Found a hematite Pohaku lu he'e
My wife and I have been getting a little r&r staying with our daughter, husband and two grandchildren on the island of Kauai. My son in law works for a large Agra-business and is charge of harvest and animal control, so he access to a lot of land on the island. We spent a few hours hunting some fields but didn't find anything so we decided to walk up a creek that drains down from the hill country. From the creek we hiked a couple hundred feet up to some small ledges with outcroppings on the mountainside, that's where I found the artifact. I had no idea what it was used for, but my son in law thought he'd seen something like it at the museum in Lihue.
A Pohaku lu he'e is an octopus fishing lure "sinker". The groove was utilized to tie a cowry seashell to the flat side of the sinker with a shaft sandwiched in between that had a hook on the end. I had as much fun learning about it as I did finding it, to bad half of it's missing. We looked and dug around for the other half for quite a while, but to no avail. However Kaniela did find the old bleached out cowry shell on on another terrace just 15" above where sinker was laying and it has been perforated on both ends so in that context it could be an artifact cowry shell "lure".
Adding to our little adventure Kaniela warned me to watch my back while we were in the woods because of the wild boars and wild Bulls there will sometimes charge you!
My wife and I have been getting a little r&r staying with our daughter, husband and two grandchildren on the island of Kauai. My son in law works for a large Agra-business and is charge of harvest and animal control, so he access to a lot of land on the island. We spent a few hours hunting some fields but didn't find anything so we decided to walk up a creek that drains down from the hill country. From the creek we hiked a couple hundred feet up to some small ledges with outcroppings on the mountainside, that's where I found the artifact. I had no idea what it was used for, but my son in law thought he'd seen something like it at the museum in Lihue.
A Pohaku lu he'e is an octopus fishing lure "sinker". The groove was utilized to tie a cowry seashell to the flat side of the sinker with a shaft sandwiched in between that had a hook on the end. I had as much fun learning about it as I did finding it, to bad half of it's missing. We looked and dug around for the other half for quite a while, but to no avail. However Kaniela did find the old bleached out cowry shell on on another terrace just 15" above where sinker was laying and it has been perforated on both ends so in that context it could be an artifact cowry shell "lure".
Adding to our little adventure Kaniela warned me to watch my back while we were in the woods because of the wild boars and wild Bulls there will sometimes charge you!
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That is a cool find, and I bet with learning what it is you will be more observant as to what to look for.
