March 11, 2008

“While Makena has been planned for development as a secondary resort and residential community, the future can be expected to bring increased appreciation of those substantial sections the plan will preserve from development. Makena’s parks and wilderness areas, together with its historical sites and structures, will become its most valuable assets.” – Kihei Civic Development Plan, adopted by Maui County, 1971.

A new book describing Makena’s long and rich history reveals what many have long claimed. Scores of the region’s hundreds of heritage sites still remain to be located, researched and protected. The book also tells the stories of many worthwhile cultural sites, which were “lost” or overlooked for decades. It details how the investigation and protection of Makena’s cultural sites was often sacrificed to meet development timetables, letting cultural remains be destroyed, before legally required review could take place.

The recently released Project Ka’eo book reviews a millennium of Makena’s history. It theorizes that the area, blessed with greater rainfall and sheltered ports, was home to a large pre-contact population. Hundreds of Hawaiian cultural sites still remain on Makena lands, as testimony to those earlier villages.

Early Makena developments may not have followed state laws
However, archival documents gathered during Project Ka‘eo research reveal that from the beginning of the area’s development, many sites of great historical worth were only hastily reviewed, under pressure to complete some minimal research before the developer’s bulldozers arrived. The fate of other sites was sealed when they were reported destroyed before they could be recorded or their historical worth documented. A Bishop Museum team contracted to record cultural and historic sites in Makena noted the situation in their 1978 field notes: “Brief onsite inspections of this area by our field team has revealed that extensive bulldozing has taken place. Unrecorded archaeological sites have already been damaged; others are in immediate danger of destruction should any further bulldozing take place.”

Makena Resort’s first archaeological researchers were Bishop Museum staff hired in 1974 to review over 1,000 acres of Resort lands. The five-person team was forced by contractual time constraints to cover a “daunting 71.4 acres of rugged terrain a day,” according to Project Ka‘eo research.

Not surprisingly, they left large areas unsurveyed. Many features that were documented were so poorly mapped that they could never be confidently relocated again. To their credit, the first Bishop Museum team strongly recommended additional archeological work in the area be done to help complete their efforts, as soon as possible before any construction took place. This request appeared to be ignored by the landowners, who used the hastily done and incomplete 1974 survey to march forward and obtain their first set of development permits.
Records indicate that the next archaeological research work was not commissioned by the landowners until four years later (1978). This research team only reviewed around 100 acres, but also faced tremendous pressure to complete their work ahead of the bulldozers building the first phase of the Makena Golf Course.

Wealthy corporation limited funding for archaeological researchers
Museum correspondence with Makena Resort landowners, Seibu Corp, revealed that the Museum was even pressured into cutting several days of field research time off their original bid, to save Seibu money. This did not support the Museum’s professional efforts. Archaeologist Theresa Donham commented in the Ka‘eo book that these financial and time constraints forced the researchers to compress “two major and distinct work phases (inventory survey and data recovery)… into one operation… which allowed for no outside review of the survey findings.”

The short time allowed for review placed the researchers in such an impossible situation that one of them noted in an inter-department memo that he “personally felt compromised” because the Bishop Museum archaeological field researchers were “giving okay for construction to begin while test excavations [on the cultural sites] are being done…” He concluded his memo with the statement: “I wonder whether we are violating the law (State or others) in allowing construction to proceed without action by the State Historic Preservation Office and the Historic Preservation Board.”

In the end, the Museum researchers recognized that they would need more time to even do a minimal review effort. They generously offered to do the extra work at no cost to the landowner, if only Seibu would agree to allow them in the field for the three extra days. Project Ka‘eo quoted another 1978 memo that detailed the problem:
“Parcel II (the area inland of Pu‘u Ola‘i) was not completely surveyed… 50 sites total. Centerline cuts already begun. Sites already destroyed. We need to know what kind of sites were where.”

