Long before Westerners knew that Sandwich islands existed, more than 40,000 Hawaiians lived in fertile Waipio Valley beneath 3,500 foot cliffs. Where they fished, grew taro and worshipped their gods. The dim remains of a 15-acre fish pond and ruins of ancient terraces at the back of the long valley attest to its population and history as a place of plentiful food and sometimes too much water from rain, waterfalls, the river and periodic tsunamis.

The population of Waipio dwindled from around 5,000 at the time Captain Cook arrived in Kealakekua to about 1,300 in the 1820s, and down to about 150 a hundred years later.

Today, amidst taro, coconuts, avocados, bananas and large assortment of other wild fruits, nuts and flora. Waipio has 60-100 residents, a mixture of farmers of Hawaiian, Japanese and Chinese ancestry and haoles looking for seclusion and self-sufficient life-style.

Many Hawaiian alii were buried in Waipio where a section of the beach is called lua o milu, doorway to the land of the dead. Great chiefs lived in the valley long before Kamehameha made it his base of spiritual power. According to legend, a priest from this valley gave Kamehameha custody of Ku, his war god, before he set off to conquer the islands.

This legendary gateway to the other world was favored by Wakea, creator of all the islands; prankster demigod Maui's head was smashed against the rocks by the great god Kanoloa, making blood colored earth forever in the upper valley; inseparable lovers Hiilawe and Kakalaoa, who were turned into a 1,300-foot beautiful waterfall and a large boulder set below, rather than be parted by the god Lano (looking for a bride), have not yielded an inch, even to 55-foot tsunami waves.