Ancient Hawaiians were fond of using nicknames for geographic areas. In East Maui, Hana was called the land of the low-lying rain (ua lani haʻahaʻa) while neighboring Kipahulu had the “love-snatching wind” (makani kāʻili aloha).
These nicknames can be considered epithets, a phrase that describes attributes of a place. Not that epithets for geographic areas are unique to Hawaii; most readers will recognize the Windy City as a reference to Chicago, or the Land of the Midnight Sun as Alaska.
In the historical record, a number of epithets appear for Kaupo, but one phrase in particular dominates: ua peʻe pā pōhaku, or rain that makes one hide behind rock walls.
This saying appears again and again in Hawaiian-language newspaper articles from the 1800s and early 1900s. In some periods, nearly every article about Kaupo used the term "ua peʻe pā pōhaku o Kaupo" to refer to the region with affection and longing. An examination of this epithet, then, helps those of us today to better understand the mindset of the Kaupo natives of old.
Weather patterns of Kaupo
At the outset, it's worth examining two weather patterns of Kaupo that explain this saying: rainfall and wind.
On Maui, Kaupo lies at the boundary of the rain shadow of Haleakala mountain. In practice, this means that the eastern portion of Kaupo enjoys near-constant precipitation while western Kaupo is arid. The area of central Kaupo, between these two extremes, is where the last of the rains fall intermittently before being depleted.
If Kaupo is where rains go to die, the opposite is true of the wind. The wind blows vigorously and incessantly. The fact that crouching next to a rock wall provides enough shelter from the rain speaks to the strength of the wind.
Kaupo native L. Aalona Kanae described this wind phenomenon in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa in August 1906, referring to a common saying about the wind in East Maui:
He ola mau no ka hana mau o ka makani kamaaina i keia mau la e pa ana i ke ao ame ka po. O kela no ka makani i oleloia ai penei:
Hanau i Hana nui i Kipahulu, Kanakamakua i Kaupo. Elemakule i Kahikinui a make aku i Honuaula.
(The typical wind has been lively in recent days, blowing all day and night. This is the wind of which is said the following:
Born in Hana, develops in Kipahulu, reaches maturity in Kaupo, grows old in Kahikinui and dies in Honuaula.)
Thus, Haleakala's rain shadow and Kaupo's strong winds create conditions where rains come and go with no warning. Moreover, the rain can strike even when there are no clouds seen, since the wind can carry the rain from clouds miles away.
A note on the translation
The commonly accepted translation of ua peʻe pā pōhaku is “rain that makes one hide behind rock walls”. However, the human element is implied; a direct translation of the four words in the saying is “rain, hide, wall, rock”.
Because of this, some might consider that the translation should be “rain that hides behind rock walls”, making the rain the actor rather than humans, also keeping in mind that Hawaiians routinely anthropomorphized weather.
Nevertheless, there are a number of historical writings that support the accepted translation with the implied human actors.
First is a letter from Charles Kapuoa of North Kona, Hawaii Island, published in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa in February 1920. Kapuoa writes to provide an (incorrect) answer to a riddle, guessing “ua pee papohaku”. He describes the Kaupo epithet in a portion of his letter:
Ina oe e ike ana i ka ua, e pee ana oe o pulu i ka ua. Ua lohe au i ka moolelo o Kaupo ina ka e hele mai ana ka ua, pili aku la ka ma ka aoao o ka papohaku, aole ka e pulu ana.
O Kohala ka’u wahi kamaaina. Ina hele mai ka ua ma ka Akau mai, pili aku oe ma ka aoao hema; oia mau no ahiki i keia la a’u e kakau nei.
(If you see the rain coming, you hide so that you don’t get wet. I have heard the story of Kaupo, that you will not get wet if you shelter on the side of a rock wall when the rain comes.
My homeland is Kohala. If the rain comes from the north, you huddle on the south side. It has always been this way even to this day that I am writing.)
