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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781478006497 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Duke University Press Books |
| Publication date: | 05/04/2020 |
| Pages: | 448 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
PART I. Wahi Pana/Storied Places
* * *
As a place, Hawai'i's value is often defined through its attractiveness as a tourist destination, the productivity of its land for industries such as sugar, coffee, or pineapple (none of which are native crops), or its geostrategic utility as a military site. In contrast to this value system, Kanaka 'Oiwi have a familial relationship to the 'aina that requires interaction based on malama 'aina (mutual care) and kuleana (responsibility).
In Hawai'i, wahi pana is the term used to designate a place as sacred or "legendary." The names of places and people alike "act as mnemonic devices for the remembrance of stories and particular events." In this section, and throughout this volume, contributors use 'Oiwi place-names to remember and honor the mana, the spiritual and cultural power, that resides in places and the persons (humans, other-than-humans, and celestial beings) associated with those places. We approach wahi pana in two registers. First, we honor the familial and genealogical relationship between Kanaka and 'aina by acknowledging all places as sacred. We recognize that stories live in places, and when we learn a place's name, we call forth the stories, great and small, that live there. Second, we recognize that some places are "more" sacred than others because of their profound genealogical importance or the cultural practices associated with them over generations. We believe that telling the 'Oiwi stories of wahi pana is a decolonial practice of restoring the relationship between people and places. In remembering the wahi pana across the pae 'aina (archipelago), contributors often contrast the 'Oiwi understandings of place with how those places are used, treated, and remembered today.
We begin this section with essays and images from Hawai'i Island that are firmly grounded within an 'Oiwi sensibility. Kamanamaikalani Beamer reflects on Hawaiian ways of mapping by decentering tourist understandings of distance and destination, instead indigenizing our orientation to place. This reorientation continues with Haley Kailiehu's and No'eau Peralto's visual and written tributes to an old plantation town in Hamakua; their works illustrate how stories — 'Oiwi and settler alike — are deeply rooted in places. Our 'Oiwi sense of place is disturbed by the next set of essays, which juxtapose wahi pana with various destructive practices taking place across the pae 'aina. Focused on Maui Island, Kapulani Landgraf uses photography to draw our attention to ke one hanau and ke kulaiwi (the birth sands and burial sites of generations of 'Oiwi ancestors) that have been desecrated by construction on both Maui and O'ahu. Concrete does more than hide 'Oiwi wahi pana; the sand used to make the concrete may include the crushed bones of our ancestors. Katrina-Ann R. Kapa'anaokalaokeola Nakoa Oliveira contrasts Kanaka 'Oiwi notions of sacred places with the value of place for science and tourism, whereas Dean Itsuji Saranillio focuses on the discursive violence of place-making when the intended audience is visitors, not the people who live on the islands. Brandy Nalani McDougall's poems take issue with a contemporary mapping technology, noting how the directions given by Google Maps are emptied of history. Her poems, along with the other contributions in this section, remind us that giving and receiving directions in Hawai'i is relational, based on the spatial relationships of the person giving directions to the place to which they are giving the direction, and their relationships to the places from which they are departing and the places to which they are going.
Stephanie Nohelani Teves, remembering the places of importance to Princess Ka'iulani, and Uncle Joe Estores and Ty Kawika Tengan, who remember the lifeways at Ahua Point before the land and waters were polluted by U.S. military occupation, use mo'olelo of the past to help us dream of a future where the land and water can again sustain life. Laura E. Lyons interrogates the conflicted history of Lana'i (one of two islands owned by individuals). Lianne Marie Leda Charlie and a group led by Mehana Blaich Vaughan focus on Anini and Kahale'ala on the island of Kaua'i in order to disrupt the ways that tourists and real estate agents describe and interact with these places. They remind us that some of the most touristic or exclusive sites on the islands are and will always be 'Oiwi wale no!
In the age-old tradition of composing mele (song) to honor places, Halena Kapuni-Reynolds and Wendy Mapuana Waipa begin their essay with an original mele to honor the wahi pana of Keaukaha on Hawai'i Island. With each stanza they remember the beauty of the place and the historical and contemporary stories that keep it alive in our minds and our hearts.
The essays in Part I and throughout this guidebook highlight how contemporary kanaka, both 'Oiwi and their allies, continue to rejoice and celebrate the love they have for wahi pana.
