Still, their departure from the mountain was marked by emotional exhaustion and trepidation for what was to come. Should an attempt be made to initiate the project, they knew they could be back up there in half an hour. After determining that there was no imminent threat, they decided to pack up their site, which hosted anywhere between 30 and 3,000 people at any given time. When the pandemic hit, kiaʻi were already assessing the threat of construction and considering the impact on resources. Their Pu‘uhonua o Pu‘uhuluhulu camp was equipped with a kitchen, solar trailers, and even a “university” grounded in Native Hawaiian science and culture. For nine months, kia’i encamped on Maunakea, watching for TMT construction crews. For kiaʻi, protecting the mountain from desecration is more than a cultural responsibility it’s a lineal duty to those who came before them and the generations who will succeed them. It is one of the most sacred sites - if not the most sacred - in Hawaiian culture. In Hawaiian traditions of creation, the mountain is an ancestor and shares genealogical ties with Native Hawaiians, or Kanaka Maoli. From the Pu‘uhonua o Pu‘uhuluhulu camp, protectors kept watch for construction crews for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) - planned to be the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere - through windstorms, hail, and overnight temperatures that dipped well below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. While she lives only a 30-minute drive away, she says, “I have to go back and look at videos or pictures to remind myself that we were really up there.”įor nearly nine months, she and other kiaʻi, or protectors, were sleeping in a parking lot over a lava field that marks the beginning of the access road up to Maunakea’s summit. “It almost seems like it never happened,” Pua Case tells Vox about her time in the encampment at the foot of Maunakea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii and the tallest mountain in the world.
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