[dendrite9]

It might be similar to the way there are unclimbed peaks in the Himalaya because the summits are considered holy. For example Kailash is considered holy by several religious groups, and there are pilgrimages to the base of it but there is no record on anyone climbing it. People in Hawaii may have considered the summit holy without building anything up there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash

[sa1to]

No. You should read "Hawaiian Antiquities" by David Malo, a Native Hawaiian historian who lived during the early Kingdom. He documents what happened on the mountains, and as far as I can recall, he only mentions Mauna Kea to mention an adze quarry that was used. You can also read Liluokalani's book. She mentions sacred mountains, but it's Mauna Loa, not Mauna kea. That's not to say there hasn't been religious significance but that it never stopped things like rock quarrying or hiking, or even the early telescope building.

This idea of the mountain being tabooed for anything but Native Hawaiian religious practices is a recent invention by the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement in the form of the TMT protesters, as well as a new "sacred" name they cooked up for it "Mauna a Wakea".

[OldGuyInTheClub]

That's a good point. Not that it changes my mind about the worth of the telescopes but I can see that the peak could have been left alone by Native Hawaiians for those reasons.

[wkat4242]

Isn't the exploration of the mysteries of the universe a great way of putting a holy place to use?

[vkou]

If we're going to be making utilitarian arguments, I'll point out that almost everything you own could be put to better use by someone else.

In this particular case of native Hawai'ians, and there's a long history of mainlanders deciding, without asking them, that their stuff could be put to better use by them.