Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey Troutman | 170627-N-ON468-0114 HONOLULU (Jun. 27, 2017) Jeff Pantaleo, a Naval Facilities...... read more read more
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A sacred local cultural landmark was the site of a blessing and an educational visit when eight students from the University of Hawaii toured the Loko Pa’aiau fishpond at the McGrew Point Naval Housing development, June 27.
The visit was sponsored by the U.S. Navy’s Loko Pa’aiau Native Hawaiian Cultural Resource Management Training Program, which helps to educate the local community about the legacy and ongoing restoration of the ancient fishpond.
“The historical landmarks and cultural resources of Hawaii define who we are and where we came from,” said Jeff Pantaleo, a Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Hawaii Archeologist, who hosted the visit. “The preservation of these resources requires a group or community effort. As we saw today with the student visit, there is a lot of "aloha" that fuels the community to participate.”
Pantaleo was hopeful that more students and members of the community would make visits to local sites such as the fishpond, to understand and appreciate the traditional cultural practices of their elders, or “kupuna”, and how they adapted to their environment.
“The goal of the student visit was to emphasize the strong relationship between the native Hawaiian community and the Navy,” said Pantaleo. “The Navy is at the forefront of preserving cultural resource and ensuring ancient Hawaiian traditions and knowledge continue, and by working together with the local community, we can preserve our significant cultural resources.”
The students were part of the University of Hawaii’s Nohopapa Hawaii Cultural Resource Management summer program, which aims to help young citizens of Hawaii learn more about the culture and traditions of their ancestors.
“Visiting Loko Pa’aiau pond was a way for us to learn more about the natural resources that we sometimes take for granted here in the Pearl Harbor area,” said Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, a University of Hawaii student from the tour group. “We tend to think of Pearl Harbor as just a giant military base, without realizing how much of our cultural resources still exist here today. Loko Pa’aiau is just one of the special places here within Pearl Harbor that shows just how much our ancestors have left on this landscape, and it’s a place we can do our part to help restore and make viable again for the community.”
Ku’ulei Freed, a University of Hawaii Manoa student and cultural practitioner, said the group’s visit to the pond was an opportunity to better understand the significance their ancestors placed on the area, and to honor that tradition moving forward.
“It’s easy to see this area as a place that is dominated by urban landscape and government facilities, but to come here and see the pond and the surrounding area itself, and to know that it is here and its legacy lives on, you can feel it in the air around you when you visit this place. I hope that others who come here experience that same feeling, as our ancestors likely intended.”
There were once 22 fishponds in Pearl Harbor, only three of which are still relatively intact. Of these three, the Loko Pa’aiau fishpond is the most accessible. Fishponds were used to farm fish by the ancient Hawaiians using areas around the shoreline to enclose a feeding area for fish.
Restoration at Loko Pa’aiau began September 2014 and is an ongoing cultural resources project involving the Navy and the local community.
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 07.05.2017 14:11 |
| Story ID: | 239728 |
| Location: | PEARL HARBOR, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 129 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, University of Hawaii Students Tour Sacred Loko Pa'aiau Cultural Site, by PO1 Jeffrey Troutman, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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