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HOTPE asked "So are you saying the Protectors find these places "sacred," right up until the price is right?"
No I'm saying the TMT project was always a foregone conclusion...and the best that can be hoped for by protesters is to be taken into consideration....at all, financially, spiritually, and yes emotional health is a factor that does have many legal precedents pre-established in the American Court System as a means of protecting oneself civilly. Initially those lands were being given away and NO One was talking about Hawaiian Mysticism or the Sacredness of the Land which is like breathe to some local residents. The legal precedent that could have been very Helpful to Mauna Kea protectors was the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest that ended with armed militia arriving. With that loss it seems the outcome on our mountain top is written.
My personal view is that Science and Spirituality are going to have to learn how to get along because they are soon to share a bedroom like annoyed stepsisters. I'm on Team Dalai-Lama & Pope Francis with this one. Both equally spark my imagination and I think the two realms are more interconnected than many allow or "Spooky at a Distance" as it were  It's pretty clear which sister outweighs the other one in this particular instance.
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NO One was talking about Hawaiian Mysticism or the Sacredness of the Land which is like breathe to some local residents.
I have been asking about this from the start. I would very much like to understand more about ancient Hawaiian spiritual practices on and around the summit of Mauna Kea. If you have any information, please share it with us.
How did ancient Hawaiians reach the summit of Mauna Kea?
How many practiced their religion there?
How often did the average Hawaiian make the journey?
You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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hands ALWAYS outstretched for a free handout!!..
ie "We need to be compensated or we WILL PROTEST everything and anything" is more like the reality of it, in reality..
just look at the recent history of these protesting so called 'Hawaiians', most are really hapa polynesians/asians who try for identify as a 'Hawaiian'... ALL thinking they have SOLE ENTITLEMENT to these islands even though there ancestors WERE NOT the first people here, they were the 2nd, and killed off the 1st, the Menehune!
in reality, Humans have been here on these special islands for only 1/40,000th the time these islands have existed.... pfft
ps the 'Real Hawaii'.... the endemic flora and fauna have been here for 39,999.99/40,000th these islands have existed....
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save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha
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save our indigenous and endemic Hawaiian Plants... learn about them, grow them, and plant them on your property, ....instead of all that invasive non-native garbage I see in most yards... aloha
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HOTPE, wasn't there but assuming the Ali'i conducted pilgrimage by foot (like most pilgrims historically have worldwide and some still do) until the arrival of the horse....
"In 1803 Richard Cleveland, an American trader, brought the first horse to Hawai`i and presented the animal as a gift to King Kamehameha I. After seeing a riding demonstration, the king was so impressed that more horses were soon brought to the island."
Mildly informative:
http://sites.coloradocollege.edu/indigen...mauna-kea/
This next article tells the tale of Kealoha Piscatta a former Telescope employee trying to reclaim her families shrine and how employees kept moving the sacred pohaku/shrine stones which, after once found at the Hilo dump eventually disappeared altogether. Disgusting. When stones in cemetaries or shrines elsewhere are disturbed it makes national news and is considered a hate crime.
"The worship that occurs on Mauna Kea has occurred for thousands of years and has been mostly conducted in private. However, these recent events and much discussion led to a plan, “Onipa‘a Mauna Kea a Wakea,” meaning “stand fast and resist the affront to the Sacred Temple – Mauna Kea,” that was formed to reassert the right to continue to worship."
http://www.tomwhitney.net/maunakea.html
They drove part of the way and walked the rest 
and it's not just about money:
"What is really at stake, however, is a conflict between two ways of knowing and being in the world. For many Native Hawaiians and other Indigenous peoples, sacredness is not merely a concept or label. It is a lived experience of oneness and connectedness with the natural and spiritual worlds. It is as common sense as believing in gravity. This experience is very much at odds with the everyday secular-humanist approach of Western thinking that emerged out of the Enlightenment (as I have discussed in a previous essay), and which sees no “magic” or “enchantment” in the world. And of course, seeing nature as inert facilitates both commercial exploitation and scientific exploration."
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonia...gXJOYlOw.9
Prior to cultural disruption via colonization, Hawaiians had specific trades passed down through blood and family and it was the job of ali'i/kahuna/ king to conduct religious practices but that doesn't make it less valid to many, remember at certain points in history one could be slaughtered for eating a royal fish or crossing the wrong mans shadow. Times change as do religious practices but that doesn't undercut the value of the religion itself.
Wikipedia doesn't do a terrible job breaking down basic hierarchy and other pertinent facts including migration patterns, population sizes prior to European colonization, lore, law/taboo/kapu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Hawaii
The only time I went up there as to spread my Mother's ashes into the wind. We levitated via automobile and grief.
Anyone who hopes to preserve cultural heritage in this world should send keiki to law school now.
