The pre-contact temple system of Hālawa Valley, Moloka‘i, Hawaiian Islands

Abstract

Building upon a pioneering 1909 survey of Moloka‘i Island heiau (temples) by archaeologist John F. G. Stokes, the pre-contact temple system of Hālawa Valley is described and analysed. Ten heiau were relocated and mapped, with seven sites test excavated and radiocarbon dated. The majority of sites are terraces or terraced platforms in architectural form, ranging in size from 72 to 1300 square meters in basal area. Functionally, the temples include fishing shrines (ko‘a), agricultural or fertility temples (heiau ho‘oulu‘ai), and one luakini or temple of human sacrifice dedicated to the war god Kū. The orientations of the temple foundations appear to be deliberate (rather than dictated by topography). One group is slightly offset from cardinality and shows an eastward orientation, likely associated with the god Kāne. A second group exhibits an orientation to the ENE, which is the direction of the star cluster Makali‘i (Pleiades), whose achronycal rising determined the onset of the Makahiki season dedicated to the god Lono. The radiocarbon dates indicate that the temples were constructed during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, or the Archaic States Period of the Hawaiian cultural sequence.