Long ago, 3,089-foot Mt. Kahili’s lofty peak was used by chiefs of the neighboring area as a lookout from which they could watch afar for the advance of enemy soldiers. Later, the mountain’s summit became a stronghold of bandits who
Long ago, 3,089-foot Mt. Kahili’s lofty peak was used by chiefs of the neighboring area as a lookout from which they could watch afar for the advance of enemy soldiers.
Later, the mountain’s summit became a stronghold of bandits who would raid the lowlands to rob travelers passing through Koloa (Knudsen’s) Gap.
Mt. Kahili also once served as the site of a signal tower above the old trail that ran from the west side, around the base of Mt. Kahili, to the Wailua River.
Whenever the king of Kauai journeyed on that trail, a conch blower would climb Mt. Kahili beforehand, and when he saw the king approaching in the distance, he’d signal the people below with blasts of his conch.
Forewarned by the sound he made, the people would then avoid the trail to prevent breaking the kapu of having contact with or even looking at the king — the consequence of which was death.
Mt. Kahili was also a sacred burial ground for Kauai’s alii. To make their sepulchers, post holes were first bored into solid rock with stone hand tools at the mountain’s highest point. Next, 12-foot posts of kauwila wood were inserted into these holes, upon which a platform was constructed.
The corpse of an alii would then be left on the platform until the flesh decomposed and fell from the bones. Then the bones were secretly dropped into the ocean deep, so that no one could ever discover them.
Even in fairly recent times, Hawaiians have buried their dead in the Kahili area. In 1960, J. J. Marques of Kalaheo reported an incident of his boyhood many years earlier of a Hawaiian said to be of royal lineage dying in the Kalaheo district, whose family insisted he be buried by Mt. Kahili.
