Mokuʻula

Mokuʻula was a tiny island in Maluʻulu o Lele Park, Lahaina, Hawaiʻi, United States. It was the private residence of King Kamehameha III from 1837 to 1845 and the burial site of several Hawaiian royals. The 1-acre (4,000 m2) island is considered sacred to many Hawaiians as a piko, or symbolic center of energy and power. It was added to the Hawaiʻi State Register of Historic Places on August 29, 1994, and to the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 1997, as King Kamehameha III's Royal Residential Complex. According to author P. Christiaan Klieger, "the moated palace of Mokuʻula...was a place of the "Sacred Red Mists," an oasis of rest and calm during the raucous, rollicking days of Pacific whaling". When the capital of Hawaiʻi moved from Lahaina to Honolulu and plantations diverted Mokuhinia's water source to irrigate their crops, Mokuʻula fell into disrepair.