Captain Cook’s Arrival at Kealakekua Bay: The Day a God Walked Ashore
On January 17, 1779, the HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery glided into a bay on the western coast of Hawaiʻi Island. From the deck, twenty-one-year-old sailing master William Bligh could see what no European had ever witnessed: an estimated 10,000 people lining the shore and paddling out in a flotilla of roughly 1,000 canoes. The bay’s 600-foot cliffs amplified the noise into a wall of sound. Cook’s officers estimated 2,500 to 3,500 canoes swarming their two ships. The water itself seemed to move with bodies.
Priests led Cook ashore to Hikiau Heiau, the temple at the bay’s southern end — a stacked volcanic-rock platform that stretched 250 feet long and rose more than 16 feet above the sand. They seated him above the altar and wrapped him in a cloak of red tapa, the same fabric draped over the carved wooden images of their gods. Chiefs and commoners alike spoke the same name: Lono. The god of fertility, rain, and harvest — the deity whose return from across the sea had been prophesied — had come home.
Captain James Cook was a 50-year-old Yorkshire farm laborer’s son who had become the most accomplished navigator of the eighteenth century — a mortal man who had circled the globe twice and charted more of the earth’s surface than any human being alive. Kealakekua Bay would be the place where that career ended — not because of bad luck or bad weather, but because of a theological accident, a broken mast, and a stolen boat. The bay’s name translates to "the pathway of the god." It became the pathway to something else entirely: the first contact event that opened Hawaiʻi to European disease, missionary zeal, and the political forces that would overthrow its monarchy within a century.
Kealakekua Bay Before Cook: The Pathway of the God Lono
The Sacred Bay, the Makahiki Festival, and the Cliffs of the Dead
Kealakekua Bay was one of the most spiritually charged sites on the Hawaiian island chain — a place where the boundaries between the human and the divine were understood to be thin. The name itself — ke ala ke akua, "the pathway of the god" — referred to Lono, the deity of agriculture, fertility, and rainfall. The bay was Lono’s home as a man, according to tradition, and it was believed he had departed from here to a distant land called Kahiki, promising to return.
The cliffs ringing the bay’s northern edge, known as Pali Kapu O Keōua — "the sacred cliffs of Keōua" — contained the burial caves of Hawaiian royalty. These caves were kapu, forbidden to commoners. The bones of aliʻi (chiefs) were hidden inside by trusted retainers, some of whom, according to tradition, killed themselves afterward so the locations would die with them. The bones held mana — spiritual power — and their concealment protected that power from enemies who might steal or desecrate them. The cliffs were, in effect, a vertical necropolis: hundreds of feet of sacred limestone holding the concentrated spiritual authority of generations.
At the bay’s southern end stood Hikiau Heiau, the temple dedicated to Lono and associated with funeral rites. Each year, the Makahiki festival — a four-month celebration running roughly from October to February — brought the bay to life. All warfare was prohibited. Priests carried the akua loa, a tall pole draped with white kapa banners, in a clockwise circuit around the island. Taxes were collected in the form of pigs, taro, sweet potatoes, feathers, and mats. Athletic competitions followed: boxing, wrestling, sled racing on volcanic slopes, canoe races, surfing. The Makahiki was Hawaiʻi’s harvest festival, its New Year, and its religious renewal — all folded into one.
Kaʻawaloa Village and the Chiefs of the Kona Coast
The northern shore of Kealakekua Bay held Kaʻawaloa, a settlement of the aliʻi. This was the residence of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the aliʻi nui — the ruling high chief of Hawaiʻi Island. Four villages sat along the bay’s shoreline, making it one of the most densely populated areas on the island. The land was intensively cultivated, divided into ahupuaʻa — wedge-shaped land divisions running from the mountain ridges to the sea, each one a self-sustaining economic unit producing everything its residents needed. Kealakekua’s bay provided safe anchorage, its slopes provided fertile soil, and its sacred status provided political legitimacy. A chief who controlled Kealakekua controlled the spiritual heart of the island.
Captain Cook’s Third Voyage: From the Northwest Passage to the Sandwich Islands
The Navigator Who Had Already Mapped Half the World
By 1776, James Cook had accomplished more than any explorer of his century. His first voyage (1768–1771) charted the coastlines of New Zealand and eastern Australia and circumnavigated the globe. His second (1772–1775) pushed deep into the Antarctic, proved the mythical southern continent did not exist in temperate latitudes, and mapped the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. The waters he charted would lure generations of explorers after him — including the crew of HMS Erebus and Terror, who vanished searching for the same Northwest Passage Cook was now ordered to find from the Pacific side. The Admiralty promoted him and gave him a third commission: find the Northwest Passage, the theoretical sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic.
