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The landscape of Hā‘ena, like many places in the Hawaiian Islands, is adorned with place names
that hold stories about historical events and legendary feats. Modern
geographers talk about place names as "humanizing" the landscape--transforming
the physical environment into a cultural world meaningful to human society.
Hawaiians, Carlos tells us, went further and embedded important information
into the landscape. Stories about places and place names contain lessons
about pono(proper, correct, or moral) behavior: "They provide
lessons, examples, through the words and through the eyes of the stories
and of our ancestors. Place names themselves are messages from the ancestors
that contain warnings, or urgings to look at something important there.
They're stories about how to live."
This chapter has been entitled "Footprints" to emphasize that such
stories and names are the marks left on the landscape, not only by those
who came before, but in some cases by gods and supernatural beings,
as they travelled this land.
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