By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

There must be many once-familiar landmarks in Our Honolulu that are now forgotten. I remember a huge boulder that stood to the height of a man on the cliff side of the Pali Highway just after you passed the lookout and started down the Windward side.

That was in the 1950s. People said it was the old guardian rock to which people made offerings when they crossed from one side to the other in the days when the trail was dangerous. One day I drove over the Pali and noticed that the rock was gone. I never could find out why. Most people don't even remember it.

Recently I read in an old newspaper about another landmark that has disappeared, one that I never knew existed. A shark god in Manoa Valley.

"This relic of the early days which can be seen from the road leading to the falls is an almost life-size representation of a shark carved out of solid stone," read a story in The Advertiser on Aug. 22, 1900. "It is an idol dedicated to the shark god.

"Even up to two decades ago the stone image was visited nightly by native kahunas ...

"Years ago, during the time of Kamehameha III, there lived a family on the place which is called Kaaipuu, named after the stone god which was found on the premises. It lay in a gully and at night crowds of natives came hither accompanied by kahunas to do honor to the god. They brought awa root tied in ti leaves and deposited it in the mouth."

The story said an insult to the god aroused the people (it lay flat instead of standing upright) and for years they never came near the god.

After the owner of the residence died, the story goes, kahunas paid visits to the new owner to ask that the idol be restored to its former dignity.

"This was finally done and the god was set up in the grounds near the road," the report continued.

"Flowers were planted about and the idol was to the householders only an ornament. But each morning as the sun's rays broke over the valley the mouth of the image was found to be filled with awa root, fish, breadfruit and ti leaves.

"When it was done — at what hour — could not be determined. The natives came stealthily at dead of night and deposited their offerings. For years this continued.

"But eventually the older natives — those of the days of the great Kamehameha — died one by one and, little by little, the heathen worship began to cease. The flowers grew up in rank abundance; the idol was eventually covered by trailing vines and today it stands only as a monument to a former religion."

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.