It was he most massive mountain Polynesians had ever seen.  Mauna Loa loomed above the seafarers as they stepped out of their sailing canoes, climbing onto Ka Lae at south Point to settle this island of living volcanoes more than 1,200 years ago.

 From the Marquesas, Tahiti, and perhaps the cook Islands, the Polynesians used wind and paddles to carry them more than 3,500 miles north to the Big Island.  In waves of migrations, they brought ingredients for self-sufficient living:  banana, coconut and mulberry plantings, chickens, dogs and pigs to be cooked in their earthen ovens or imu.  Knowledge of fishing and boat-building, weaving, wood and stone-carving allowed the  Polynesian population to grow.  By the time Capt. James Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay in 1779, there were about 80,000 people living there.

Polynesians flourished in Hawaii under a system of chiefs and commoners, a culture of strict rules and an abundance of mythology.  The most powerful deity whom Big Islanders worshiped is said to still reveal herself every time the lava spurts from a caldron or drips down a mountain.  Her name is Pele, a goddess who changes place and form at will; whose anger, fire and burning blood (lava) can run over a village and catch a man.  With the volcano destroying almost 200 homes during the last decade, some Hawaiians still place gifts of food and drink on her rim, hoping to appease Madame Pele.

 Modern-day Hawaiians revere their ancestors as stewards of the land and sea.  Hey were a race who were careful not to over-fish reefs, streams and rivers, and were skilled in creating irrigation channels to water the native taro, a staple food pounded into the gray paste called poi.

 The early Hawaiians lived in triangular communities called ahupuaa, each containing all the resources needed for life.  Abundant water flowed the mountains, to house poles cut from forests, the lowland soils were good for planting, and the near-shore reefs teemed with edible fish.

 Some of the most prosperous ancient Hawaiian communities were located on the Big Island, including Waipio and Polulu Valleys on the North Shore.  These communities produced taro that was traded throughout the island in exchange for fish, cloth and other necessities.

Capt. James cook's crew sailed into Kealakekua on the British ships HMS Discovery and Resolution on Jan. 17, 1779, escorted into the bay by Hawaiians in their canoes.  The Hawaiians had learned of cook's first trip to the islands the year before when he had landed at Waimea Bay on the island of Kauai.

At Kealakekua, some 10,000 Big Islanders were in the midst of their makahiki celebration in honor of the god Lon.  Some historians have concluded Cook was mistaken for this god and treated accordingly.  Notes from ship logs said his crew had never before seen such an amassing of people in these islands, thousands celebrating on shore, thousands more paddling and "swimming about the ship like shoals of fish."

 On land, natives put their hands over their faces and bowed before Cook, perhaps believing the white sails of his ship were flags of Lono, similar to their own banners honoring the god.  They held ceremony after ceremony during his two-week stay, entertaining his crew with Hawaiian boxing, wrestling and other native games, bestowing gifts upon Cook, and hosting feasts.  In return, Cook thrilled the Hawaiians with a fireworks display, a flute and violin concert, and ship tours.

 Cook was murdered by the Hawaiians only days after treating him as royalty.  After setting sail from Kealakekua, a storm destroyed the Resolution's mast.   When Cook returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs, the festival was over and Hawaiians were respecting a kapu that made the bay off limits.  The natives fraternized with the crew but stole their shore boat.  When cook landed to take Chief Kalaniopuu hostage until the cutter was returned, a and of Hawaiian warriors clubbed him to death.

 During the last century, England erected a monument to Cook at the northern end of Kealakekua Bay, which remains the only piece of property in the Hawaiian Islands owned by England.  The monument is visited by a number of boat tours that operate along the Kona Coast.

Following cook's death, the Big Island's own King Kamehameha set out to conquer all the Hawaiian Islands, bringing them under one ruler for the first time by using the white man's weaponry and sailing crafts.  By 1791, he had conquered his own Big Island and by 1795, the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Oahu.  By 1810, he also held Kauai, after convincing its chief to serve him.

 Kamehameha held a tight rein on the islands, attempting to brace them for the increasing visits by entrepreneurs and sailors who were introducing western ways that many of his subjects found difficult to resist.  Venereal diseases wiped out much of the native population during the next century, with help from measles, influenza, typhoid and other epidemics.

 Greed along the chiefs, including Kamehameha himself, led to additional destruction of Hawaiian life.  They forced natives to spend weeks at a time in the interior, cutting forests of sandalwood that was sold in the orient, thereby abandoning their own self-sufficiency.  Guns and boats from westerners were exchanged for Hawaiian wives and land.  By the time Kamehameha died at the age of 63 in his Kona home, the Hawaiian way of life was well on its way to destruction.

THE MISSIONARY INFLUENCE

 On April 4, 1820, Calvinist missionaries from Boston arrived on the brig Thaddeus at Kawaihae on the Kohala Coast.  Meanwhile, after Kamehameha's death, his favorite wife, Kaahumanu, and her foster son, Kamehameha II, had become the rulers.  They hastily abandoned kapus and embraced the new Christianity.  The missionaries wasted no time in destroying ancient Hawaiian altars and replacing them with churches.

Even Kapiolani, high chiefess of the Big Island discredited Hawaiian gods by holding a Calvinist service on the edge of a volcano to denounce Madame Pele and proclaimed that Jehovah was her god.  Hawaiians were impressed that despite Kapiolani's insults, the volcano did not respond.  Recently however, following a similar service in 1974, the volcano erupted, pleasing some of the revivalists of ancient Hawaiian religious practices.

With missionaries and foreign entrepreneurs came the skills of reading and writing, and the idea of western law – particularly the laws associated with private property --- previously unknown to Hawaiians.

 By the year 1840, the Hawaiian Islands had a constitution, a supreme court and a parliament with an elected lower house.  In 1848 the land was divided into a third for the royalty, one third for government and the final third for common people.  By 1850, foreigners could buy land outright and, during the 1860's, an immigration office was established to encourage people to move to Hawaii, particularly those wanting to work in the burgeoning sugar industry.

 By the mid-1800's, with the forests depleted, the sugar and whaling industries replaced the sandalwood trade.  Whaling died out with the depletion of the whale population and the discovery of oil fields in America.  Sugar, however, flourished well into the twentieth century and, although troubled, continues today.

 Many of the businessmen who arrived during the 1800's came into conflict with royalty.  Under pressure from United States sailors and Marines, Queen Liliuokalani turned over her rule to the businessmen who founded the Republic of Hawaii.  At their request, the U.S. annexed Hawaii as a Territory on July 7, 1898.  On July 27, 1959 the voters of the Hawaiian Islands approved statehood and the Big Island became one of the four counties of the fiftieth state.

 More recently, the Big Island has become a center of research and education, with its four-year university, astronomy, geothermal, alternate energy and ocean research centers.  It is also a leader in diversified agriculture, with flowers, coffee and macadamia nuts among its products.  The visitor industry also injects much revenue into the county and state coffers.