Kamanamaikalani Beamer
Only Twenty Ahupua'a Away
I had just about made it to the showers with my two youngest keiki clinging to opposing limbs of my body. My eldest had already immersed herself in the shower, barely noticing the tourist couple who were rapidly approaching what we were about to claim as our 'ohana shower space. All at once the sound of a brash East Coast American accent pierced our Native ears: "How far is the airport from here?" This was not an unusual question to hear from a tourist at Wailea Beach, which is in South Kohala in the ahupua'a of Waimea on Hawai'i Island. Since the 1960s, when, after spending some time playing on our shores, Laurance S. Rockefeller developed the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel — the first on our coast — our beaches and the spaces between them have been transformed into a playground for visitors.
Having spent the day with my young keiki in the arms of Kanaloa, sliding in waves, constructing what we effectively term punakai, and variously pursuing unlucky sand crabs, I was now washing the sand from my sons' shorts but still close enough to my Hawaiian state of Zen to reflect before responding to the urgent cry for help issued by our uninvited guests. In that moment, I understood that they probably wanted me to give them a distance in miles from our location to the international airport in Kona, or perhaps the approximate amount of time it would take to drive there by car, but I had a much better answer.
"The airport is just about twenty ahupua'a to the south," I uttered while trying to conceal my smirk.
Their expectant facial expressions morphed into puzzled stares that reminded me of the look of a confused child trying to comprehend what they were just told. Holding back my grin with less success, I continued, "You will see the planes landing in what looks to be the middle of the lava when you get close, but there are about twenty ahupua'a between Waimea and the airport."
In truth, at that particular moment, I wasn't sure if twenty-two or perhaps eighteen Ahupua'a were between the showers at Wailea and the Kona International Airport. My retort to my new American East Coast "friends" was also influenced by the fact that I had spent the evening before reviewing materials for an ahupua'a lecture I was scheduled to give the following week, and thus my mind was probably more focused on palena (place boundaries) and ahupua'a boundaries than it might be on another day. Neither of these factors seemed of much significance to the East Coast couple, as they left our interaction perhaps feeling less certainty about their pending voyage than they had before it. The last thing I recall hearing was, "OK, thanks," as they scurried to find another person who might give them an answer that was more aligned with their conceptions of place, boundaries, and the geography of Hawai'i.
I have come to be thankful for that chance encounter, not merely because it allowed me an opportunity to express my poor sense of humor, but because it made me reflect on the ways that people traverse our places unaware of the uniqueness of our geography and systems of palena. Rather than traveling across a landscape mapped and organized by mile markers between points of departure and destination, how might one experience that movement with a more intimate knowledge of Hawaiian geography and place? The landscape between Wailea and Kalaoa ahupua'a in Kona appears somewhat vast on the map distributed by flight attendants on airplanes before landing or by car rental companies. In contrast, while traveling the ma kai road, one becomes an eyewitness to the differing flows of pahoehoe and 'a'a lava that have been laid by Tutu Pele in years prior. Driving long sections of highway one can see along the coastline the Ala Loa trail as it runs between the multiple gated communities that have developed. To the untrained eye it may appear somewhat empty as one drives through large stretches of what some refer to as "barren lava fields." We, however, know that these stones carry the stories of our kupuna — they speak of our place, the diverse environments of our people, and of our palena. In the midst of the rapid changes Hawai'i has faced in the past two hundred years, how do we restore and share our palena, our knowledge of place boundaries?
Palena were established scores of generations before Europeans arrived in Hawai'i. Lands were bounded and defined in ways that made sense to the 'Oiwi of old. What is commonly referred to as the moku or ahupua'a system is a result of firmly established palena. When attempting to translate the word palena, I use "place boundaries" in order to signify that I am speaking of a particular kind of boundary. Palena might be also translated as a "protected place." Palena is a boundary specific to the 'Oiwi system of land tenure. These types of boundaries were not impenetrable fences, as people had the ability to move from one place to another. Instead, palena bound the material and spiritual resources of a place for community access and control while enabling chiefly leadership to regulate resources on the larger scale of the island. Ali'i ('Oiwi chiefly leadership) who accomplished the task of clearly bounding the land and defining palena were often famous for their works, as was Ma'ilikukahi on O'ahu Island. The Hawaiian historian Samuel Kamakau had this to say about Ma'ilikukahi's planning work on O'ahu: "When the kingdom passed to Ma'ilikukahi, the land divisions were in a state of confusion; the ahupua'a, the ku, the 'ili 'aina, the mo'o 'aina, the pauku 'aina, and the kihapai were not clearly defined. Therefore Ma'ilikukahi ordered the chiefs, ali'i, the lesser chiefs, kaukau ali'i, the warrior chiefs, pu'ali ali'i, and the overseers, luna[,] to divided [sic] all of O'ahu into moku, ahupua'a, 'ili kupono, 'ili 'aina, and mo'o 'aina."
