Wailua River mouth 1900 - Photo Courtesy of the
Kaua'i Historical Society
“Referring to
Deborah Kapule and her house; - I myself remember stopping there
overnight once. Of course I was only a small boy, and perhaps things
seemed unduly large to me, but she looms up in my memory as an
uncommonly large woman, a regular giant in fact. Her house also
impressed me as a very large one. It was a sort of double decker, a long
thatched building, open to the roof in the middle, but with galleries,
as it were, on the ends half way up, floored over with aahus, and
covered with mats. Theses galleries were used mainly as sleeping rooms
for her numerous retainers, and guests, for she was very hospitable, and
kept open house for all who came. We slept on the ground floor, and I
have, in my memory, the distinct vision of a row of heads peering over
the edge of this gallery in the early morning. During the night I heard
strange, unfamiliar sounds outside, which I was curious about, so in the
morning I investigated, and found that it was a herd of goats on the
hill just back of the house.
“Just makai there was a pond, I fancy where Mr. Hills has his Asparagus
beds now. There were great flocks of ducks on this pond. I supposed of
course that they were tame, but when I threw a stone at them they all
flew away, and then I realized that they were wild, the indigenous
Hawaiian duck, which was plentiful in the land.”
- S.W. Wilcox comments, Kaua‘i Historical
Society meeting, November 16, 1916
“Furthermore there were fishponds in the
lower region of Wailua near the bay that provided an additional source
of fish for the ali‘i of the area. These particular fishponds were later
claimed by Deborah Kapula during the Mahele of 1848 (FT vol. 13:85-86;
NT vol. 13:104-105)…These aquaculture enclosures have been classified as
loko pu‘uone – inland fishponds that were separated from the ocean by a
sand embankment (Apple et al. 1975:122; DHM Inc., et al. 1990:III-26;
Kikuchi 1987a).”
- E. Kalani Flores, Historical & Cultural
Research of Malaeha‘akoa, State of Hawaii, DLNR, Division of State
Parks, rev. May 1999
