Revisiting 'A Visit to Kaupo'

Kaupo’s numerous preserved sites have drawn many archeologists and other researchers to visit since the early 1900s.

Perhaps the most notable visit occurred 100 years ago, when two Bishop Museum researchers toured Kaupo. From May 2 to May 10, 1922, Kenneth Emory and Thomas Maunupau trekked through Kaupo and neighboring areas, studying archaeological sites and interviewing residents about the local culture.

Emory, 24, was an up-and-coming archaeologist. But it was his Maunupau, Emory's supposed assistant, who played a key role. Maunupau, 30, kept a journal of the expedition, which he afterward sent in installments to the Hawaiian-language Nupepa Kuokoa for publication. Three-quarters of a century later, a translated version of Maunupau's account was published as the book Huakai Maikaikai a Kaupo, Maui (A Visit to Kaupo, Maui), exposing later generations to his writings.

Origins of the trip

The 1922 excursion to Kaupo was the brainchild of Emory, with the goal to collect information in support of his research on Lanai. The previous year, Emory had conducted fieldwork at Kaunolu, an abandoned fishing village on Lanai. Kaunolu reminded Emory of Kaupo, which he had briefly visited in the summer of 1920 while surveying Haleakala Crater.

Emory explained the similarities between the villages in a letter to the Bishop Museum director in December 1921:

“The village of Kaupo is of the same size and nature as Kaunalu [sic], but differs in this respect,—the natives are still living in it. …The Hawaiians living at Kaupo can explain the function of the walls, pens, platforms, and other items which go to make up a house site.”

The Bishop Museum approved Emory's research trip to Kaupo, as well as funding for an assistant. Emory chose Thomas Maunupau, a translator at the Bureau of Conveyances. Although Maunupau was nominally Emory's assistant, the relationship between the two was more nuanced. Maunupau was older and had been Emory's Hawaiian-language tutor since 1915. By all accounts, the pair were close friends.

With arrangements made, Emory and Maunupau departed Honolulu in the evening of Monday, May 1 aboard the Kilauea steamer for Kaupo. Here is a summary of their trip:

Tuesday, May 2, 1922

At 4:30 p.m., Maunupau dismounts from his mule at his host’s house in Kaupo, “grateful to get back onto solid ground”. (Ua hauoli iho la i ka lele ana iho iluna o ka aina honua paa.)

Indeed, it had been a long journey. The Kilauea had arrived at Hana at 11 a.m., 15 hours after leaving Honolulu. From Hana, Maunupau and Emory had a driver take them by car to to the end of the road at Kipahulu, which took an hour. From Kipahulu, they rode mules for 4½ hours along sea cliffs and then halfway up Kaupo Gap.

Their host was Joseph Marciel, a 39-year-old Kaupo native who would proceed to guide them around Kaupo for the duration of the trip. It’s unclear how Emory and Maunupau connected with Marciel. It may be that Emory met Marciel in 1920 when Emory visited Kaupo during his Haleakala research. Others have suggested that Marciel and Maunupau knew each other from St. Louis School in Honolulu, which they had both attended. However, Maunupau and Marciel were over 8 years apart and likely did not attend the St. Louis at the same time. Moreover, Maunupau makes no mention of a prior association with Marciel.

The choice of Marciel as host may have simply been a case of word of mouth. The Marciel family had frequently hosted visitors since Marciel’s father moved to Kaupo in 1889 and founded what later became Kaupo Ranch.

Back to that first afternoon, Maunupau and Emory are too weary to undertake any exploring. After dinner, “We quickly retired to our room to lay down and were taken off by our serene sweetheart, sleep.” (Ua hoi koke aku no maua iloko o ka rumi, moe iho la i kahi moe, a o ka lilo aku la no ia me ka ipo hoonanea he hiamoe.)

Wednesday, May 3

On May 3, Maunupau and Emory start their work in earnest. At 7:30 a.m., Marciel takes Maunupau and Emory to Lonoaea Heiau and Hale o Kane Heiau, both in Kahualau Valley about a half-mile from Marciel’s house.

Further up the valley, they talk with a 70-year-old resident named Simeona Maihui about the two heiau. Emory asks Maihui to make a traditional fishing net for the Bishop Museum.

Next, the group heads down the road to visit Loaloa Heiau, where they take measurements and explore before continuing down to the shore area at Mokulau.

At Mokulau, they first visit Keakalauae (Popoiwi) Heiau, on a hill overlooking the shore. Here, Marciel points out places associated with Pamano, the hero of a well-known legend. They then go to the shore at Mokulau and explore areas there.

Afterward, Maunupau, Emory and Marciel continue on to the house of Joshua Ahulii. Ahulii had been a representative in the Hawaii legislature in 1901, where he pushed for infrastructure improvements for the area. Marciel and Ahulii were well-acquainted; when Marciel moved to Kaupo in 1889 as a young boy, it was Ahulii's father who built the home of the Marciels (the same home where Maunupau and Emory were staying).

Ahulii shares knowledge about the construction of traditional houses and canoes as well as the names of winds and rains in East Maui. Emory tries to buy Ahulii’s canoe for the museum, but Ahulii wants to keep it for his grandson.

