Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

RG: You got permission to go in there
KM: Yes.
RG: That’s the main thing [smiling].
KM: Okay [chuckles].
PG: You know, speaking of springs coming down, I remember, probably back in 1968 or
sometime in there. Willie Kaniho told us that there had been a terrific, heavy rain up here,
just terribly heavy. He said that it roared down the gulches and washed all the pigs out of
the gulches.
KM: You’re kidding!
PG: They were sleeping in the night time or in the early day time, I guess. He had us come up
here, and Rally and I rode around with Willie and he showed us some of the dead
carcasses.
KM: Gee! You folks saw
PG: It came down in the, that was in the area below Waiki‘i, the little Waiki‘i houses…Rally
and a little bit towards Waimea
RG: Yes.
PG: They get tremendous washouts in the big gulches when it rains heavily up here. I guess
that was a southerly rain.
RG: This paddock is called Big Pä Kila [gesturing to area on left side of Saddle road, going
mauka], and this one is Small Pä Kila.
KM: Okay, so around the forty-nine mile marker.
RG: They used to plant corn in there.
KM: Pä Kila
RG: Pä Kila.
KM: Okay.
RG: I don’t know why they called it Pä Kila, maybe because that was the first wire fence or
something.
PG/OM: [commenting on numerous trucks hauling cinder]
KM: It’s all cinder.
PG: Cinder from where
KM: Probably mining off from out PTA [Pöhakuloa Training Area] side. On the Hawaiian
Homes section.
PG: Oh.
Snow on Mauna Kea associated with meaning that it would be a good year for crops:
KM: You know out of curiosity, coming back to weather for a moment and how things are
really green now. Do you remember people commenting from Waimea, about the snow
on the mountain. When there was a lot of snow, was that an indication of anything
RG: Well, the only thing I know Kepä, is that when it was terrific snow on Mauna Kea, people
used to say, “It’s going to be a good year.” A.W. Carter told me, he says “You know
people say there’s a lot of snow up there, it’s going to be a good year.” Well, they have to
have rain to make the snow.
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:74