Laniloa lizard tale told
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward Bureau
LA'IE — An ancient Hawaiian guardian lizard at La'ie Point suffered a deadly fate for killing natives, and parts of his body lay off the shores of the Windward lookout as islands, washed by the waves and forever a reminder of his deeds.
Kyle Sackowski • The Honolulu Advertiser
The full story is engraved on a granite plaque that was part of an Eagle Scout project by Mark James, who received his Eagle Scout rating in May.
Eagle Scout Mark James, 18, spent nearly a year organizing a project to tell the story of Laniloa's guardian lizard.
The tale is mounted on a 6-ton lava rock that sits at the La'ie Point lookout on Laniloa peninsula, a favorite visitor destination.
Laniloa peninsula is home to 93 families, who share ownership of a portion of the point. The state also owns land there. The lookout area juts out into the ocean, offering views up and down the Windward coast. The land there is mostly barren with native naupaka bushes on both sides. Fishermen are drawn there and so are a few swimmers.
When the thundering waves crash against the rocky cliff, it shrouds the point in a salty mist.
James, 18, selected the project out of curiosity. Although he has lived at La'ie Point for 15 years, he wasn't aware of the legend until his mother suggested the project for his Eagle Scout rating.
"I knew about giant lizards in Hawaiian legends, but I didn't know it had been killing people," James said. "Bill Wallace (director of Brigham Young University-Hawai'i Center for Hawaiian Language and Cultural Studies) told me the lizards were having problems discerning between the local people and enemies.
"The lizard must have been going nuts, killing all the people."
James said he consulted experts, including Wallace and Kamoa'e Walk, a Hawaiian Studies teacher at BYUH. He also verified the information he found in "Hawaiian Legends" by William Rice through Bishop Museum. Still, some of the information was lost in antiquity, because much of Hawaiiana was first passed down orally.
The legend says the Laniloa peninsula was once guarded by a giant lizard, a mo'o, that stood upright and was ready to kill any intruder. Kana, a legendary warrior, learned about this mo'o and set out to kill all mo'o on O'ahu. Kana easily defeated the Laniloa mo'o, decapitating its head and chopping it into five pieces. Kana threw the pieces into the ocean off the point and they turned into islands.
As part of the project, James also organized several cleanups of the area, conducted fund-raising events to pay for the project and met with community groups to obtain approval. He was responsible for gathering volunteers and soliciting donations for the project.
James spent a year doing all of this with the help of 21 volunteers who contributed 122 hours to his effort, including Boy Scouts from his Troop 226, who operated the fund-raisers that brought in $668.
The total cost of the project was $787, not including more than $500 in donations. James spent more than $100 of his own money on the project.
Al Sakai of the Boy Scouts of America Aloha Council said only four out of 100 scouts in the United States earn the top rating of Eagle Scout.
"They must do a service project that doesn't impact the scouting program but goes out and impacts the community," said Sakai, director of support services and adviser to the National Eagle Scout Association.
The La'ie Point Community Association gave James its full support, said Dan Berman, association president.
"You don't think of beautiful landmarks as needing some kind of grounding statement, and I think that's what this does," Berman said.