Two years later, in 1922, Bishop Museum researcher Thomas Maunupau visited Kaupo to collect cultural information, including the names of winds and rains. Here is what Maunupau wrote about ua peʻe pā pōhaku in the June 15, 1922, issue of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa:
Ua Peepapohaku—he ua hoonaukiuki, ano like me ka Ua Haleuaole i ka iliki iho a mao ae no a holo aku la ka poe a pee i ka pa pohaku, a o ia ke kumu i kapaia ai keia inoa. O ka inoa o keia ua he inoa no kamalii paha i kapa no ka wa e paani ai lakou iloko o ka ua, o i aka manao o ka meakakau aole na kahiko.
(Rain That Makes One Hide Behind Rock Walls—an annoying rain similar to the Haleuole rain in that it falls suddenly and then clears up such that people must run and hide behind rock walls. That is the reason for this name. The name may have originated with children when they were playing in the rain. The writer does not believe this name came from the ancients.)
Usage in historical articles
As seen above, Maunupau believed that the epithet ua peʻe pā pōhaku was a childish creation recent to the time he wrote his account in 1920s. But a review of newspaper records indicates that the saying was in common use by the mid-1800s and carried serious and affectionate connotations.
The first known reference to ua peʻe pā pōhaku in newspapers appeared in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa on November 24, 1866, in an elegy by Hakaleleponi Paulo for her father, Paulo Ku:
E uwe ana au i kuu makuakane,
Ia Paulo kanaka i ka wekiu,
Pua makani kolokolonahe o ke kula.
Kuu makuakane mai ka ua pee pa pohaku o Kaupo.
(I cry for my father,
Paulo, a pinnacle of a man,
A wind rustling gently in the fields.
My father from the Kaupo rain that makes one hide behind rocks.)
Hakaleleponi wrote that her father was born when Kamehameha I sailed his canoe fleet to Oahu, in other words, just a few decades after Captain Cook’s arrival in the late 1700s. The use of ua peʻe pā pōhaku when referring to her father, then, suggests that the epithet may have originated around or even before Western contact.
A second example of ua peʻe pā pōhaku comes from January 1887 in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa. J. J. Kawahena, a patient at the Kalawao leper colony on Molokai wrote about recent happenings in the colony. Kawahena opened the letter with a wistful reference to Kaupo:
E ke KUOKOA e, Aloha Oe:—He wahi mea hou ka kou kiu kaulana e hooheno aku nei ma kou mau itamu i ike mai ai hoi na makamaka o kuu aina a one hanau hoi o ka ua pee-papohaku o Kaupo, Maui. Aloha wale ia home e.
(Dear KUOKOA, greetings:—Here is some news from your esteemed informant to adorn your pages and inform readers in my homeland of Kaupo, Maui, where the rain makes one hide behind rock walls. What longing for that home.)
Next is an article from October 1913 in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa about a convention of regional Sunday schools at Mokulau:
Ua hoomaka na hana ma ka weheia ana o ka ahamele ma ka luakini ma ke ahiahi Poaono, Oct. 11. He nui na puali himeni like ole i akoakoa ae, a ua himeniia mai na himeni u’i e na puali himeni mai o ka “Ua Lani Haahaa,” “Ka Makani Kaili Aloha,” ame “Ka Ua Peepapohaku o Kaupo.”
(The activities began with a concert at the church on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 11. Many hymn groups gathered, and beautiful hymns were sung by the hymn groups of the “Rain That Lies Low in the Heavens”, the “Love-snatching Wind” and the “Kaupo Rain That Makes One Hide Behind Rock Walls”.)
In the example above, the hymn groups of Hana and Kipahulu are referred to solely by the epithets “Rain that Lies Low in the Heavens” and the “Love-snatching Wind”. This occurred for Kaupo’s nickname as well, as in a 1879 headline in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, “Na Mea Hou o Ka Ua Peepapohaku."
