![]() ![]() “We have a saying in Hawaiian: He ola pōhaku, he make pōhaku. “The more I thought about it,” he says, “the more I wanted to know.” He recognized that his ancestors’ reliance on stones was fundamental. “No one did.” With each dead end, Hoaka’s curiosity deepened. “None of the kūpuna, not even in Ke‘anae, knew,” he recalls. Hoaka asked local kūpuna (elders) if they remembered how Hawaiians shaped stone in days past. Once fundamental to daily life in Hawai‘i, the practice of carving stones, or pōhaku, had all but vanished. His Native Hawaiian mother had taught him how to weave and fish, but not to carve. But the boy’s request came with a challenge: He wanted a pounder made the traditional way, without modern tools. ![]() After all, Hoaka had worked with rock most of his life, having built houses and hotels from the concrete slab up. The fourth-grader had been learning to pound poi and he asked his father to make him a stone pounder. Hoaka’s stone-carving odyssey began three decades ago when his son came home from Waihe‘e Elementary with a seemingly simple request. Two lithe lizards perch on either side of her, one with ivory shark’s teeth in its fearsome mouth. Nearby sits the goddess Hi‘iaka, with waves of hair etched in gray. A deep, majestic bowl of water glitters beneath a breadfruit tree Hoaka spent three years transforming a three-ton boulder into this sorcerer’s pool, which is guarded by sleek stone lizard with black eyes. In the backyard, a statuary of Hawaiian gods and goddesses testifies to his skill. The artist’s humble home in Ha‘ikū could double as a museum beautifully carved oil lamps, salt bowls, sling stones, and octopus lures beckon from tidy shelves. Hoaka is a kālai pōhaku (stone carver), one of the only surviving masters of this traditional Hawaiian art. Some of these, like the one made with polished red stone, are artifacts he has collected over years, but many are his own creations-the tools of his trade. Hoaka has dozens of ko‘i, ranging in color and size from hefty axe blades to slight tools for deft work. “The ko‘i is the physical manifestation of our ancient ancestors.” It’s an adze, orko‘i-the tool Hawaiians relied on for cutting and carving before Western ships brought metal to the Islands in the late 1700s. Hoaka Delos Reyes shows off a polished red stone with a knife-like edge. ![]()
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