The establishment of palena on these geographical scales brought greater productivity to the lands. It would also be a means of settling land disputes among ali'i who would control the bounded lands. Palena enabled konohiki (ahupua'a-based resource managers) to know the limits of the resources to be managed. Important archival sources often tell us that people knew the palena of their ahupua'a so they would not extend their resource gathering across their palena and into an adjoining ahupua'a. Other archival materials state that palena were established because "in old times the people used to fight over cultivating grounds, and so we used to keep the run of the boundaries of our lands."
Palena also played a critical role in the annual makahiki procession (a religious ceremony conducted once a year in which people traversed the entire island). It was at the makai palena of the ahupua'a that ho'okupu (material gifts in a ceremony) would be collected for the ali'i nui (head chief) and akua (god). Near the ahu (mound, shrine) that marked the makai portion of the palena, alia sticks were placed to mark the boundary of the place that was kapu (prohibited). This was a ridged boundary, one that if crossed by a person without kuleana (right to access) would likely result in death. Palena that marked the area where ho'okupu would be collected represent an ordering of the land and resources that allowed the early governments of Hawai'i to manage resources across an entire island. Collecting ho'okupu at the makai portion of each ahupua'a enabled the government to exercise some measure of control over diverse place-specific resources. For an island nation entirely dependent on local marine and terrestrial resources for survival, palena were critical toward establishing manageable units that allowed generations of communities to survive and thrive in what many today might call a sustainable fashion. When it worked well, this delicate balance of top-down oversight of finite resources, coupled with a fully empowered and engaged community with the ability to intergenerationally self-regulate place-based resources, enabled 'Oiwi society to flourish for centuries.
Palena and Place
To understand the palena of an area (moku, ahupua'a, 'ili) like the ancestors did, one must have a much more intimate sense of that place. One might be able to draw imaginary lines over a "space"; however, "place is not a purely formal operator empty of content, but is always contentful, always specifiable as this particular place or that one." This is the lesson that Aunty Lady taught me. When I spoke with Aunty Lady, a kupuna whom I thought had been born in Wai'apuka ahupua'a in North Kohala, I found that she had actually been born in the ahupua'a of Niuli'i (an ahupua'a bordering Wai'apuka). One of the first questions I asked her was whether she had been born in Wai'apuka. Her answer was immediate: "No, I was born in Halilipalala!" I was confused at first, but after further research into the place names of Wai'apuka and their adjoining ahupua'a, I found that Halilipalala was actually an 'ili in Niuli'i, several hundred feet from Wai'apuka. I am sure Aunty Lady knew I would be confused by her answer: you cannot find Halilipalala on any modern map, nor is it a name that one is likely to ever hear today. Perhaps she wanted to see how much I already knew and my intellectual capacity. The sense of place that Aunty Lady conveyed to me was of a much more traditional nature than I had initially realized. Halilipalala, though very close to Wai?apuka in actual measured distance, and indistinguishable on almost any modern map, was a distinctly different place in the eyes of this kupuna.
Often, when you ask a Hawaiian in their forties or fifties, "Where you from?" you are likely to get an answer that is island based, such as Kaua'i, or Maui, or perhaps a moku district such as Hilo. Sometimes you might get an answer that refers to a more specific place, possibly an ahupua'a such as Hakipu'u, Waimea, or Wailua. People my age rarely refer to their places of origin in terms of 'ili. Perhaps it is because most of us were born in area hospitals rather than at home, as most kupuna were. Or it could be because today many of us do not relate to the land in 'ili terms. We definitely live in a different time, and it has indeed changed our perceptions of place. Gregory Cajete states that "Indigenous people are people of place, and the nature of place is embedded in their language[;] the physical, cognitive, and emotional orientation of a people is a kind of map they carry in their heads and transfer from generation to generation."
