Lit: Day to end the fishing taboo

An ahupua`a of the Kona district between Kalāheo and Koloa. Petroglyphs have been found in this valley on the east side of a large rock a short distance toward the sea from the former cannery. These are the regular type of scratched or pecked petroglyphs.

#There was an altar to the fish god on the east coast of Lāwa’i just below the road at the lower end of the entrance road destroyed by a land slide a few years ago, but on the rocks below is still a round hole about nine inches in diameter, worn very smooth, apparently by rocks coursing around in it, which the Hawaiians used as an `awa bowl in which to offer `awa to a fish god. Hawaiians prepared the `awa and placed it in the bowl, mixed and then taken out and strained through rushed (ahuawa), and poured into a long narrow hole resembling a fish’s mouth in an adjoining rock. The shark god, Ku-hai-moana, came up in the breakers at the base of the cliff to receive the `awa. A crack in the rock leading into the `awa bowl may have served as its handle. Another altar to a fish god was on the west coast of Lāwa’i. [Stau]

    *A supernatural dog named Poki was said to have owned land at Lāwa’i and Wahi-awa.