Lekeleke Burial Grounds

Beneath these lava rock mounds lie the warriors who died defending the old Hawaiian gods. When Kamehameha the Great died in eighteen nineteen, his son Liholiho and the powerful queen Kaahumanu abolished the ancient kapu system, the sacred laws that had governed life and worship for centuries. Kamehameha's nephew Kekuaokalani refused to abandon the old ways.

He raised an army of traditionalists and marched along this coast to fight for them. Here at Kuamoo, the royal forces met him with muskets and cannon, some mounted on canoes and ships offshore. Kekuaokalani fell in battle, and his wife Manono died at his side.

More than three hundred warriors were killed. They were buried where they fell, under the stone cairns you see scattered across this field. With them died the old religion, just months before the first Christian missionaries arrived.