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Although common in other islands of Eastern Polynesia, cut-and-dressed masonry is exceedingly rare in Hawai'i. This article describes a significant exception, Kukuipahu Heiau, a monumental structure in the Kohala district, Hawai'i Island, which incorporates more than one hundred cut-and-dressed basalt slabs, as well as worked red scoria blocks. There appear to have been at least two construction phases, with an earlier phase utilizing the worked stone, followed by a destructive interval, and then a later phase characterized by more typical Hawaiian stacked stone construction. A precise survey of the structure shows that it deviates only slightly from cardinality, but when the altitude of the Kohala ridgeline is taken into account, the site was oriented within 1-2°of the equinoctial rising of the sun. Hawaiian oral traditions associate the hewing of temple stones with the famed Hawai'i Island king 'Umi-a-Lī loa; we suggest that Kukuipahu Heiau may have been built during his reign, a hypothesis that deserves further research.

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