Hono'Onapali

This photograph features a mountain ridge in the Hono'Onapali Natural Reserve area on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Some mountain ridges (including the one at Makana) were sacred to the Polynesians, who occasionally performed a fire-throwing ceremony from atop. Known as ʻōahi, designated fire-throwers would climb up laden with pāpala or hau logs, which were set ablaze then hurled off the edge into the sea. The firebrands would catch in the trade winds and arc out to sea in a pyrotechnic display.