"Overawed by the power of the United States… the people of the Islands have no voice in determining their future, but are virtually relegated to the condition of the aboriginals of the American continent."

The queen had opted not to combat the Americans, knowing that many Hawai’ians would die in the process. Lili’uokalani hoped that U.S. President Grover Cleveland would intervene on her behalf, but alas help never came as the American sugar cane lobby wielded considerable political might in the national government. The queen spent months locked up in a small, bare room in the palace until she was finally put into permanent retirement. She died in 1917, a sad and bitter woman.

Over the decades that followed, Lili’uokalani was remembered fondly, and perhaps somewhat sorrowfully.

In 1969, the state government moved into new quarters just across the quad from the Iolani Palace. The last queen received a permanent place on the state capital grounds when her eight-foot bronze statue was erected in 1982. Prior to its installation, however, it is said to be the focus of a paranormal event.

As the story goes, a legislative aide was working in the capital late one night. Around 2 a.m., the aide called her husband and young daughter to come and pick her up. Shortly after arriving, the child disappeared into the basement of the building. The parents searched frantically for over half an hour until they finally found the little girl behind a closed door in the basement stairwell. When asked where she had been, the child told an amazing story of playing with a beautiful Hawai’ian woman in a long black dress whose arms were draped with flower leis.

The following day, the statue of Lili’uokalani was placed on its pedestal in the state capital courtyard. The statue depicted the late monarch in a long black dress. Hundreds of spectators showed up to see the event and remember the queen, most coming with leis as a traditional sign of respect. The statue, however, depicted the queen as wearing a niho palaoa, a whalebone pendant that was the sign of Hawai’ian royalty. Rather than covering the pendant, the crowd decided to drape the queen’s arms with the leis, thereby giving the statue the same appearance as was described by the child the night before. But the strange coincidence does not end there. As it turns out, the statue of the queen was sealed up tight in a wooden box behind the same door where the little girl claimed to be playing with the "beautiful Hawai’ian woman."

Also report in Punchbowl are numerous ghostly sighting, some of American servicemen, some of ancient Hawai’ians. The natives call the area Puowaina, or "the hill of sacrifices." It is unknown how many human sacrifices were made on the slopes of the crater, but apparently some of the fallen still inhabit the area.

MORE CENTURIES OF THE DEAD: The area of the Kualoa Valley and North Kane’ohe Bay is said to be the most sacred area of Oah’u. It is here that the Hawai’ians interred the bones of their kings, or ali’i, in the numerous caves that pockmark the mountainsides. It is unknown how many kings were buried here, but some estimates have the number as high as four hundred. Because the ali’i were considered divine, their relics were permeated with powerful mana that needed to be safeguarded against their enemies or unscrupulous sorcerers, thus the importance of secret burials. The area was also the source of contention in one of the island’s most famous cases of treachery and warfare.

Around 1775, a young king named Kahahana inherited the area. His uncle, who raised him, was the famous warrior-king Kahekili of Maui. When Kahahana ascended the throne, Kahekili contacted him and asked that the Kualoa area be given to him in appreciation for raising the young king. Out of gratitude, Kahahana agreed but was quickly rebuked by his priest, Ka‘opulupulu. The holy man warned that the king was giving away a tremendously symbolic and strategically important area of the island. After all, it was from the Kualoa Mountains that all the streams flowed, it was where the ancestors were buried, and it was on those beaches that the sacred ivory washed ashore.

Convinced, Kahahana quickly rescinded the offer. Kahekili was not about to be denied, however, for his ambitions on Oah’u went far beyond the Kualoa Valley. With Machiavellian grace, Kahekili declared Ka‘opulupulu a traitor and demanded his death. He argued that if Ka‘opulupulu was in fact innocent of the charges, the gods would strike down those who had killed him. Ka‘opulupulu agreed to his own death and was killed at the edge of the sea. With the leadership of Oah’u in disarray, and Kahahana’s mind conflicted, Kahekili launched an invasion in 1782. His past relationship with Kahahana did not seem to soften Kahekili, whose forces quickly routed those on Oah’u and brought about total victory and the confirmation of Ka‘opulupulu’s warning.

