These shores were the heart of ʻEwa, a moku (district) counted among the political centers of Oʻahu before Kamehameha. Puʻuloa was its larder. Observers of old Hawaiʻi judged these bays the most favorable in all the islands for building loko iʻa, the walled coastal fishponds in which Hawaiians raised fish on a scale found almost nowhere else; people had tended them here since at least the mid-1400s. Shrimp, shellfish, and penned fish came out of Puʻuloa in steady abundance, and the families of ʻEwa built a settled, well-fed life around the harbor's quiet lochs.
Puʻuloa carried a deep weave of moʻolelo. Its beloved guardian was Kaʻahupahau, the shark goddess who, with her brother Kahiʻuka, was said to keep the harbor's waters safe for people; tradition holds that the two lived in caves beneath the lochs. Older stories credit the chief Keaunui of ʻEwa with opening the harbor mouth wider to the sea, and a moʻo (water spirit) named Kanekuaʻana with first bringing the pipi to Wai Momi. These were not idle tales but a community's map of its own waters — who watched over them, and how their abundance came to be.
