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Mo‘olelo Category Archives:
Queen Kaʻahumanu
One of the most famous residents of Mānoa in the 19th century was King Kamehameha’s widow, Kaʻahumanu. After Kamehameha’s death, she became the kuhina nui (co-ruler) and along with Kamehameha II and III governed the islands until her death. Kaʻahumanu’s residence is well documented and visits to the queen by missionaries were recorded in their […]
Amos & Juliette Cooke
Excerpted from Partners in Change by David Forbes, Ralph Thomas Kam, and Thomas Woods (2018) (p.195): Amos and Juliette were married at Danbury, Connecticut in 1836 and ten days later, as members of the Eight Company of missionaries, sailed from Boston in the barque Mary Frazier and arrived in Honolulu on April 9, 1837, after […]
The Owls of Honolulu as told by W. D. Westervelt
in Legends of Old Honolulu (© 1915, p.130) Pueo, the owl-god, was also Pueo-alii, or the “king of owls.”…From his own residence on Owlʻs Hill (Puʻu Pueo) he governed all the valley, apparently with much wisdom… The legends say that the menehune built a temple and a fort a little farther up the valley above […]
Menehune
According to oral tradition, Menehune are said to have built Kūkaʻōʻō Heiau. In fact, upper Mānoa Valley, along with portions of neighboring Nuʻuanu Valley were said to be Menehune strongholds. On the side of the hill, just across Mānoa Road, on the site of the former Castle home, the Menehune were said to have built a […]
Charles Montague & Anna Rice Cooke
From Paintings, Prints, and Drawings of Hawaii from the Sam and Mary Cooke Collection by David Forbes (2016): Sam and Mary Cooke’s assemblage of Hawaiian paintings, drawings, and prints at Kūaliʻi follows in the collecting footsteps of Sam’s great-grandmother, Anna Rice Cooke. Anna was born on September 5, 1852, at Punahou School to missionary-teachers William […]
Navigators
In the introduction to his book, Myths and Legends of Hawaiʻi, King Kalākaua wrote a brief history that included the settlement of Hawaiʻi. According to his text, Nanaula, a distinguished chief was the first to arrive in the islands from “southern islands” around 400-600 A.D. During this chief’s lifetime, other settlers arrived, and none of […]
Monte & Lila Cooke
From Paintings, Prints, and Drawings of Hawaii from the Sam and Mary Cooke Collection by David Forbes (2016): Like many men of his generation, Charles Montague Cooke Jr., the builder of the house he named Kūaliʻi in honor of the seventeenth-century Oʻahu chief, was interested in the graphic arts. He formed a collection of several […]