Interestingly, before his death, Ka‘opulupulu made another prophecy that would eventually prove true. He warned Kahahana about the white men, predicting that they too would betray and eventually conquer the Hawai’ian people.

THE DOOM OF THREE SAILORS: Following his subjugation of Oah’u, Kahekili went about reconfiguring major parts of the landscape. He destroyed a variety of temples; including the ‘Apuakehau Heaiu where an ancestor of his was murdered and his bones defiled by the Oah’u chief abandoned others and erected new ones. The most impressive of these new constructions was the Pu’uomahuka Heiau ("Hill of Escape") which overlooks Waimea Bay. Kahekili rededicated the temple to the war god Ku shortly after his conquest of Oah’u. Priests who felt that the gods would be able to hear their prayers better if the temple was closer to them designated the temple’s lofty position. From this vantagepoint, the warriors who guarded the temple were able to see the entire expanse of the ocean and beaches. On May 12, 1792, the temple’s guardian, a man named Koi, was summoned by his warriors. A British ship called the HMS Daedalus, had dropped anchor just off shore and a small landing party was rowing for the beach. The Daedalus was attached to the exploratory fleet commanded by Captain George Vancouver, but had become separated from its sister ships. Koi dispatched some of his most fearsome combatants, the pahupu or "cut-in-two warriors." These men were distinguished by their unusual tattooing which colored either one half of their bodies, or their entire heads, completely black.

The Daedalus landing party consisted of her commander, Lieutenant Richard Hergest, the ship astronomer William Gooch, and a Portuguese sailor named Manuel. The sailors marched about a mile up the valley at an area now occupied by the aviaries of the Waimea Falls Park. Here, they began to fill casks with fresh water, unaware that the pahupu were watching their every move. Finally, the tattooed warriors streamed off the mountainside and murdered all three men. Their bodies were then carried back to the Pu’uomahuka Heiau where they were baked and stripped of their flesh.

This triple homicide may have been partially motivated by revenge. According to one version of the story, Hergest may have insulted Koi years earlier when he threw the man overboard after the Hawai’ian clamored aboard his ship and insisted on being provided with firearms. The truth will never really be known, as Hergest probably did not survive long enough to even understand who the pahupu were or why they were attacking him. As far as we know, Koi was not among the murderers himself, although he certainly commanded their actions.

A year later, Capt. Vancouver returned to Oah’u and went ashore to demand that the murderers be handed over to him. Chief Kahekili, in yet another example of his cunning, quickly produced three men, probably all of whom were innocent of the charges. Nevertheless, Vancouver had them shot dead in front of their fellow villagers as an example of British justice and as a warning to others. The British themselves knew they had been duped, but they waited and watched patiently. Seven years later, another British captain on a visit to Waikiki had the good fortune of spotting Koi while he was rowing in his canoe nearby. (It is thought that Koi’s full-body tattoos sealed his identification and his fate.) The wounded Koi was quickly apprehended by the vengeful British who lynched him from a nearby tree.

For all his success, Kahekili would see his empire crumble at the hands of a warrior-chief who would prove equally treacherous and much more powerful: Kamehameha I ("The Great"). In 1790, the younger and more vibrant ali’i invaded Kahekili’s native Maui and killed his son in an epic battle at ‘Iao Valley. Kamehameha’s success was due largely to his alliance with the British and his use of their cannons. The most decisive point of the battle was when the Maui warriors attempted to flee the cannon fire by scaling the walls of the canyon. So many of them were gunned down that their bodies choked the waters of the Iao River below. Today, the battle is known either as Ka’uwa’u-pali ("Clawed Off the Cliff") or Ke-pani-wai ("The Damming of the Waters"). Kahekili died four years later only to have Oah’u overrun by Kamehameha’s forces shortly thereafter.

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