Hill of the ʻōʻō
Puʻu is a hill or cone, and ʻōʻō is either the ʻōʻō bird — a black honeyeater with yellow leg tufts, now extinct — or the digging stick of the same name. Both readings are given.
The ʻōʻō's feathers were among those used in the chiefly cloaks. The last of the species was heard on Kauaʻi in 1987.
1983 to 2018
The vent opened on Kīlauea's East Rift Zone in January 1983 and erupted more or less continuously for thirty-five years — one of the longest rift eruptions ever recorded. It buried the village of Kalapana and the Royal Gardens subdivision, and added hundreds of acres to the island.
The cone collapsed in April 2018, days before the lower Puna fissures opened.