Ancient Adzes & Modern Makers

Black as the deep pō (generative darkness) and with star-like density, the stone used to make ʻOlopū came from the clashing of gods; the meeting of a volcanic eruption with a glacier. This specific run-in of Pele and Poliʻahu atop Maunakea produced some of the finest basalt in the Pacific. Hawaiian adze makers recognized the supreme quality of this specific layer of stone, quarried it extensively in a place they named Keanakākoʻi, and used it to make a range of koʻi big and small. 

It may have been Wākea who fashioned ʻOlopū. One old chant talks about him as the whetstone worker, using sand and snowmelt from Maunakea to grind and sharpen the stone. ʻOlopū was used to carve Wākea’s own canoes and was handed down through the generations of chiefs, namely those of Hawaiʻi Island. With it they consecrated their most important work projects, like carving images for temples and making canoe fleets, endeavors that grew and maintained chiefly status. 

ʻOlopū was eventually inherited by Hawaiʻikuauli, son of Lilinoe and Kūkahauʻula. In their deity forms they appear as the mist and fine rain of the mountain, and the snow in the red glow of sunset. In her human form, Lilinoe was a famously beautiful chiefess raised in isolation in a cave on Maunakea where she drank the water of a spring called Poliʻahu. One story says Kamehameha’s name honors Lilinoe’s upbringing in a solitary place (ma kahi mehameha) on this mountain of great importance whose sacred peak is the highest point in the Pacific. 

ʻOlopū surfaces again during Kamehameha's rise, the ascent of this warrior chief whose mother craved the eye of the tiger shark when he was in her womb. A thief had torn apart the special storehouse where ʻOlopū was kept and taken it to Maui chief Kalanikūpule. When the news reached Kamehameha that this koʻi of great mana and antiquity had been stolen, he traveled to Maui to find it. This was a convenient pretense for waging war on Kalanikūpule. 

At the battle of Kawaʻanui, named for the purported 8,000 canoes that covered the shores from Hāmoa to Kawaipapa, Kamehameha’s forces defeated a battalion under the command of Kapakahili. He was one of Kalanikūpule’s generals and he had ʻOlopū in his possession. When Kapakahili fell in this clash of forces, Kamehameha took hold of this koʻi naʻi aupuni, this nation-building adze, and build a nation he did. He went on to win most if not all of his subsequent battles and bring the islands under his sole rule, creating the foundation of our modern nation.

Many different koʻi were used to carve the tools Kamehameha used in his quest:  massive canoe fleets, various Kū idols, thousands of weapons for his warriors. Certainly koʻi were used to fashion the images that stood on Puʻukoholā, the heiau he erected as per the advice of the kahuna who prophesied his rise to power. Yet, this one koʻi stands apart from the rest. Why? 

ʻOlopū is a called the “koʻi haʻi kūpuna”, the adze that tells of genealogy, of the many ancestors who held this same koʻi in their hands during their own rituals and battles. Its presence at these times means it carries in it their chants, prayers, and language. It is this accumulated ʻike (knowledge and experience) that made this koʻi so special. When it came into Kamehameha’s possession, it linked him all the way back to Wākea, one of our most remote ancestors. ʻOlopū is even mentioned in chants for Kamehameha's descendants of the kingdom era, calling forth its mana into their leadership. For ʻOlopū to have survived the ages, absorbed their mana and come into the hands of this chief now well known to people both inside and outside of Hawaiʻi is truly amazing. Where this koʻi lies now is the last part of its story that needs to be discovered.