AHUPUAA

A tract of land stretching from the tip of a mountain and broadening shaped like a pie-slice, all the way to the coastline. Hawaiian Alii (royalty) granted large tracts of land in this manner. All types of land needed to provide food for Hawaiian subsidence, from the mountains and the rivers to the coastlands and ocean, were included in a single ahupuaa. The mountain streams to provide the small freshwater shrimp (opae) of the 4 inch fish, a delicacy called the opu: taro, the main staple of the Hawaiian diet, grew in terraced ponds descending from the mountains. Breadfruit and coconuts came from lower elevations. Fish, octopus, seaweed were provided by the ocean.   Fish growing mullet ponds were often constructed along streams or on the ocean. Thus the ahupaa was a complete food- processing (arguably “economic”) system.