Tag Archives: Pu`uhonua O Hōnaunau

The Big Island is one of my favorite destinations, a place I can go to often and always feel at home.  It’s a rugged land, newly created by it’s great volcanoes (and with new land formation continuing in the southern part of the island).

A special place I came across during my last visit to the Big Island was the “Place of Refuge” or, in Hawaiian, “Pu`uhonua O Hōnaunau”.  It’s a smaller National Historic Park situated just south of Kona that was important to the Hawaiian people because it was a “safe zone” — a place where someone who had broken one of the many Hawaiian laws could seek refuge and escape their sentence (usually death), with no fear of …

Read More