Massive historical Hawaiian petroglyphs which were hidden beneath the sands of Oahu’s western Waianae Coast for years have reemerged as a result of shifting of sediment within the waves. The petroglyphs have been carved into the shoreline sandstone 1,000 years in the past in entrance of what’s now the Pililaʻau Military Recreation Middle.
U.S. Military Garrison Hawaii’s cultural assets staff documented the petroglyphs. They counted 26 of them over 131 toes of seashore. A lot of the carvings are anthropomorphic stick figures, both of them showing to have male traits; others are geometric or summary shapes. The biggest of the petroglyphs is greater than eight toes tall and eight feed vast and two of the big stick figures have fingers, which is uncommon for this sort of petroglyph.
“After I regarded on the petroglyphs right here, I seen a really important petroglyph. That was with the one with the fingers taking place. Or the one going up,” Native Hawaiian Glen Kila stated in a 2017 interview with the U.S. Military. His household can hint its ancestry on this shoreline to “the start of time and from the time of the primary migration [of Polynesians to Hawaii].”
“My interpretation, simply by it was interpretation of Maui, the demigod, Maui,” Kila continued. Maui is a legendary determine in Hawaiian mythology recognized for his giant dimension and power. Together with his magic fishhook, he pulled the Hawaiian Islands out of the ocean in a single story and snared the solar in one other.
“As a result of he performed a job in our mo’olelos [stories] over right here. And the explanation why I say that as a result of the best way the fingers are from the east is just like the rising solar to the setting solar. So it’s a spiritual image. Like what we have now for Christianity, the cross or the opposite symbols.”
Moʻolelo embody mythology, fictionalized tales and non-fiction accounts of the historical past of the place. Earlier than the arrival of Protestant missionaries within the 1820s, mo’olelo have been transmitted orally as there was no written Hawaiian language till the missionaries devised a writing system utilizing the Latin alphabet. The petroglyphs have been a visible medium to convey the normal oral histories.