Maunupau, Emory and Marciel leave Ahulii and visit one more local, named Kau, who does not have much information to provide. They return back to Marciel’s home around sunset.

Thursday, May 4 

After spending the previous day within a few miles of Marciel's home, the group now ventures further afield. Marciel takes Maunupau and Emory to Kahikinui, the desolate region west of Kaupo where Marciel was born. Their destination is a unique cultural site: an area with footprints carved in the lava rock.

They stop briefly at Nuu to look at petroglyphs before continuing on to Lualailua Hills, the location of the footprints. Marciel shares a legend that the footprints were made by menehune carrying stones to build Loaloa Heiau, thus connecting the footprints to Kaupo. After this, they head back to Kaupo, and it is evening by the time they return from their 30-mile round trip.

Friday, May 5

In the morning, Marciel takes Maunupau and Emory to a burial cave near the Marciel homestead. They then return to Nuu, where they had quickly examined petroglyphs the day before. They investigate the petroglyphs further and then talk with the handful of remaining residents in once-bustling Nuu village. These residents include Alapai Kapaeko, who Maunupau estimates is over 100 based on events from Kapaeko's childhood. U.S. Census records from the period indicate Kapaeko was not quite 100, but still a respectable 94. The Nuu residents share lore related to fishing, winds, area springs and the formation of Kaupo Gap. 

On the way back to Marciel’s house, the party stops at a store to order supplies for their trip to Haleakala Crater the following day. This would have been the store of Samuel H. Soon, as the present-day Kaupo Store was not established until 1925 (by Samuel’s brother Nicholas).

Saturday, May 6

Maunupau, Emory and Marciel ascend Kaupo Gap to Haleakala Crater. They set up camp at Laie, at the base of the eastern crater wall and an area where Kaupo residents frequently went to camp. Maunupau and Emory hunt for goats in the cliffs above Laie. There is a natural pool in the area, and Maunupau is able to take a bath for the first time since arriving in Kaupo. Marciel cooks goat for dinner and they visit with ranchers who had come from Makawao to meet the group.

Sunday, May 7

They visit various cultural sites in the crater. However, Maunupau's writing shifts away from a first-person account. Instead of describing his personal experience of visiting these sites, Maunupau instead uses general descriptions from the publication of Emory's 1920 visit to Haleakala.

Monday, May 8

In the morning, the party packs up in Haleakala Crater and returns to Kaupo. In the afternoon, Maunupau, Emory, Marciel and a group of others visit a bluff just west of Marciel’s house in Naholoku to see a petroglyph site. In 1929, another visiting Bishop Museum researcher would make drawings of these images.

Tuesday, May 9

In the morning, Emory returns to Lonoaea Heiau and Hale o Kane Heiau. In the afternoon, Marciel, Maunupau and Emory visit a man named Poouwahi, who lives near the Marciel homestead. This person may have been Leonard Poouahi, whom Emory had met in 1920.

Poouwahi provides information about canoes, and Marciel shares a prayer for planting sweet potatoes that he learned from J. W. Kawaakoa. Kawaakoa, was an active community leader, hosting parties and heading area Sunday schools. In 1909, Kawaakoa, then a representative in the Hawaii legislature, was responsible for relocating the Kaupo schoolhouse, moving the building miles through the village in one piece.

A surviving notebook from Marciel reveals that he met with Kawaakoa earlier on May 9. The notebook contains the handwritten prayer that Marciel later shares with Maunupau during the visit with Poouwahi. Notably, there are slight differences between Marciel’s version and Maunupau’s version as submitted to Nupepa Kuokoa.

Joseph Marciel's handwritten notes of the sweet potato prayer, recorded from J. W. Kawaakoa on May 9, 1922.

Wednesday, May 10

Maunupau and Emory head down to Mokulau Landing to board the Kilauea. The steamer only stopped at Kaupo intermittently during that period, which is why they had to get off at Hana at the beginning of the trip. After departing from Mokulau, the Kilauea heads to Nuu before doubling back to Hana and returning to Honolulu.

After the visit

After the trip, Thomas Maunupau, Kenneth Emory and Joseph Marciel all continued to contribute to the preservation of the Hawaiian culture.

Maunupau continued to work at the Bureau of Conveyances until 1951. He also supported cultural projects including research on canoes with Emory and documenting ancient chants for a Yale musicologist. Maunupau died in 1956 at 64 years old.

Emory proceeded to have a distinguished archaeological career in Hawaii and across Oceania and is regarded as the father of Pacific archaeology. He died in 1992 at the age of 94.

Joseph Marciel remained in Kaupo and assisted many other archaeologists and anthropologists who visited the area after Maunupau and Emory. Marciel had 14 children with his wife, Josephine—and then adopted a 15th. In fact, while Maunupau and Emory were visiting Kaupo, Josephine Marciel was pregnant with the grandmother of this article’s author. In 1924, two years after Emory and Maunupau visited, the Marciels had a son, whom they named Kenneth Emory Marciel, highlighting the impression that the young archaeologist had made on the family. While on his later Pacific voyages, Emory would collect plants for Marciel; a number of these plants remain on the Marciel property in Kaupo, living memorials to a friendship founded in the 1920s. Joseph Marciel died in 1949 at age 66 and was buried at St. Joseph Church in Kaupo.

