"In the deep night before the image [of Lono] is first seen, there is a Makahiki ceremony called 'splashing-water' (hi'uwai). 

Kepelino tells of sacred chiefs being carried to the water where the people in their finery are bathing; in the excitement created by the beauty of their attire, 'one person was attracted to another, and the result', says this convert to Catholicism, 'was by no means good'.

At dawn, when the people emerged from their amorous sport, there standing on the beach was the image of Lono. 

White tapa cloth and skins of the ka'upu bird hang from the horizontal bar of the tall crosspiece image.

The ka'upu is almost certainly the albatross, a migratory bird that appears in the western Hawaiian chain - the white Lanyon albatross at Ni'ihau Island - to breed and lay eggs in October-November, or the beginning of the Makahiki season."

(Islands of History)