What’s in a name?
Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi that last erupted approximately 4000 years ago. Mauna Kea has an altitude of 4,205 meters (13,796 feet) – much lower than Mount Everest. However, Mauna Kea is an island, and if the distance from the bottom of the nearby Pacific Ocean floor to the peak of the island is measured, then Mauna Kea is “taller” than Mount Everest, making it the “world’s tallest mountain.”
The Current Spelling of Mauna Kea is American and simply means white mountain, it is descriptive. However, “Maunakea” is a name that in Native Hawaiian tradition is short for “Mauna a Wākea,” the mountain of Wākea, one of the spirits of the Hawaiian people. Maunakea is believed to connect the land to the heavens.
MaunaKea, it is said, is where the Sky and Earth separated to form the Great-Expanse-of-Space and the Heavenly Realms. Mauna Kea in every respect represents the zenith of the Native Hawaiian people’s ancestral ties to Creation itself. When we relaunch her, she will be renamed Maunakea.