Āliapa'akai

Mahope o kēia haʻalele ana iā Kauaʻi, hele mai la ʻo Pele lāua ʻo Hiʻiaka a noho i Keāliapaʻakai ma Moanalua, ʻOʻahu, malaila lāua i eli iho ai a kaka i ka lepo, a noho iho la ma laila...

Āliapaʻakai in the past

Āliapa'akai today

My dad was born and raised in lower Āliamanu/Salt Lake(Āliapaʻakai). I was not. Growing up away from Hawaiʻi, I always felt the need to know about the place where my family was raised up but found it hard to find stories of the past that connected the āina to its people. To connect in this way, I searched for stories of ka wā kahiko, the stories of old, and found that the place where my father's roots grew, was connected to the story of Pele and Hiʻiaka. I remember visiting my grandparents house in Salt Lake. I remember the roads me and my cousins would take on our bikes to the golf course where Salt Lake was located. The winding backstreets and constant left and right turns and steep hills we would zoom down that led to a park that overlooked the salt encrusted ponds. When I was little, I would view the golf course that held these waters as something that was made to make the golf course look pretty, only to find out that these waters had a history, had a story, had a voice that needed to be told. 

This is that story...

After their travels from Kauaʻi, the two goddesses Pele and Hiʻiaka travelled to the island of Oʻahu in search of a new home to dwell. They carried with them some salt and a bird from Kauaʻi. On Oʻahu, they settled in the ahupuaʻa of Moanalua where they dug into the earth creating two craters. One of the craters was called Āliamanu, after the bird they held. The other crater was called Āliapaʻakai, meaning salt-encrusted. It was named for the crystallized salt that formed around the soil and beneath the lake bed. Salt lake was traditionally used as a basin that would house large amounts of salt that was harvested for commercial use. The salt that was harvested would be transported throughout the islands and the world. Today, this body of water is limited in size due to evaporation, and developments that surround the once large "Salt Lake". In 1966, the lake was filled in and all that is left is a small pond on a golf course in the center of Honolulu Country Club.

The Importance of Salt

Paʻakai comes from the two Hawaiian words paʻa which means to be solidified, or strong, and kai which means the sea. So in essence, salt in Hawaiian comes from the way that the saltiness of the ocean is collected and formed in its solid form. Native Hawaiians had many uses for salt. One of the main uses for salt was to preserve food, for ceremonial purposes, as well as a form of medicine. As salt water from ponds would be evaporated from the sun, crystallized forms of salt would be left on the outer edges and would be collected and harvested. In ceremonies, salt would be mixed with ʻalaea, a type of red clay from the earth, as it was believed that this would give the salt an added mana, or spiritual power. It was used as a way to purify the body, to bless certain objects, or as a way to heal ailments. 

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