sudden depression of a nation after the attack and the rise of American power to new heights after the war.

1796 Hawaii - USS Arizona Memorial; USS Arizona after the atack;
Punchbowl National Cemetery; USS Arizona in 1920.

Accessible only by boat, the memorial has three main parts: the entry, the assembly room, and the shrine. The assembly room features seven large windows on either wall and ceiling, to commemorate the date of the attack. The memorial also contains an opening in the floor overlooking the sunken decks. It is from this opening that visitors come to pay their respects by tossing flowers. The shrine at the far end is a marble wall that bears the names of all those killed on the Arizona. To the left of the main wall is a small plaque which bears the names of thirty or so crew members who survived.