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quote:
Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge
I have been asking about this from the start. I would very much like to understand more about ancient Hawaiian spiritual practices on and around the summit of Mauna Kea. If you have any information, please share it with us.
How did ancient Hawaiians reach the summit of Mauna Kea?
How many practiced their religion there?
How often did the average Hawaiian make the journey?
Mehana Kihoi testified that she thought it was forbidden to visit the mountain, but went up hoping to be cured from ongoing physical pain. She had been violently attacked in the past.
Kealoha Pisciotta mentioned one day that it was OK to go up, "if the mountain called you."
Isn't it true that before the religion was abolished, only priests could be in the summit region?
There appears to be no mandate for making a pilgrimage to the summit at least once, like the Hajj for Muslims.
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Here's a comment posted to https://sites.coloradocollege.edu/indige...mauna-kea/
Don says:
April 14, 2013 at 10:00 am
I was born in Hilo and grew up there, including graduating from Hilo High in 1960. So I’m not some outsider in this matter. My family were hunters and I knew Mauna Kea well from the time I was a boy. I climbed to the summit from Hale Pokahu more times than I can count — this long before any roads and any telescopes were there.
I can assure you that there was no altar at the summit. There was an ahu, a pile of stones, and in it a mayonnaise jar with a pencil and notebook. You could write your name and the date of your ascent.
The current altar went into place sometime in the 1990s. And, interestingly enough, the last time I was at the summit — 2012 — it was in a state of disrepair.
I never saw a Native Hawaiian on Mauna Kea. Certainly, absolutely, there was no one climbing to the summit to perform rituals. In the past? I don’t know. Of course Native Hawaiians had an important presence at Keanakakoi, the Cave of the Adzes, where adze-making basalt was quarried. But that site fell into disuse even as far back as the 18th century.
As for shrines — I never saw one. Not surprisingly, they’ve been popping up all over of late. For example, there never was a shrine at Hale Pokahu when that place was, indeed, nothing but a “Stone House.” This was long before it was the visitor center, and long before any paved road led there.
The altar that can be seen near the silverswords was put in place somewhere around 2009 or 2010. Hardly traditional. In the same way, near the Saddle Road at Pu’u Huluhulu an altar appeared in 2010 or 2011. Never there before.
There’s no doubt that Mauna Kea is culturally important. But at the same time, there’s little or no evidence that Native Hawaiians used it ritually in anything resembling recent times.
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galileo,
Thank you for your reply.
ohiagrrl,
You didn't answer the questions I put forward, except by conjecture and generalizations:
How did ancient Hawaiians reach the summit of Mauna Kea?
Horse? Have you ever ridden horseback on rocks and boulders? Or if they did ride on a trail, who made the trail and where is it? No ancient trails have been discovered, although it's not entirely impossible they've been concealed by erosion and quakes over the years.
Kealoha Piscatta a former Telescope employee trying to reclaim her families shrine
That's not true. She built her own personal shrine and created a narrative around it to fit her anti-TMT arguments. She's better known for scattering butts of her smoked down Parliaments around the summit for "the help" (astronomers) to pick up.
The rest of your reply is generic cultural and/or indigenous related commentary, not concerning Mauna Kea. I am looking for direct answers, specific to Mauna Kea:
How did ancient Hawaiians reach the summit of Mauna Kea?
(We know they walked as far as the adze quarry mostly between 11,000 and 12,400 feet, and constructed shrines there, in the summer months. Also, upright stone markers, or shrines have been found near Lake Waiau. Did this identify the endpoint for large numbers of pilgrims, or was it evidence that a person or group reached a remote and difficult destination?)
How many practiced their religion there? (10? 10,000?)
How often did the average Hawaiian make the journey? (In other words, was this a common occurrence among the Hawaiian people, or a rarity?)
You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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The summit was kapu for anyone except Ali`i. So... No, mass amounts of Hawaiians did not visit.
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quote:
Originally posted by knieft
DVRed a show from their series "Rise" about indigenous issues. Haven't watched yet.
https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video/haw...2d5c71fae3
Having just ruined my weekend watching this, I thought I should give an update.
Outside of the less than two minutes given to the pro-TMT POV, I kept asking, " and how does that mean there should be no TMT?"
I guess that is what I have never wrapped my head around, and what opihikao has always said, that the anti-TMT stuff is not about the TMT.
Still, I think the anti-TMT stuff should be about the TMT. Call me old fashioned. 
If, and apparently when, the TMT on Mauna Kea is dead, I would like to hear from the folks opposed if they have something more than they had otherwise. Ego-shine?
Kirt
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HOTPE, in a rambling way, I wrote the same thing as LDude.
Galileo, Interesting story but it's not generally disputed that Hawaiian population numbers and cultural practices went into major decline after colonization disrupting cultural practices. Regular winds of 90mph on the summit could have disrupted any rudimentary structure.
Cultural revitalization efforts have been concerted and very effective.
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