PU'UKOHOLA HEIAU NHS • KALOKO-HONOKOHAU NHP • PU'UHONUA O HONAUNAU NHP A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island

CHAPTER VII:
PU'UKOHOLA HEIAU NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE (continued)

E. Stone Leaning Post (Leaning Rock of Alapa'i, Alapai'i's Chair, Kamehameha's Chair)

Pohaku o Alapai ku palupalu mano, "the rock of the chief named Alapai of the one who puts the human shark bait out," originally stood in the shade of a large keawe tree on the shore below Mailekini Heiau. Historian Russell Apple has stated the object was actually more of a leaning rock because the early Hawaiians did not sit in chairs as Europeans do but sat on the ground. The stone was set into a concrete footing in 1935; a truck that backed into it in 1937 broke off the top. It was restored by the Waimea Hawaiian Civic Club for the dedication of the national historic site in 1972. [144] During that process, the rock was moved more into the open but farther back from the sea. It is now in three pieces and stands on a foundation.

One early account said that King Kamehameha sat there while his staff compiled the tally of the latest fishing expeditions, and that somewhere near the stone might have been the spot of Keoua's murder. [145] Apple states that although referred to as Kamehameha's Chair, the rock is by local tradition more closely associated with one of Kamehameha's staff chiefs named Alapai Kupalupalu Mano who liked to use human flesh for shark bait and watched from this point as sharks entered Hale-o-Kapuni to devour the food offerings put out for them. Apple points out that the rock's location would be ideal for observing activities in the water around the heiau. He also notes that catching sharks was a sport indulged in by high chiefs and conjectured that perhaps the animals were conditioned to rotten flesh in the offshore temple so that they could be enticed with it into the deeper water and easily noosed. [146]