"PU'U O MAHUKA HEIAU" O'ahu
Posted by: 
Glenn
N 21° 38.500 W 158° 03.523
4Q E 597405 N 2393460
This well-preserved heiau (temple) is the largest on O'ahu covering over 5-acres and consisting of three adjoining enclosures measuring 575 feet by 170 feet.
Waymark Code: WMFC3
Location: Hawaii, United States
Date Posted: 06/20/2006
Views: 68
Puu O Mahuka Temple, this 18th-century heiau, known as the "hill of escape," sits on a 5-acre, 300-foot bluff overlooking Waimea Bay, is one of the largest of the few remaining heiaus on Oahu. This was considered a powerful place for the kahuna and one of two places where wives of the ancient chiefs gave birth.
The temple was once surrounded by a stone wall. Inside, small stones were piled up and tree trunks were presumably laid on top to create a platform. The buildings erected on top of this no longer exist as perishable materials, such as wood, leaves and grass, were used. The heiau appears as a huge rectangle of rocks twice as big as a football field (170 ft. by 575 ft.), with an altar often covered by the flower and fruit offerings left by native Hawaiians.
This heiau may also have been a site of human sacrifice. In 1794, according to legend, three of Captain George Vancouver's men of the Daedalus were sacrificed here because they had angered the natives. Human sacrifice was originally unknown in Hawaii. Polynesians from Tahiti brought this religious custom here for the first time in the 13th c., and it was then practiced for more than 500 years until the abolition of the kapu system by King Kamehameha II and his mother Kapiolani.
Go around sundown to feel the mana (sacred spirit) of this Hawaiian place. The largest sacrificial temple on Oahu, it's associated with the great Kaopulupulu, who sought peace between Oahu and Kauai. This prescient kahuna predicted that the island would be overrun by strangers from a distant land.
