Kualoa Ranch and Captain Cook

Ena Sroat, who has degrees in History and International Relations from Brown University, knows so much about Hawaiian culture and mythology that it makes your head spin. Or at least it does mine.

She’s the sort of person who, when you ask, “What’s the name of that valley?” she not only tells you the name but then gives you the whole thousand year history of who used to live there, digressing to tell you about this Hawaiian god or that, and what that all has to do with the Hawaiian moon calendar and next thing you know, neither one of you can remember what the question was.

But she sure is interesting.

Ena Sroat of Hina Adventures

Ena Sroat of Hina Adventures

 

Ena and her business partner, Ulu Hopkins, own Hina Adventures, a cultural and eco tourism business. Yesterday Ena and I roamed around Oahu visiting various ancient Hawaiian sites and talking about the Hawaiian gods, particularly Lono, the god of agriculture.

Actually, we weren’t talking about the Hawaiian gods (because what do I know?)—Ena was talking about them. I wish I could tell you what she said, but her mind moves so quickly I had a hard time keeping up with her (particularly since we were also hiking around Kaneohe Bay at the same time).

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

 

Ena did, however, stop hiking long enough to let me take a photo across Kaneohe Bay to the steep cliffs of Kualoa, one of the most sacred sites on the island. This photo might be too small to really see it, but at the far right of Kualoa is a little peaked mound which is really an island called Mokoli’i (although most everyone calls it Chinaman’s Hat, and you’d understand why if you ever sailed by it, as I have).

I’ve visited the Kualoa Ranch before and have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the family that owns this old cattle ranch on what used to be both a residence for Hawaiian kings and a training ground for royalty who were instructed in the arts of history and social traditions, is to be commended for preserving and protecting this gorgeous 4,000-acre valley from development. On the other hand, in order to do that, they have to run horseback riding and ATV tours over the ranch to pay the bills. The ranch is also a popular backdrop for movies and TV shows (Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Five-O and Lost have all been filmed here).

None of that interests Ena as much as its connection to Hawaiian gods like Lono, the fertility god who came to this valley on a rainbow to marry Laka, the goddess of hula. What’s really interesting, Ena tells me as we start hiking again, is that some historians think the Hawaiians thought Captain James Cook was Lono, who, they had been promised, would return to earth by sea on a magnificent boat.

But, Ena says, Lono, who was also the god of peace, was supposed to be a very easy-going humble god who didn’t ask for much. And Captain Cook and his men were kind of assholes. So although they welcomed him the first time he visited, when he came back, they decided they’d had enough. And stuck a spear in him.

I guess, like a lot of people, he just didn’t know when it was time to leave the party.  

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1 comment

  1. leialoha’s avatar

    aloha ena and ulu,

    I found out a thing or two about kualoa ranch. Our family owns that property it is under leialoha and i got papers to prove i have always wondered who was claiming ownership of this land and just found out through archives that our family owns it. would like to attend one of your tours one day.

    aloha

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