Cook sailed from England in July 1776 aboard the Resolution, accompanied by the Discovery under Captain Charles Clerke. The crew included Bligh as sailing master, the artist John Webber, and Marine Corporal John Ledyard — an American whose later account would provide some of the most vivid descriptions of what followed. The expedition carried the usual complement of livestock, scientific instruments, and iron nails for trade.
The Discovery of Hawaiʻi and the Return to Kealakekua Bay
On January 18, 1778, Cook sighted the island of Oʻahu — the first confirmed European contact with the Hawaiian archipelago. He landed briefly on Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, traded iron for provisions and sex (his sailors exchanged nails for access to Hawaiian women, introducing venereal disease in the process), and named the chain the Sandwich Islands after his patron, the Earl of Sandwich. He sailed north on February 2, spent nine months charting the coasts of present-day Oregon, British Columbia, Alaska, and the Bering Strait, and found no passage through the Arctic ice.
In November 1778, Cook turned south to winter in the Sandwich Islands. His ships circled Hawaiʻi Island clockwise for weeks, trading with canoes offshore — a circuit that, by coincidence, followed the exact route of the Makahiki procession. On January 17, 1779, Bligh was sent ahead to scout a suitable bay. He found Kealakekua. Cook brought both ships in and dropped anchor in the bay that bore Lono’s name, during the festival that celebrated Lono’s return, with sails that resembled Lono’s white kapa banners.
The coincidence was extraordinary. The Hawaiians did not necessarily believe Cook was literally the god Lono in the way British accounts later claimed. Anthropologists have debated this for decades. What seems clear is that the Hawaiians tried to make sense of the strangers using the religious and political framework they had. Cook’s arrival fit the pattern of the Makahiki. He was slotted into a role — honored, fed, ceremonially received — that corresponded to the return of a powerful supernatural being. On January 25, Kalaniʻōpuʻu met Cook near Hikiau Heiau and the two men conducted a ceremonial exchange of names: both were now called Lono. Hawaiians prostrated themselves when either man passed.
The Collapse of Welcome at Kealakekua Bay: When the Makahiki Ended
Feasting, Flogging, and the Strain on Sacred Ground
The initial weeks were lavish. Kalaniʻōpuʻu presented Cook with feather capes, helmets, kahili (feathered staffs), wooden bowls, tapa cloth, and finely woven mats. Pigs, taro, sweet potatoes, and bananas arrived in quantities that astonished the British. Cook gave European goods in return. The atmosphere was festive — boxing matches, wrestling, a fireworks display that left the Hawaiians stunned.
The strain built beneath the surface. Cook’s 180-odd sailors consumed enormous quantities of provisions, and the Hawaiians, bound by the obligations of the Makahiki, kept giving. British sailors trampled kapu they did not understand, cutting wood near sacred sites for firewood. The priests allowed them to buy the wooden fence surrounding the Hikiau shrine for fuel, but some sailors also took carved images from the temple, and the priests demanded the return of the most important one. Sources disagree on how deeply this offended the Hawaiians, but the goodwill was eroding. Cook’s men flogged a Hawaiian for theft. Other sailors beat Hawaiians for trivial reasons. When a crew member died, the British buried him on the grounds of Hikiau Heiau — the first Christian ceremony ever performed at the temple. The priests permitted it. The symbolism was lost on no one.
By early February, Kalaniʻōpuʻu and the priests began asking Cook when he planned to leave. The Makahiki season was ending. The ritual period of Lono was giving way to the season of Kū, the god of war and political authority. Cook’s presence, which had seemed auspicious in January, now felt wrong — a god lingering past his season.
The Broken Mast and the Unwelcome Return to Kealakekua
On February 4, 1779, after a final round of gift exchanges and celebrations, Cook sailed out of Kealakekua Bay. The departure was emotional — sailors waved to Hawaiian women they had taken as lovers, and the high priest Koa insisted on accompanying Bligh’s boat to chant prayers for safe passage.
The Resolution barely made it a week. A fierce gale off the Kohala coast wrenched the ship’s foremast so badly that it could not carry enough sail to continue. Cook had no choice. On February 11, the expedition limped back into Kealakekua Bay.
