The Native Hawaiian people have been dispossessed.
If you’ve read our books, attended one of our speeches, or even browsed our website, you know that isn’t new. The Kanaka Maoli were neither the first nor the last to be physically, culturally and spiritually dishonored and eradicated. They find kinship (and support) in their profound losses with their Native American cousins and their Māori ancestors.
History, we know, is easily dismissed. “It wasn’t us; it was them “– and bygone days pass from memory with regret and a vow to never repeat. Or we say to ourselves and our victims, “What is done is done”- just another irreparable wrong that reasonable people now accept.
What is lost in this “past is past” is the dismissal of the present. ‘Iokepa and I (deeply connected to the wisdom of the ancients) still take our breaths in this very moment, and live on a land that is struggling under the weight of that oppression.
It is now, not in some distant past, that the struggle for cultural, spiritual, and national identity crashes head-first into daily life on these suffering Islands.
And so: at this very moment the elected Governor of the State of Hawai’i is negotiating (under threat of federal seizure by eminent domain) with the occupying U.S. Military, who utterly control 230,000 acres of Hawaiian land. At this moment, on these tiny Islands, the indigenous people are forbidden to fish, swim, walk, or live on almost seven-percent of O’ahu, Kaua’i, and the Island of Hawai’i.
And also in this present news cycle: On the tallest mountain on Earth – the sacred soul of the Kanaka - Mauna Kea – continues to be threatened with devastation and development under the rubric of “science” by construction of the hugest telescope on the face of the Earth. The mountain has been chosen by an international astronomy conglomerate for its extreme silence and lack of light. Ironically, these are the very attributes that harbored Native Hawaiian sacred ritual for thousands of years.
I cite these particular examples, only because they’re in the news this week – on the top of my mind. I could have focused my heartbreak or my wrath on any number of daily (hourly) assaults against these original people and their sacred ‘aina.
But what I intend to write about here is not focused on a single, worthy issue, but rather a larger philosophical one – hidden in the folds of language.
The word, “kuleana” – runs to the heart of this culture, and like so many words in Hawaiian to English translation, it is often deeply diminished in its translated meaning. Diminished, I believe, not by intention, but by cultural limitation. Our English-speaking hearts take some rewiring to truly understand the metaphoric Hawaiian language…the poetry…the breadth.
This is an inclusive culture that naturally searches for connection. Hence, in a face-to-face meeting between two Kanaka Maoli strangers, there immediately follows a verbal search of their respective, genealogical roots to discover how they are “cousins.” It happens all the time.
Thus, kuleana to a Native Hawaiian speaks to this deepest responsibility to care for their hallowed ‘aina – mountain to ocean – no less than they are answerable to every piece of Creation that walks that land. It is a sacred trust carried in the heart of the culture.
But recently on Island, a non-native-activist fervently opposed to resort development on Island (who can argue with that?) publicly denounced a kumu (cultural practitioner) on his violation of kuleana.
In typical Island protocol, an indigenous Hawaiian offers a chant - a blessing - at the opening of every public meeting. This dissenting non-native woman – adopting the occupiers’ diminished meaning – insisted that because he was a Native from the west side of Kaua’i - less than 25 miles from the site of the threatened development on our tiny Island’s East side, he had no right to be there..
She wrote:
“Contrary to traditional practice, the Hawaiian blessing, oli, was offered by a practitioner from west Kauai. The Hawaiian culture recognizes that practitioners from the specific area (of the proposed development) are the appropriate people to comment because the project, in the area where they live, is within their kuleana (responsibility, privilege, and concern).”
She named names and she said more.. I have not.
‘Iokepa Hanalei ‘Imaikalani wrote her when he read this public shaming of a fellow cultural practitioner:
“Please step more carefully when you - not Native Hawaiian - choose to speak for what kuleana means to a Kanaka Maoli. You may not speak for us To each indigenous Hawaiian, our kuleana is every tiny, colonized inch of these Islands. This man is a compassionate, capable and observant Kanaka with a great deal of integrity, and you make yourself small in your criticism of him and his efforts. “
To me he added: “By her definition Kanaka have nothing at all to say about the desecration on the mountain – the telescope on Mauna Kea – or the U.S Military appropriation of our land. Isn’t that just another way to silence our voices?”
In this very small story, there resides the essence and essential definition of who these Kanaka Maoli are - and how seemingly difficult it is for one reared in our Western ways to understand and respect them.
We are reared to value words and concepts like, “independence, freedom, privacy…” ideas that are utterly foreign to the Indigenous heart and mind - a mind that joyfully searches for ways to connect and nurture..
In these 200 years since American occupation, language and everything that it represents, has been the kernel and the conscience of the oppressive arrogance, the inflicted pain, and the simple well-meant misunderstanding.
Let’s try harder.