It should be obvious from my various posts here that the 'power' of Puunene continues to fascinate me. It's kind of hard to avoid on any trip through central Maui. Then there was the troubling Puunene sex offender to resident ratio statistics, followed by further news that our illustrious governor in fact wants to build a prison in Puunene. Perhaps because of the ridiculously high sex offender statistics?
Of course the sex offender ratio is so skewed because no one actually lives there as far as i can tell, or at least so few people that any statistic must be taken with an intense grain of salt. More web searching turned up some more information, and then it all began to make sense. I quote from the Maui Info Source.
'A sugar pioneer, Claus Spreckels, bought up land in the arid desert of Puunene from the Hawaiians who sold him the "cursed" lands at a very cheap price. The Hawaiians were sure they had gotten the better part of the deal because they believed that the lands were haunted by the souls of the dead who were unsuccessful at making the leap at Black Rock in Kaanapali from this world to the next. Instead, these poor souls were condemned to "hell" in the arid wasteland of Puunene.'
So Puunene is hell on earth, or at least a form of purgatory. Perhaps those smokestacks are like some kind of giant crematorium, blowing out the ashes of condemned dead souls.
But they do have their own post office.
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