Marine Corporal John Ledyard captured the mood in his journal: the return was "as disagreeable to us as it was to the inhabitants, for we were reciprocally tired of each other." The bay was nearly deserted. Kalaniʻōpuʻu and several chiefs made their displeasure plain. The Makahiki was over. A kapu had been placed on the bay. The god who had returned in January, in accordance with prophecy, had now come back at the wrong time — during the season of Kū, when Lono’s presence was not just unwelcome but spiritually destabilizing.
Over the next three days, the atmosphere curdled. Hawaiians who had been generous hosts became aggressive pilferers, testing boundaries with a boldness the British hadn’t seen before. Cook had a man flogged and clapped in irons for stealing the armorer’s tongs. The carpenters worked on the foremast ashore, surrounded by increasingly hostile crowds.
The Death of Captain Cook at Kealakekua Bay: Valentine’s Day, 1779
The Stolen Cutter and the Kidnapping of Chief Kalaniʻōpuʻu
On the night of February 13, Hawaiians stole the Discovery’s cutter — a large, essential boat — from its moorings. Cook was furious. He decided on a tactic he had used before in Tahiti and Raiatea: seize the local chief and hold him hostage until the stolen property was returned.
At dawn on February 14, Cook launched from the Resolution with a company of armed marines — nine men led by Lieutenant Molesworth Phillips. They marched directly to Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s royal enclosure at Kaʻawaloa, where the elderly chief was still sleeping. They woke him and directed him, without overt threat, to accompany them to the ship. Cook himself held the old man’s hands as they walked toward the beach. Kalaniʻōpuʻu went willingly at first.
His favorite wife, Kānekapōlei, saw them leaving and cried out after her husband. He ignored her. Two lesser chiefs caught up to the group and pleaded with Kalaniʻōpuʻu not to go. The old chief sat down on the ground. Cook told him to get up. He refused.
By now the shore was filling with thousands of Hawaiians. Then word arrived from across the bay: British sailors blockading the harbor had fired on a canoe and killed a high chief named Kalimu. The crowd’s mood shifted instantly.
Four Minutes in the Shallows: How Captain Cook Died in Hawaiʻi
What happened next lasted only minutes. Kanaʻina, a chief, approached Cook aggressively. Cook struck him with the flat of his sword. Kanaʻina grabbed Cook — accounts differ on whether the chief intended to attack or simply pushed back — and knocked him to the sand. Cook fired his musket. He missed his target and killed a bystander. The marines fired a volley. Stones rained down from the crowd. The marines, still struggling to reload their single-shot muskets, were overwhelmed.
Cook ordered a retreat to the boats. The marines fled toward the water. Four of them — Corporal James Thomas, Privates Theophilus Hinks, Thomas Fachett, and John Allen — were chased onto the slippery rocks and killed. Cook turned toward the boats in the shallows and raised his hand — a signal to the launches to come closer. Lieutenant John Williamson, commanding the nearest boat, misread the gesture or chose to ignore it, and pulled further out.
Cook was alone in the surf. A warrior named Nuaa lunged at him from behind and drove a metal dagger into his back — a dagger obtained from Cook’s own ship during the same visit, traded for provisions. Cook fell face-forward into the water. The crowd surged over him with clubs and knives.
Aboard the Resolution, Bligh watched the final moments through a spyglass. He later claimed he saw Cook’s body dragged up the hill to Kaʻawaloa, where it was torn apart. The killing of Cook, four marines, and seventeen Hawaiians had taken less time than it takes to read this paragraph.
The Bones of Lono: What Happened to Captain Cook’s Body
A Chief’s Funeral for a Fallen Navigator
The Hawaiians honored Cook’s body — by their own standards. Cook’s remains were carried to Puhina o Lono Heiau, a ritual site on the slope above Kaʻawaloa. There, his corpse was treated with the same funerary rites accorded to the highest aliʻi: the body was ritually baked, the flesh stripped from the bones, and the cleaned bones distributed among the chiefs. This was a mark of profound respect. The bones of powerful figures held mana, and to possess them was to inherit a portion of that spiritual force. British observers, watching from the ships and hearing fragmented reports, interpreted this as cannibalism — a misreading that would persist in European accounts for centuries and feed existing fantasies about Pacific "savages."