Newspaper articles

Immediately after returning from Kaupo, Maunupau began preparing a serial account of the trip for Nupepa Kuokoa. Maunupau’s articles were published in 21 issues from June 1, 1922, to March 15, 1923.

Maunupau's articles appeared every week or so, except for a gap between October 1922 and February 1923. The newspaper editor explained that Maunupau had been dealing with issues ("pilikia") during the hiatus. This break indicates that Maunupau did not prepare and send in a complete account at the beginning of publication but was preparing each installment on a periodic basis.

Maunupau’s writing is straightforward, perhaps reflecting his regular work with property conveyance documents, where clarity is paramount. Notably, he shifts to quoted dialogue of discussions with residents, such as in the interview with Joshua Ahulii. This dialogue allows readers now to relive 100-year-old conversations as if they are happening in real time.

Separately, Emory also penned an article about the trip, focusing on the footprints in Kahikinui. Emory's article was published in the Maui News on June 2, 1922.

Publication of the book

Hawaiiana scholar Mary Kawena Pukui began translating Maunupau’s newspaper articles about Kaupo at some point during her tenure at the Bishop Museum in the mid-1900s. Pukui had visited Kaupo in 1960-1961 to interview area elders, including Josephine Marciel. It may have been these visits that spurred her interest in Maunupau's account.

In all, Pukui translated 17 of Maunupau’s 21 articles for the Bishop Museum archives. Later, author Malcolm Naea Chun translated the remaining four articles and spearheaded the effort to publish the account in book form. The book was first published in 1998, featuring both the original Hawaiian version and the English translation. A quarter-century later, the book is still in print.

Maunupau's legacy

In the 1920s in Hawaii, the budding fields of anthropology and archaeology were dominated by non-native researchers. Thus, the writings of Maunupau, a native Hawaiian, offer a unique perspective. 

Maunupau's contributions were immediately apparent to Emory. At an anthropological meeting just months after the trip, Emory said that, “The two young natives with me [Marciel and Maunupau] could in a moment induce the old men to talk intimately and spontaneously on any matter and they could take down chants and lists of names as well as notes with a rapidity which made me realize that a native is the man to collect material from natives.”

Love for the land is a fundamental component of Hawaiian culture, and this shines through in Maunupau’s writings. Maunupau was also attuned to geography as a document translator for the Bureau of Conveyances.

The result of this is that Maunupau carefully recorded Kaupo place names and provided descriptions in his account. Maunupau’s contribution here cannot be understated; he is single-handedly responsible for recording dozens of place names that otherwise would have been lost forever.

As an example, when the group headed up Kaupo Gap from Marciel’s house to Haleakala Crater on May 6, 1922, Maunupau recorded the places that they encountered. The first dozen places are Kapihaa, Koleanui, Kauhipuu, Puahuluhulu, Keanapuka, Kahulilua, Panilauhulu, Kahilinau, Keanakukoa, Kawaanaau, Kaolepelepe and Waikeekeehia. But on modern U.S. Geological Survey maps, the only one of these places that is identified is Waikeekeehia; the other 11 places are absent.

Not only does Maunupau record place names, but he includes descriptions that could help to relocate many lost places. In the places mentioned above, he writes that Koleanui “is a gulch, and there are kukui trees here” (he awawa keia, a o ke kukui ka laau o keia wahi). Keanapuka is “a cave with water with the opening facing the sea” (he ana wai e huli ana ka wahi i ke kai).

For all the reasons above, Maunupau's writings have endured in academia and among the general public a century after publication.

Ty Kawika Tengan, who teaches an indigenous anthropology course at the University of Hawaii, has used Maunupau's writings in his classes. As he explains, "Maunupau focuses on the relations with kūpuna in ways that other archaeological accounts might not, as well as weaving in mo‘olelo, mele, and ‘ōlelo no‘eau that show not only a distinctly Hawaiian narrative style, but also the ongoing presence of ancestral names, places, and entities in the everyday lives of Kaupō people."

Maunupau would likely be proud to see his writings used as a teaching tool for modern-day anthropologists and archaeologists. But academia and museum research were not his sole focus. He wanted everyone to have access to the information he had gathered.

At the beginning of his first article for Nupepa Kuokoa, he asked that his writings be published for the benefit of the museum, “but also to inform friends in Kaupo and Nuu as well as readers in general of some of the important details we have discovered” (i mea hoi e ike mai ai na kino makamaka o Kaupo, ame Nuu, a pela no hoi ka poe heluhelu e ike mai ai kekahi mau mea ano nui i loaa ia maua).

Because of this, Maunupau no doubt be equally pleased to see stacks of the book Huakai Maikaikai a Kaupo, Maui in bookstores and the dozens of well-thumbed copies spread through libraries across Hawaii, waiting to take the next group of readers on a journey through Kaupo.