Hawaiian Skies: Kāʻelo 2026
By Leilehua Yuen, Hawaiʻi Culture and Language Resident at Gemini / NOIRLab
Kāʻelo (ʻIanuali 19 - Pepeluali 17)
If you are following the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council calendar, you will notice that this year we diverge. They are in Kaulua, while we are in Kāʻelo. This is because, for us, last month was Hikikauʻelia, the intercalary month that brings the lunar and sidereal calendars back into conjunction when needed.
For an explanation, please check our previous full-length column posted on the Maunakea Observatories website. For a beautiful 2026 wall calendar using Hikikauʻelia, you can go to the Prince Kūhiō Hawaiian Civic Club website.
ʻElo translates to English as “wet, soggy, drenched.” That is an excellent description of this time of year. The month Kāʻelo shares its name with one of the names of the stars also known as Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is also known as ‘Aua, Hōkū-ʻula, Kau-lana-a-ka-lā, and Kau-lana-koko. Let’s take a closer look at these names. ʻAua translates to English as "lean like a fish," "coarse," or "tough." Perhaps it refers to the state of the lean, tough, dried salt fish people might be eating when the winter storms keep them from going out for fresh catch.
Hōkū-ʻula is a descriptive name, “red star,” and is applied to a number of stars. I suspect that it is primarily used descriptively; for example, when pointing out a group of stars and you want to differentiate it. Something like, “take your sighting off the red star.” There are so many stars that use that name; to me, it does not make sense that it would be the primary designator for all of them.
Learning more about the name Kau-lana-a-ka-lā, it literally translates as “resting place of the sun,” and likely refers to Betelgeuse and Elnath when they bracket the sun at sunset on the summer solstice. This phenomenon does not happen every year. Sometimes the stars are hidden by the glare of the sun. But just imagine when, literally, the sun and stars align so that all three are balanced on the rim of the oceanic world for a brief moment. So, from now on, I will only use Kau-lana-a-ka-lā to refer to Betelgeuse and Elnath at sunset on the summer solstice when they guide their chief home and prepare him for his return to the Kona sky.
Finally, is it Kau-lana-koko or Kaulana-koko? Resting place of blood/red/rainbow, or famous/exalted blood? Betelgeuse is certainly distinctly red, especially compared to the blue of Elnath. So, what shall we call Kāʻelo’s companion? At this point, the name we have been using since the 1980s does not seem to hold up. For now, I shall use Hoa-Kāʻeu, “Kāʻeu’s Companion.”
Back in ʻIkuwā, we discussed Kokoʻiki in some detail, as it related to Kamehameha Paiʻea. In this column, let’s consider Makulu and Ikaika, Saturn and Jupiter, and explore their many names deeper.
Saturn has been identified by various informants as Holoholo-pīnaʻau, Makaliʻi, Makalu, Makula, Makulu, Makulukulu, and Nā-holoholo.
Holoholo-pīnaʻau also has been identified as Mars, “a planet,” a star to the east of Nā-hiku and north of Nā-hōkū-pā, a group of twelve stars — Generally these are associated with the Big Dipper and Leo — though they are more in, and associated with, the month of ʻIkuwā. Interestingly, if we go to our handy Stellarium.com desktop planetarium, we find that except for a break in the 1830s, Saturn was prominent in the ʻIkuwā sky throughout the nineteenth century; Saturn was especially noticeable in the latter half of that century when the Kānaka Maoli historians were writing, and so I think it likely that they would have made note of it.
I don’t really see a connection with Makaliʻi, unless it's referencing the planet’s change in brightness, a characteristic that gave it the name Makulu, dripping away, and those derivations. One could liken it to a royal eye — maka aliʻi — glancing about and changing focus while observing courtiers.
Jupiter has a vast array of names to choose from: Ao-hōkū [phonetic variants Au-haku, Au-huku], “dawn star,” when it remains visible in the morning. ʻIao and Wailea are also names for Jupiter as a dawn star. Ka-ʻā-wela, “burning bright,” short form Ka-wela, is another name listed for Jupiter as well as Venus when either one is a morning or evening star.
Hoʻomānalonalo/Hoʻomānalonalo/Mānalo/Mānanalo, “to appease.” This name makes me wonder if Jupiter was used to mark ceremonial times when the Moʻi needed to make a mōhai, a sacrifice, and appease the elementals, and this was the name used for it at that time.
Ikaika translates to English as "strong" and "powerful." It does not seem to be attached to any particular time or phenomena, so I’ll start using it as the general name. Ikiiki is listed in Nā Inoa Hōkū as a possible misspelling of Ikaika. Ikaika is one of the names of Regulus, a prominent star during the month of Ikiiki, and it is the only name I have found so far for Regulus.
Kau-ʻōpae, roughly “emplaced shrimp,” is shared by Jupiter, Regulus, Rigel, and Sirius. ʻŌpae are an ʻaumakua for some ʻohana, so this makes me wonder if these stars are used by those ʻohana. If someone has ʻike to share, that would be lovely, but we need to remember that not all knowledge is noa, free for the taking. Much is kapu, restricted for special use.
Click to view in detail - Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/L. Yuen
Click to view in detail - Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/L. Yuen
Let us focus on the stars in our charts now. We talked about Hōkū-lei in some detail a few months ago, and that I am starting to think that it likely references Capella and the Winter Hexagon more than Capella and Auriga. Part of my reasoning for this is that more star names in the Hexagon have been preserved; while one translation of Hōkū-lei can be “star wreath,” grammatically, the translation “stars rising like a cloud” makes more sense. To indicate this translation, I am using a more cloud-like line.
If you remember from earlier columns, Meʻe is a new name, added to our lexicon by the Polynesian Voyaging Society. There is no recorded Hawaiian name for Corvus, so when PVS was working with Mau Pialug to develop the methodology for wayfinding, they used the Marquesan name, “Mere,” which they translated as “voice of joy.” The Hawaiian cognate is “mele,” “song.” The name I had for Corvus from my storytelling tradition was Pupukea, the younger brother of Lono, and in that storyline, there are many ulu hōkū.
One of the larger ulu hōkū is Peʻapeʻa-maka-walu; the eight-eyed bat is usually translated as Crux, but it actually includes Crux and the pointers, α Centauri and β Centauri. This is the giant bat that kidnapped Maui’s wife and held her captive. We’ll only use this name when we can see the pointers along with Crux.
Just coming into view is Ka-mānai-a-ka-lani. The triangle formed by a line of three stars, the ends of which point to the apex of Lehua-kona, Antares, is the coiled portion of the fishline. The rest of the line is still hanging in the ocean, below the horizon. We will see it come up in Kaulua.
