Mo'okini Heiau, Hawi, Hawaii

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Mo’okini Heiau is located in Kohala Historical Sites State Monument near the town of Hawi on the Island of Hawai’i. It is one of the oldest and most sacred heiau (places of worship) in the Hawaiian Islands and is one of the first luakini heiau in the islands. Today, Mo’okini Heiau is considered a living spiritual temple and a sacred site to Native Hawaiians.

Tradition says that a temple was first built on the northernmost tip of the Island of Hawai’i sometime in the 5th century by the high priest Mo’okini. Later oral tradition says that the current heiau was built on the older temple between the 13th and 14th centuries by Pa’ao, a legendary priest from either Tahiti or Samoa who is said to have introduced the Hawaiians to human sacrifice, the walled heiau, and several types of kapu – the system of religious, political, and social laws that governed every aspect of daily life. Pa’ao was said to have lived near Mo’okini Heiau and founded a lineage of priests that served the ali’i ‘ai moku (paramount chief)