Evidently, the Honolulu-based Kuokoa trusted that its readers across the Hawaiian Islands would know that ua peʻe pā pōhaku meant Kaupo and that the name of the area did not need to be included in the headline. This would be similar to the modern Honolulu Star-Advertiser using the headline “News from the Valley Isle” to refer to Maui.
Variations in the saying
Throughout dozens of historical articles with the phrase ua peʻe pā pōhaku, there are a number of variations in spacing and capitalization (ua Pee Papohaku, ua peepapohaku, Uapeepapohaku, etc.). These variations give the saying additional importance as a compound word (via removed spacing) and as a proper noun (via capitalization).
In addition there multiple variations that alter the wording itself. The three most common such variations are ua pili pā pōhaku, ua peʻepeʻe pā pōhaku, and ua peʻe pōhaku.
The variation ua pili pā pōhaku replaces hide (peʻe) with cling (pili), so “rain that makes one cling to rock walls”.
This variation may well be an earlier version of the standard ua peʻe pā pōhaku. The first reference to ua pili pā pōhaku appeared in January 1862, nearly 5 years before the first reference to ua peʻe pā pōhaku, in the obituary for Paulo Ku.
This first known written use of ua pili pā pōhaku occurred in the January 25, 1862, edition of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, in an elegy for a woman named Pililua, written by her child H. H. K. Kahoouluwaa of Lole, Kaupo.
Kuu makuahine o ka makani Moae—e,
Mai ka ua pili pa pohaku hoi o ka aina—la
(My mother of the Moae wind,
From the rain of this land that makes one cling to rock walls)
Separately, Moses Manu, an esteemed historian from East Maui, refers to ua pili pā pōhaku in an article in Ko Hawaii Pae Aina in November 1888, placing the saying in context among other well-known epithets for East Maui.
The second variation, ua peʻepeʻe pā pōhaku, repeats the word peʻe (hide). The repetition, or reduplication, of a word in Hawaiian typically adds a sense of frequency. This variation, then, might be translated as “rain that makes one constantly hide behind rock walls”.
S. K. Kamakahiki, writing about a trip to East Maui, used this variation in the February 14, 1891, issue of Ko Hawaii Pae Aina:
Ianuari 26, no ka makani Kailialoha o Kipahulu ma ka home noho o Rev. J K Iosepa no ekolu la. Ianuari 27 ua holo loa aku no ka ua Peepeepapohaku o Kaupo.
(January 26, on to Kipahulu, land of the love-snatching wind, and the home of the Rev. J. K. Iosepa for three days. January 27, all the way to Kaupo, where the rain is forever making one hide behind rock walls.)
The last variation discussed here, ua peʻe pōhaku, removes the word pā (walls) from the saying, so “rain that makes one hide behind rocks”. Ua peʻe pōhaku may be the best-known variation in some circles since this is the phrase Hawaiian scholar Mary Kawena Pukui included in Olelo Noeau, a book of Hawaiian poetical sayings. Additionally, this variation is displayed on a sign marking the border between Kipahulu and Kaupo. Still, the term is much rarer than ua peʻe pā pōhaku and appears to be more recent (the first known reference being 1891).
Parting thoughts
Taken as a whole, ua peʻe pā pōhaku appears to serve as a “pet name” for Kaupo, like an affectionate term for a grandmother. This is contrary to the suggestion from Maunupau, the Bishop Museum researcher, that it is a playful, childish saying.
Nowhere is this affection more clear than when Kaupo is addressed directly, as if a person, in historical obituaries. Mr. and Mrs. Kukahikoʻs farewell to their son Henry in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa in December 1922 embodies this:
E ka ua Peepapohaku o Kaupo e, aole oe e hoopulu hou ana ma kona mau papalina, ua pau ua nalo. Lihaliha wale!
(Kaupo rain that makes one hide behind rock walls, you will no longer wet his cheeks. He is gone, he is lost. What heartache!)
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