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Hakipu`u (Broken-hill), the ahupua`a next [after Waikane] in a northerly direction, has much less valley depth, but it is a lush land, as verdant on the seaward side as in its mauka reaches. The ahupua`a is made up of a rather small coastal plain facing a broad lagoon well guarded by an unbroken reef -- an ideal fishpond location. There is one sizeable stream, a swamp, and a hinterland of little valleys out of which flow small streams; and there is an area of broken hills (haki pu`u) flanked by the Ko`olau range, which here maintains its 3,000-foot altitude, with the higher peaks of Pu`u Ohulehule, and Kanehoalani to the north.
Perhaps the salient feature of Hakipu`u is the great Moli`i Fishpond, partly enclosed to the east by the southernmost prong of Kualoa (Kualoa Point); and its lateral extent forms the upper, or northernmost, border of the great bay of Kane`ohe. Old lo`i areas once covered the swampy flats makai (to seaward) of the present [1972] Kamehameha Highway, and here as late as 1935 about a dozen lo`i were still cultivated along the Hakipu`u stream, with about the same number mauka (toward the mountains). This area was quite extensive originally, running for something more than a half mile southward from Moli`i Fishpond, and throughout the level land along the stream. An interesting series of abandoned lo`i was noted filling a small valley bottom in an S curve from Moli`i Fishpond to a point up beyond the highway. This was formerly watered from Kailau Spring on the hillside above the fishpond. In 1935, a marshland patch just below the road to the southwest was being cultivated by an energetic Hawaiian using the old mounding method. It was the only swampy plantation of this type found on Oahu in the area survey of that year. |
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