Pu‘u Loa Petroglyph: Photograph by Will Tenney

Pu‘u Loa Petroglyph

Scratched into the pāhoehoe lava field at Pu‘u Loa are thousands of petroglyphs. While a few are pictorial, like this one, most are spirals or small indented holes. The ancient Hawaiians used to venture to this sacred site to honor the birth of children by placing the umbilical cord in an inscribed hole in the hard lava rock. For each child so honored, a new hole was made, hence the nearly 20,000 such holes found at Pu‘u Loa.