The dilemma faced by these researchers was not new. Donham commented about early Makena Resort archaeological review: “golf course construction priorities were driving the archaeological work, as was the case in the adjacent Wailea golf course.”

According to Project Ka‘eo research, Bishop Museum archaeologists did secure permission to volunteer additional days to document cultural sites inland of Pu‘u Ola‘i. But imminent construction demands may have pressured them into hasty conclusions about the age, significance, and preservation value of many of those same sites.

Researchers also had no time or funding to conduct interviews with local residents knowledgeable of the area's history. Project Ka‘eo research indicates that one shoreline complex of cultural sites surveyed in 1978 contained a low, pebble-paved platform, which may have been utilized by local residents as a ko‘a or fishing shrine. This site was briefly excavated and interpreted as a house site from the 18th or 19th century. It was then destroyed to build the oceanfront 18th hole of the Makena Golf Course.

Early recommendations to preserve or research heritage sites ignored in current plans
Even cultural sites recommended for preservation had no guarantee of their fate. Two Bishop Museum surveys, covering adjoining portions of Makena Golf Course lands, were conducted in the spring and fall of 1978. Ten sites or site complexes were recommended for preservation. Project Ka‘eo research revealed that only two of these ten sites are listed in the resort’s most current Cultural Resources Management Plan (c. 2005).

The book notes that neither area has had further archaeological review over the last thirty years. Although it is likely that all ten recommended preservation sites still exist, they have simply disappeared from the resort’s discussion of preservation options.

At least another thirty or so sites encountered by these early archaeological surveys still remain in areas currently proposed for future Makena Resort housing. A number of them were believed to have research or preservation potential, but were never investigated, because they were not in the immediate golf course construction zone. To date, no additional archaeological review of these lands has been completed by the landowners, who are proposing construction in the same areas. Project Ka‘eo recommends that this same area, which surrounds a heiau complex, should be set aside for future research as a cultural landscape preserve.

Makena heritage sites: lost, overlooked or destroyed – is there a better way?
Project Ka‘eo reveals what happens when special places are only discovered when development plans are far advanced. This was typified by the tragic loss of an ancient, two-acre agricultural village about a half-mile inland of Keawala‘i church. Undiscovered until a decade after the first Makena archaeological surveys, the village’s intricate terraces, pathways, enclosures and family shrine were later destroyed to install the Makena Resort water tanks.

It took another decade to “discover” a second agricultural village in Makena, after a small area of resort lands was re-surveyed by archaeologists in the mid 1990’s. This survey revealed an extensive agricultural village complex, with over 200 features, spanning several acres. The village, which was just inland of the Makena Golf Course, was originally recorded as a few separate sites. Its true significance had simply been “missed” by nearly two decades of archaeological studies. Fortunately, the book reports that it is planned to be preserved.

Even more unbelievable is the story of a heiau or ko‘a (fishing shrine) site a few hundred feet from Maluaka Point in Makena. The ceremonial site was recorded by the Bishop Museum’s Winslow Walker in 1929, and then simply disappeared from archaeological records of Makena for nearly 70 years. Folk historian Inez Ashdown described a heiau in the vicinity in 1970, but few accepted its existence. Five separate archaeological surveys commissioned by Makena Resort, and one by the State of Hawaii, reviewed the small parcel where the heiau was located without noting its existence. It was finally re-identified as the same structure in 2006 when citizens insisted that more archaeological review was needed at the proposed Maluaka luxury condo project site.

The 1,800 acres of Makena Resort lands were sold to an investment group headed by Maui developer Everett Dowling in June 2007. The next chapter in Makena’s future is being planned. Will Makena’s historical sites and structures become “its most valuable assets” as was originally envisioned when the County policymakers granted many of the land entitlements the Resort claims today? The message of Project Ka‘eo is clear: landowners have rights, but with rights come responsibilities. Project Ka‘eo calls for a new planning process to protect Makena’s heritage sites and let them be acknowledged and respected as the valuable assets they are.

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