The stray stone
ʻEwa means crooked or wandering. The traditional account has the gods Kāne and Kanaloa throwing a stone to fix the boundary of the district; the stone went astray and had to be searched for, and the district took its name from the wandering.
ʻEwa also serves as a direction. On Oʻahu people do not navigate by compass points but by landmarks: ʻEwa means westward along the coast, as against Diamond Head for eastward, mauka for inland and makai for seaward.