Sacred place of sacrifice

Our tour of the North Shore took us to a place seldom visited by tourists, as it is a cultural icon. We weaved our way to the top of a mountain overlooking Waimea Bay, a place called Pua O Mahuka Heiau, which means 'hill of escape'. It includes a large, ancient Hawaiian heiau (religious temple site) dating back to the 1600s. Outside of the temple site sits a large boulder where humans were sacrificed to the gods. The boulder and all of the rocks making up the boundary of the heiau were carted up the mountain by slaves. These were the very first people to colonise the island, and were later ruled over by the polynesians who arrived from Tahiti in the 1100s. The slaves and a few unfortunate European explorers were thought to be some of the people sacrificed here.Read more