Large ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs that have been hidden under the sands of Oahu’s western Waianae Coast for years have reemerged due to shifting of sediment in the waves. The petroglyphs were carved into the shoreline sandstone 1,000 years ago in front of what is now the Pililaʻau Army Recreation Center.
U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii’s cultural resources team documented the petroglyphs. They counted 26 of them over 131 feet of beach. Most of the carvings are anthropomorphic stick figures, either of them appearing to have male characteristics; others are geometric or abstract shapes. The largest of the petroglyphs is more than eight feet tall and eight feed wide and two of the large stick figures have fingers, which is unusual for this type of petroglyph.
“When I looked at the petroglyphs here, I seen a very significant petroglyph. That was with the one with the fingers going down. Or the one going up,” Native Hawaiian Glen Kila said in a 2017 interview with the U.S. Army. His family can trace its ancestry on this coastline to “the beginning of time and from the time of the first migration [of Polynesians to Hawaii].”
“My interpretation, just by looking at it was interpretation of Maui, the demigod, Maui,” Kila continued. Maui is a legendary figure in Hawaiian mythology known for his large size and strength. With his magic fishhook, he pulled the Hawaiian Islands out of the ocean in one story and snared the sun in another.
“Because he played a role in our mo’olelos [stories] over here. And the reason why I say that because the way the fingers are from the east is like the rising sun to the setting sun. So it’s a religious symbol. Like what we have for Christianity, the cross or the other symbols.”
Moʻolelo encompass mythology, fictionalized stories and non-fiction accounts of the history of the place. Before the arrival of Protestant missionaries in the 1820s, mo’olelo were transmitted orally as there was no written Hawaiian language until the missionaries devised a writing system using the Latin alphabet. The petroglyphs were a visual medium to convey the traditional oral histories.
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