HAWAII'S CLASSROOM; NEW RESPECT SHOWN FOR ANCIENT ISLAND SITES.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

In past eras of the tourism boom, Hawaii's natural history sites might have been seen as nuisances, impediments to the optimal positioning of a pool or a 15th tee. Today, however, they're being embraced as important visitor lures, included among a destination's selling points.

There are numerous such sites on the western coast of the Big Island.

At the northwest tip of the island are the remnants of a fishing village that dates back more than 600 years, now protected as Lapakahi State Historical Park. Brochures guide visitors along a self-guided walking tour, during which amateur anthropologists can examine carefully piled rocks that once served as canoe sheds, a well, wind breaks, a game-playing arena. There are also hollowed-out stones in which the sun turned seawater into salt, for use in preserving fish.

Farther down the Kohala and North Kona coasts are several petroglyph fields, many coexisting peacefully with luxury resorts that have sprung up near them - or in their very midst. Many of the resorts, in fact, have established cultural centers and put local historians on staff to acquaint visitors with the links to Hawaii's past.

``I'm all for that kind of responsible stuff,'' said P.K. ``Ski'' Kwiatkowski, a local authority on the ancient etchings. ``What's happened now, people have bought into the fact that a part of the culture that's visible in areas in which they have their developments is not a detriment, it's an enhancement to the resort.

``Now they build around it instead of bulldozing through, the way they did in the past.''

Some of the resorts along this coast don't appear to be keen on sharing the experience with people who can't produce room keys. The Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows and the Kona Village Resort, for example, have regularly scheduled tours for guests, but outsiders are accommodated by appointment only and must call in advance for availability.

A couple of other resorts welcome non-guests, though. The Waikoloa Beach Resort offers a tour every Saturday at 8:30 a.m.; it meets at the Kings' Shop. The Orchid at Mauna Lani offers a free guided walk every day at 8 a.m.; it begins near the resort's beach boy hut.

Both walks are free. ``We try not to sell culture - or put a price tag on it,'' said Orchid spokeswoman Donna Kimura.

On a weekday morning this past winter, the Orchid's tour was led by Gary Medina, a cultural guide employed by the hotel, who delivered a commentary rich in Hawaiian folklore, legends and language while leading a 1-1/2-hour walk through undeveloped grounds adjacent to the hotel.

The tour featured a Mother Lode of island archeology: an area called the Puako petroglyph district. There, on a lava plane perhaps 75 yards long and 20 yards wide, was a remarkable chronicle of early Hawaiian life.

This site was originally chosen for its strong mana - a cosmic force - and it served as the society's newspaper, its calendar, its family scrapbooks, its signposts.

The field is covered with carvings, portraying men with triangular torsos, women giving birth, traveler tallies, boats, turtles, fishermen, kites.

``See this one?'' Medina said, crouching near a stick figure. ``The person has his hand up. We think it was an early `aloha.' Look - there's nothing in it, no weapon, no threat.''

He indicated a carving of a god in a hunched sitting position, and noted that a figure almost identical to this one has been found in New Guinea, suggesting that early South Seas mariners carried elements of their culture across vast stretches of ocean.

Medina then found a rock carving of Lono, the ancient Hawaiian god of agriculture and rain. It had multiple torsos, each with two arms hanging at its sides. Medina put his hand over the lower portion of the figure, and it suddenly took on the look of a many-masted sailing ship approaching from a distant horizon.

``When Captain Cook arrived at this island,'' he said, referring to the British sea captain's landfall at nearby Kealakekua Bay in 1779, ``the people mistook him for a god, the god Lono. When you look at this, it's not hard to see why.''

Life thereafter underwent radical changes for the Hawaiians, and this very area reflects it, Medina said. Once a thriving community, it was abandoned in the 1800s as Hawaiian royalty ordered the men inland to help with the lucrative sandalwood harvest on the slopes of nearby Mauna Kea.

The newcomers would have a further impact, one that is still being felt in these petroglyph fields. During colonial times in the 19th century, Hawaiian culture was suppressed, such that the meanings of many of these carvings were not passed down for a generation or two, Kwiatkowski said. Thus, many secrets died with the old Hawaiians.

Kwiatkowski, 52, has searched out, photographed and puzzled over Hawaiian petroglyphs throughout the islands (and even elsewhere in Polynesia), but he says interpretation remains mostly guesswork.

``My mom was born in 1908,'' he said, ``and when she was growing up she was actually punished for speaking Hawaiian on school grounds. The white people wanted to Americanize Hawaiians totally. The culture basically went underground. The secrets of the culture were kept hush-hush.''

The fallout, even for visitors today, is some confusion over the messages of the ancient sites.

Many of the petroglyph fields, for example, have gridlike patterns of small holes in the rock, like a checkerboard. Kwiatkowski believes it was used for the playing of konane, a Hawaiian game involving smooth stones.

But Lani Opunui, historian for the Kona Village Resort, questions this, and wonders if instead it might have been some type of calendar. ``Why would someone want to be playing that game out in the sun on the hot rock when you could have made a board out of wood and taken it under a tree?'' she said.

Interpretation of the images may be subject to debate. But in a new era of tourism, the caretakers of Hawaii's ancient sites are simply thankful people are asking questions.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) Stone walls from a former village still stand at Lapakahi State Historical Park in the northwest corner of Hawaii's Big Island, above. The site dates back more than 600 years. Inset, guide Gary Medina of the orchid at Mauna Lani resort points out features of a figure carved into a rock at the Puako petroglyph field.

(3) The Puako petroglyph field on Hawaii's Big Island is one of the largest on the island. The rock carvings chronicle early Hawaiian life, but interpreting the specific meanings has proven challenging.

(4) At Lapakahi State Historical Park on Hawaii's Big Island, visitors can examine hollowed-out stones once used in a salt-making process. Villagers would pour sea water into these indentations and wait for the sun to evaporate the water.

Eric Noland/Staff Photographer