While learning the sacredness of the Maunawila Heiau, anthropology class students give landscaping service to the heiau
From cleaning out weeds and branches to learning the sacredness of Maunawila Heiau, Rebecca Walker said her students are involved in landscaping services. At the Maunawila Heiau, a sacred site in Hauula, Walker said her students learn more about Hawaiian history, culture and their connection to the land.
Walker, adjunct faculty member of Culture Language & Performing Arts, said her goal is to help her students see how archaeology can work in a community and help preserve sacred sites.
"I have been working for years alongside the archaeologists in the community to protect, preserve and perpetuate the cultural significance of what is on the property,” Walker added.
Maunawila Heiau
According to Hawaii Land Trust's website, a heiau is a sacred ancestral place or wahi pana that comprises different shapes of rocks bundled together to create rock formations. It says each rock of varying shapes and sizes is placed intentionally on certain spots for religious purposes.
The website says a heiau were also used as a sundial with one certain rock in the shape of Oahu situated in the middle. The local community and archaeologists believe it to be a sacred place of worship and healing, it says.
Walker explained, “The heiau was believed to be built around 800 years ago and spans around 9 acres on the island of Oahu.” She added, “[Maunawila Heiau] was originally owned by the McGregor family, and they later sold the land to Hawaii Land Trust in hopes of preserving the land for historical purposes back in 2014." The HILT website says traditionally the Maunawila Heiau "is a heiau ho'ola, a heiau dedicated to healing and medicine."
Malama Aina, to give back to the Land
Maunawila Heiau has invasive plants and grasses grown all over, Walker explained. She added, “Ever since [Maunawila Heiau] was bought by the HILT, [it] has been receiving cleanup from everyone from people hired by the HILT to community members residing around the heiau, to tourists, to BYUH students from [her anthropology classes]".
Volunteers can fill out a waiver on the HILT website if they want to visit the heiau, she explained. According to the HILT’s website, as part of Malama Aina or giving back to the land, volunteers will be asked to aid the heiau caretaker with some light yard work ranging from pulling weeds and plants to cutting down trees.
Mamo Leota, a community member who is employed by the HILT to aid and guide visitors in the cleanup process, said she has been working there for over three years. She added, “My biggest goal for the Maunawila Heiau is to open this place up for it to be available and accessible to the community.”
She added she especially wants the youth to have the opportunity to find a home in the heiau where they can run to and find refuge, peace and comfort. Leota shared, “One of the biggest challenges people in Hauula face is drug addiction." Leota added she hopes this place can help them breathe, heal and relax when life is stressing them out so they do not turn to drugs.
On the HILT website it quotes community member Krista Nielsen, who says, “Working with Maunawila Heiau has allowed me to pause, reflect and confirm my relationship with this place where I live. When I am at the Heiau, I am able to release and open to the blessings it has to offer. I step back into my community transformed into a better person for having passed through."
Anthropology Class Field Trip
Walker said she has been taking her anthropology class students to the Maunawila Heiau for years. Before they go on the trip, Walker said students are given lectures about the site and the work they have done to preserve and protect the heiau. She said the Maunawila Heiau can help students understand more about the way local Hawaiians lived and their beliefs many hundred years ago.
Claire Wilson, a freshman from Arizona majoring in cultural anthropology and sustainability, said, “I learned there’s a lot more going on at Maunawila Heiau than I knew. I did not know much about this place because I am fairly new, but I am glad this was one of the assignments sister Walker gave us.”
Wilson said she is going to write a page about her experience working and talking with the people who live here, and she liked that she can be immersed into this experience physically instead of just reading about it.
Another freshman, Bella Kusgen, from Kansas City majoring in biology and minoring in anthropology, said, “I learned a lot about this heiau. [It was] found recently, in the last 10 years so there is a lot more rediscovering to do. One of the most interesting things I have noticed is how there are many invasive species like ants and beetles on Oahu, especially on this land.”
Kusgen said volunteers and workers have to be extremely careful when cleaning up the place to avoid moving any rocks and disturbing the peace of the land. “There was an instance where volunteers were told not to pull the trees from its root because it will move the rocks and everything else around it so they were told to cut it as deep as they can without disturbing the surrounding rocks,” Kusgen said.