"The divisions of the lands were to a great extent made on rational lines, following a ridge, the bottom of a ravine or depression, but they were often without these and sometimes in disregard of them. While some districts are regularly divided up into ahupua'a(s) averaging only a quarter of a mile in width and several miles in length in others we find ahupua'a(s) like Honouliuli, in O'ahu, which contains over forty thousand acres, or the four great mountain lands of Hawai'i, viz: Kahuku, Keauhou, Humu'ula and Ka'ohe, of which the first mentioned contains 184,000 acres, mostly on the mountains. These two ahupua'a(s), together Wai'ehu and Waihe'e, which were independent, belonging to no Moku, were called Na Poko, and have been formed into a district in modern times. On Maui the lands of Waikapu and Wailuku appropriated almost the whole of the isthmus so as to cut off half of the lands in the district of Kula from access to the sea. The same lands generally monopolized the deep sea fisheries, leaving to the smaller ahupua'a(s) only the fishery along their shores, where the water was not more than five feet deep. In several districts a few larger ahupua'a(s), widening as they extend inland, cut off all the smaller lands and take the whole mountain to themselves. Eight ahupua'a(s), one in each district of East Maui, meet at this rock. On east Maui the principal lands all radiate from a large rock on the northeast brink of the crater of Haleakala, called Palaha. year god), Lonomakua, was deposited the tax paid by the land whose boundary it marked, and also an image of a hog, pua'a, carved out of kukui wood and stained with red ochre." The typical Ahupua'a is a long narrow strip extending from the sea to the mountain, so that its chief may have his share of all the various products of the uka or mountain region, the cultivated land, and the kai or sea. Upon this alter, at the annual progress of the akua makahiki (i.e. Lyons, "is derived from the Ahu or alter, which was erected at the point where the boundary of the land was intersected by the main road alaloa, which encircled each of the islands. The next subdivision of land below the Moku is the Ahupua'a, which has been termed the unit of land in the Hawaiian system. On Maui there are some sub-districts called Okana(s), of which there are five in the Hana district, while Lahaina is termed a Kalana. There is a district called Kona on the lee side, and one called Ko'olau on the windward side of almost every island. In the first place, each island was divided into several Moku or Districts, of which there are six in the island of Hawaii, and the same number in Oahu. Lyons in the Islander, published in 1875. This branch of the subject has been admirably treated by Mr. Although this system of land tenure was radically changed by the peaceful and beneficient revolution which took place during the reign of Kamehameha III, yet the ancient subdivisions of land remain unchanged to the present day. The ancient system of land titles in the Hawaiian Islands was entirely different from that of tribal ownership prevailing in New Zealand, and from the village or communal system of Samoa, but bore a remarkable resemblance to the feudal system that prevailed in Europe during the Middle Ages. Superintendent of Government Survey, 1891. Hawaiian Kingdom - History of Land titles
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