Cook’s second-in-command, Captain Charles Clerke, spent the following days negotiating for the return of the remains. The negotiations were punctuated by violence: British cannon and muskets killed roughly 30 more Hawaiians in retaliatory fire. On February 20, a priest who had befriended the British during the Makahiki brought back a bundle wrapped in kapa cloth. Inside were some of Cook’s bones — his skull, minus the jaw, scalp, and ears; both hands, identifiable by a prominent scar; and several long bones. The rest of Cook’s remains — the bones the chiefs considered most sacred — were never returned.
Burial at Sea and the Voyage Home from Kealakekua
On February 21, 1779, the recovered remains of James Cook were placed in a coffin and committed to the waters of Kealakekua Bay with full naval honors. No bugle sounded; the guns of the Resolution and Discovery fired the salute. The bay that had welcomed him as a god now received what was left of his body.
The expedition did not turn back. Clerke assumed command, attempted one more season searching for the Northwest Passage in the North Pacific, and died of tuberculosis aboard the Resolution off the coast of Kamchatka in August 1779. Lieutenant John Gore brought both ships home to England. Clerke had entrusted Cook’s journal and a letter describing his death to the Russian military commander at Kamchatka, Magnus von Behm, who forwarded the package overland across Siberia. The Admiralty, and all of England, learned of Cook’s death when the package arrived in London — eleven months after the event, and before the surviving crew.
On the Resolution, an anonymous craftsman carved a miniature coffin from wood — an intricate, finely detailed reliquary for a man whose grave was the Pacific Ocean. That coffin survives today in the State Library of New South Wales. And aboard the same ship, the young sailing master William Bligh — the man who had watched Cook die through a spyglass — carried a lesson about authority, violence, and the limits of command that he would catastrophically fail to apply a decade later, when his own crew mutinied aboard HMS Bounty near the islands of Pitcairn.
From Sacred Bay to Annexed Kingdom: The Legacy of First Contact at Kealakekua
Disease, Missionaries, and the Destruction of the Hawaiian World
Cook’s visit to Kealakekua Bay was the opening chapter of a catastrophe that unfolded over the next century with grinding predictability. European and American ships followed Cook’s charts to the Sandwich Islands. With them came diseases for which the Hawaiian population had no immunity: venereal disease first (introduced during Cook’s own visits), then influenza, measles, smallpox, and tuberculosis. The Hawaiian population, estimated at between 300,000 and one million at the time of contact, collapsed to fewer than 40,000 by the end of the nineteenth century — a demographic catastrophe that echoed, on a far larger scale, the population collapse that had already emptied Easter Island centuries before European ships arrived.
In 1819 — just forty years after Cook’s death — the Hawaiian aliʻi Kaʻahumanu and the young King Liholiho (Kamehameha II) abolished the kapu system, dismantling the religious framework that had governed Hawaiian life for centuries. The Makahiki festival, the very tradition that had shaped Cook’s reception at Kealakekua, lost its institutional foundation. Protestant missionaries arrived from New England in 1820 and filled the spiritual vacuum. Whalers and sandalwood traders reshaped the economy. By the 1840s, sugar plantations demanded foreign labor and foreign capital. In 1893, a group of American businessmen, backed by U.S. Marines, overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani. The United States annexed Hawaiʻi in 1898. The islands became a military staging ground — and the wider Pacific, which Cook had opened to European ambition, would become a theater of destruction. Within two generations, American nuclear tests would render Bikini Atoll uninhabitable, completing a pattern of Pacific exploitation that Cook’s charts had made possible.
The trajectory from Cook’s landing at Kealakekua to the end of Hawaiian sovereignty was unbroken, even if it was never inevitable. Every subsequent ship that dropped anchor in the islands followed the route Cook had charted. Every missionary who preached on Hawaiian soil arrived because Cook had put the archipelago on European maps. Kealakekua Bay was the hinge.
The White Obelisk on British Soil at Kealakekua Bay
In 1825, the crew of HMS Blonde erected the first memorial to Cook at Kaʻawaloa. The Blonde had come to Hawaiʻi for a specific reason: to return the bodies of King Liholiho and Queen Kamāmalu, who had died of measles during a visit to England — another echo of the contact Cook initiated. The memorial was placed, almost certainly deliberately, at the center of the Puhina o Lono enclosure — the same spot where Cook’s body had been burned.
The current monument — a 27-foot white concrete obelisk — was erected in 1874. Twelve cannons from HMS Fantome were embedded muzzle-up in the lava rock around it, their breaches serving as bollards for a chain barrier. In 1877, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi deeded the small plot of land beneath the monument to Great Britain as a diplomatic gesture. Princess Likelike facilitated the cession. The land remains British property today — administered by the British Consul-General in Los Angeles, making it one of the smallest and strangest pieces of sovereign non-embassy territory on earth.
