Event offers look inside Mo'ili'ili

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer

Mo'ili'ili was once an area awash in ponds and an extensive 'auwai or ditch system that nourished the thriving agriculture from the earliest Hawaiian taro fields to the later Asian rice and flower farms.

"Mo'ili'ili was the richest cultivated area in Hawai'i," said Laura Ruby, coordinator for the Mo'ili'ili History Project and its presentation, "The Lay of the Land: Mo'ili'ili and the University of Hawai'i."

Mo'ili'ili was once known as Waikiki Waena — a name based on its middle location in a land division called ahupua'a that ran from mountain to sea. Ruby said that besides Mo'ili'ili's taro patches, rice paddies and flower farms, there were vineyards, vegetable growers and pig farms.

"It was only the coming of the Ala Wai Canal that changed agriculture," she said, explaining that while many acres remained in farming, much of the land was filled through the dredging of the canal.

The historical perspective will be offered at 4 p.m. Sept. 27 in the Mo'ili'ili Community Center's studio and will include comments from old-time residents who will share their memories of the ditches, ponds and swimming holes, Ruby said.

Landscape architect Janet Gillmar, with the University of Hawai'i Landscape Advisory Committee, will discuss projects on the Manoa campus. Linda Wong, a Mo'ili'ili Neighborhood Board member and representative of the Kuhio School Gardens, will talk about the garden.

The day's event also will include games, entertainment, a farmers market, a craft sale, a spaghetti dinner and a ghost-tale contest for storytellers as a tribute to the late Glen Grant.

The event is in its eighth year and is coordinated by Muriel Kaminaka, whose family has owned land in Mo'ili'ili since she was a young girl. Eight years ago, she complained of the community turning into a ghost town since the freeway was built. With that, she was drawn into a plan to revitalize the area.

The festival is not "a fund-raiser," Kaminaka said. "We just wanted to have something for the community to enjoy and re-establish the camaraderie with old friends."

Rebecca Ryan, executive director for the center, said the event is a way for the public to become more familiar with the center and all it has to offer.

"The goal is community outreach, to rebuild the sense of connectedness of the community," Ryan said. "It's what we need to go toward as a world: Pull into our community and respond, know your neighbor and be aware, create more social responsibility for one another."

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.