Abner Paki's claim was "subject to the rights of the tenants." While he maintained his control of most of the ahupua‘a, and twenty-three commoners were granted kuleana lands, others residents or "tenants" did not receive land in the Mahele, for whatever reasons. In Ha‘ena, a special arrangement then arose that occurred in only about three places on Kaua‘i. These remaining tenants banded together.

Their ability to do this and to obtain use of the land stems initially from Paki himself. In 1858, Paki deeded his land to W.H. Pease, a surveyor. In 1872, Pease deeded it to William Kinney. In 1875, Kinney was approached by a group of Ha‘ena residents seeking to establish a collective land-holding arrangement that would keep the remainder of the ahupua‘a intact and in use by the community. Consequently, Kinney deeded the land to "Kenoi D. Kaukaha and thirty-eight others."

These people formed an organization called the Hui Ku‘ai ‘Aina. Here are their names:

The deed for the Hui begins as follows:

"The members of this Hui Ku‘ai ‘Aina o Ha‘ena shall be the owners and holders of shares, who were the purchasers by virtue of a deed from William Kinney to Kenoi Kaukaha and 37 others, dated January 5, AD 1875, and recorded in the Office of the Registry of Conveyances…" (Liber # 52 pp. 100-101).

The elected Head of Hui Ku‘ai ‘Aina was called the "Lunanui." Members owned a percent interest (which translated in shares) in the Hui. Notes from one meeting state that "A holder of one share was entitled to 2.5 acres of kula or house lot land and 2.5 acres of wet agricultural land." Members held shares in the total land area, and the land was used collectively. That is, unlike the kuleana lands, Hui lands were not divided into individual parcels.

The Hui allowed for a new situation in which residents had use of the land without having to actually own it. This was much more in keeping with traditional Hawaiian land tenure than is the privatized system spurred on by the Mahele. Here at Ha‘ena, people fenced their houses in--to keep out the roaming livestock--while the land remained open and unpartitioned.

Over the next century changes that were affecting the rest of the Hawaiian Islands gradually reached Ha‘ena. Among the most important of these were changes that eventually brought about the break-up of the Hui Ku‘ai ‘Aina and resulted in the partitioning of the lands that had been held in common.

The path to this break-up was one whereby, over time, shares in the Hui were sold, transferred , or auctioned off away from the original members and their families, and into the hands of newcomers from outside. How did families lose their shares? Many people who had once lived there had moved away, to other places in the Islands or even to the U.S. Mainland.

Carlos explains that the land was easily acquired by outsiders "because of members not paying their taxes. These newcomers bought up the shares bit by bit, by paying the taxes due. In other cases the people moved away, and they were not really used to taking care of the business of managing land finances, and did not know that they were going to lose their shares." The taxes at that time were often very low, like 15 cents in the 1920s. But if you were living elsewhere and were and not paying attention, and did not pay, your shares were eventually auctioned off. It was easy for someone else to buy them up. In other cases, if the head of the household died, the wife received half the shares, and the heirs split the rest. There might have been inheritance taxes too, that people could not afford to pay, so their shares got sold.

But a great many changes would take place in the mean time, leaving a trail of memories.