Behind the obelisk, scattered stone foundations mark the ruins of Kaʻawaloa village — the settlement where Kalaniʻōpuʻu once slept, where Cook held the old chief’s hands on that last walk to the beach. The village emptied within decades of Cook’s death, its population decimated by disease and drawn away by the economic transformations sweeping the islands. The ruins are, in their silence, a more eloquent memorial than the obelisk.
Kealakekua Bay Today: Marine Sanctuary and Contested Sacred Ground
Snorkeling Over the Site Where Captain Cook Died
Kealakekua Bay is now a Marine Life Conservation District (designated in 1969), a State Historical Park, and a site on the National Register of Historic Places (listed in 1973). More than 100,000 visitors arrive each year, most of them by boat, to snorkel in water so clear that visibility often exceeds 100 feet. Spinner dolphins rest in the bay. Green sea turtles graze on the reef. Schools of yellow tang move through the coral gardens in shimmering curtains.
A bronze plaque sits just beneath the waterline near the monument, marking the approximate spot where Cook fell. Snorkelers drift over it daily, some aware of what lies beneath them, most focused on the parrotfish. The monument itself is roped off — visitors can photograph it but not touch it. A small concrete jetty nearby was built by the Commonwealth of Australia to commemorate Cook. Getting to the site requires either a boat tour from Kailua-Kona, a kayak crossing (now regulated by state permit), or a steep 2-mile hike down the old Kaʻawaloa Road — the same track that was widened for carts in the 1820s.
Hikiau Heiau still stands at the bay’s southern end, its volcanic-rock platform still considered sacred. Visitors are asked not to climb on it. Across the bay, the burial caves in the Pali Kapu O Keōua remain kapu.
Coral Loss, Overtourism, and the Hawaiian Fight to Heal Kealakekua Bay
The bay that survived centuries of Hawaiian stewardship is struggling under modern pressures. Statewide coral bleaching events in 2015 and 2019 destroyed an estimated 88 percent of the bay’s coral cover — a loss so severe that the local community invoked the kumu kānāwai kīhoʻihoʻi, the edict of regeneration. Invasive wild goats strip vegetation from the cliffs above, causing erosion and sediment runoff that smothers what coral remains. Tourist foot traffic, litter, and wildlife harassment compound the damage.
Hoʻāla Kealakekua Nui, a community nonprofit with ancestral ties to the bay, leads the restoration effort alongside a coalition of 23 organizations called Kapukapu ʻOhana. The work is guided by Native Hawaiian values and generational knowledge: monitoring marine areas through a Makai Watch Program, trapping invasive coconut rhinoceros beetles, and advocating for stricter vessel regulations. The Nature Conservancy partners with local groups to rebuild reef resilience against increasingly frequent marine heatwaves.
The tension at Kealakekua is not new. It is, in a sense, the same tension that destroyed Cook: the collision between outsiders drawn to a place’s power and the people tasked with protecting it. The bay’s name — "the pathway of the god" — still applies. The question is whether the pathway leads to restoration or to the same pattern of extraction that began on a January morning in 1779, when 10,000 people paddled out to welcome a stranger they believed was divine.
Standing at Kealakekua Bay, the visitor is caught between two memorials. The white obelisk on British soil commemorates a navigator. The silent cliffs above it guard the bones of kings. One memorial was built by outsiders. The other was carved by the Hawaiians themselves — not into stone, but into absence: the empty village, the vanished coral, the name of a god that lingers in a language nearly lost. Kealakekua asks what every site of first contact eventually asks — and never fully answers: whose story this place is allowed to tell.
Frequently Asked Questions About Kealakekua Bay
How Did Captain Cook Die at Kealakekua Bay?
Captain James Cook was killed on February 14, 1779, during a violent confrontation with Hawaiians on the shore of Kealakekua Bay. After Hawaiians stole the Discovery’s cutter overnight, Cook went ashore with armed marines to take the ruling chief Kalaniʻōpuʻu hostage until the boat was returned — a tactic he had used previously in Polynesia. The plan collapsed when thousands of Hawaiians gathered on the beach, word arrived that British sailors had killed a chief across the bay, and the crowd attacked. Cook was struck down in the shallows by a warrior named Nuaa, stabbed with a metal dagger that had been traded from Cook’s own ship. Four Royal Marines were also killed, along with seventeen Hawaiians.
