Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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The place is loaded up there, with all kinds of sites. Then we found caves with a
calabash in it, some netting, and some little smooth stones, that we figured out were…
They were water worn stones, but they were longish, oblong.
Yes.
They heated them up in the fire, and when they caught the birds, they’d shove them in
and cook them.
That’s right.
They are called ‘eho stones.
Okay. So we found those in the caves.
Yes. That’s a wonderful recollection. You know that whole process of cooking the birds,
even while they were traveling, on the move. You have those little ‘eho for cooking. You
heat them up, put them in the birds, then wrap the birds up in lä‘ï, and travel with it, and
it’s cooked when you get to your meal site.
Cooking as you travel
Yes…
These caves that they were in, were just enough for a man, maybe two or three men get
in and lie prone. Little, narrow indentations into the lava, that went in.
Yes.
And there must have been 100 or more of these semi-circular shelters
Hmm. The common testimony of elder kama‘äina, begin about 1862, in the Boundary
Commission, was that there was continuous travel to the mountain lands to collect ‘ua‘u,
nënë and other birds that were nesting up there.
Sure.
So you know, that even if for no other reason, you will find hundreds of shelters and even
modified lava blisters as nests for the ‘ua‘u, to entice them to nesting.
Oh, like a trap or a lure
Yes, it’s a bird farm.
A habitat.
Yes, instead of a fish pond, you’re out there, the lawai‘a manu, they called them, the bird
catchers.
Yes…
[Arrives back at Waimea; end of interview.]
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:659