Why Did the Hawaiians Think Captain Cook Was a God?
Cook arrived at Kealakekua Bay on January 17, 1779, during the Makahiki festival — a four-month celebration honoring the fertility god Lono. The bay’s name means "the pathway of the god," and it was Lono’s traditional home. Cook’s ships had circled the island clockwise, matching the route of Lono’s ritual procession, and their white sails resembled the kapa banners carried in Makahiki ceremonies. Priests escorted Cook to Hikiau Heiau and performed sacred rites. Anthropologists debate whether the Hawaiians literally believed Cook was Lono or were interpreting his arrival through existing religious and political frameworks. The welcome ended when Cook returned after the Makahiki had closed, during the season of Kū, the war god.
What Happened to Captain Cook’s Body After He Was Killed?
Cook’s body was carried to Puhina o Lono Heiau, a ritual site above Kaʻawaloa village. The Hawaiians treated his remains according to funerary rites reserved for the highest-ranking chiefs: the corpse was ritually baked, the flesh stripped from the bones, and the cleaned bones distributed among the chiefs. This was a mark of honor — the bones of powerful figures held mana (spiritual power). British observers misinterpreted these practices as cannibalism. After several days of negotiation and British retaliatory cannon fire, some of Cook’s bones were returned. The remains were buried at sea in Kealakekua Bay on February 21, 1779. The location of his remaining bones is unknown.
Is the Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Bay on British Soil?
The 27-foot white obelisk at Kealakekua Bay was erected in 1874 by the British government near the spot where Cook was killed. In 1877, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi deeded the small plot of land beneath the monument to Great Britain as a diplomatic gesture. The land remains British property today, administered by the British Consul-General in Los Angeles. Twelve cannons from HMS Fantome, embedded muzzle-up in lava rock, surround the monument. The site can only be reached by boat, kayak (with a state permit), or a steep 2-mile hike down the old Kaʻawaloa Road.
Can You Snorkel at Kealakekua Bay?
Kealakekua Bay is a Marine Life Conservation District and one of the best snorkeling sites in Hawaiʻi. The bay’s protected status since 1969 has allowed coral reefs and marine life to flourish, though severe bleaching events in 2015 and 2019 destroyed an estimated 88 percent of coral cover. Visibility often exceeds 100 feet. Visitors commonly encounter spinner dolphins, green sea turtles, yellow tang, parrotfish, and butterflyfish. A bronze plaque near the Cook monument sits just below the waterline, marking the approximate location of Cook’s death. Most visitors reach the snorkeling area by guided boat tour from Kailua-Kona or Keauhou Bay.
What Is Hikiau Heiau at Kealakekua Bay?
Hikiau Heiau is an ancient Hawaiian temple platform located at the southern end of Kealakekua Bay. Built from stacked volcanic rock, the structure was originally over 16 feet high, 250 feet long, and 100 feet wide. It was dedicated to the god Lono and associated with funeral rites and the annual Makahiki festival. In January 1779, priests conducted Cook to this heiau and performed sacred ceremonies treating him as Lono. The first Christian ceremony in Hawaiʻi — a burial service for a British sailor — was also held at this site. Hikiau Heiau was partially restored in 1917 and remains sacred to Native Hawaiians. Visitors are asked not to climb on the platform.
Sources
* The Death of Captain Cook - Wikipedia, drawing on primary accounts by James King, John Ledyard, and David Samwell (1779)
* Captain Cook in Hawaii: Primary Source Lesson - The National Archives, UK (2023)
* The Death of Captain James Cook, 14 February 1779 - Royal Museums Greenwich (2017)
* The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific - Gananath Obeyesekere, Princeton University Press (1992)
* Islands of History - Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago Press (1985)
* The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas - Anne Salmond, Penguin Books (2003)
* Puhina o Lono Heiau: Archaeological and Historical Context - Images of Old Hawaiʻi, drawing on Kamakau, Malo, and Bishop Museum records (2018)
* The Miniature Coffin of Captain Cook - The Appendix / State Library of New South Wales (2013)
* Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park - Hawaiʻi Division of State Parks, DLNR (2026)
* Kealakekua: Restoring Reciprocal Relationships - The Nature Conservancy, Hawaiʻi (2024)
* Third Voyage of James Cook - Wikipedia, drawing on journals of Cook, King, Clerke, Bligh, and Ledyard (1776–1780)
* Native Burials: Human Rights and Sacred Bones - Cultural Survival Quarterly (1994)