Cajete's ideas, together with my own personal feelings and experience, have led me to a deeper understanding that one cannot know the palena of an ahupua'a or 'ili without "knowing the place much more intimately" or having information passed down by someone who does. Any inquiry into the nature of palena must be a place-based inquiry. Traditionally, knowledge of boundaries was held in the memories of people who were intimate with their place, geography, and historical land use. In fact, knowledge of palena often included references to other realms of information, such as that contained in oli, ka'ao, mele, and mo'olelo (different types of chants and stories) concerning personages such as menehune, mo'o, kupua, or akua (various legendary or godlike figures). Therefore, place names themselves denote stories and people's relationships with the natural, physical, and spiritual environment. Places — and even elements and natural processes specific to a particular place — were given specific names.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments,
Introduction Hokulani K. Aikau and Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez,
PART I. Wahi Pana / Storied Places,
Only Twenty Ahupua'a Away Kamanamaikalani Beamer,
Ha-makua Haley Kailiehu,
He Mo'olelo no Pa'auilo: Restor(y)ing 'Aina in a Quiet, Old Plantation Town in Hamakua No'eau Peralto,
Ponoiwi Kapulani Landgraf,
Wehe a'ela ka 'Iao ma Haleakala Katrina-Ann R. Kapa'anaokalaokeola Nakoa Oliveira,
(Locals Will) Remove All Valuables from Your Vehicle: The Kepaniwai Heritage Gardens and the Damming of the Waters Dean Itsuji Saranillio,
Finding Direction: Google Mapping the Sacred, Mo'olelo Mapping Wahi Pana in Five Poems Brandy Nalani McDougall,
Princess Ka'iulani Haunts Empire in Waikiki Stephanie Nohelani Teves,
Sources of Sustainment: Fort Kamehameha and 'Ahua Point S. Joe Estores and Ty P. Kawika Tengan,
Fantasy Island: From Pineapple Plantation to Tourist Plantation on Lana'i Laura E. Lyons,
Anini Lianne Marie Leda Charlie,
Kahale'ala, Halele'a: Fragrant, Joyful Home, a Visit to Anini, Kaua'I Mehana Blaich Vaughan, William Kinney, Jessica Kau?i Fu, Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, Francesca Koethe, Cheryl Geslani, Lianne Marie Leda Charlie, Nicholas Kawelakai Farrant, Emily Cadiz, and Jordan Muratsuchi,
Na Pana Kaulana o Keaukaha: The Storied Places of Keaukaha Halena Kapuni-Reynolds and Wendy Mapuana Waipa,
PART II. Hana Lima / Decolonial Projects and Representations,
Ke Kilohana Nanea Lum,
Aloha Is Deoccupied Love No'u Revilla and Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio,
Sovereign Spaces: Creating Decolonial Zones through Hula and Mele Maya L. Kawailanaokeawaiki Saffery,
Settler Colonial Postcards Karen K. Kosasa and Stan Tomita,
An Island Negotiating a Pathway for Responsible Tourism Malia Akutagawa,
Ka Hale Ho'ike'ike a Pihopa: A Bishop Museum Love Story Noelle M. K. Y. Kahanu,
Reclaiming the 'Ili of Haukulu and 'Aihulama Joy Lehuanani Enomoto,
Keauhou Resort: Rethinking Highest and Best Use Gregory Chun,
'A'ole Is Our Refusal David Uahikeaikalei'ohu Maile,
"Where Are Your Sacred Temples?" Notes on the Struggle for Mauna a Wakea Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar,
Kukulu Hale in Hana, East Maui: Reviving Traditional Hawaiian House and Heaiu Building P. Kalawai'a Moore,
Pu'olo Pa'akai: A Bundle of Salt from Pu'olo, Hanapepe, Kaua'i Malia Nobrega-Olivera,
"Welcome to the Future": Restoring Keawanui Fishpond Kalaniua Ritte, Hanohano Naehu, Noelani Goodyear-Ka'opua, and Julie Warech,
PART III. Huaka'i/Tours for Transformation,
The Hawai'i DeTour Project: Demilitarizing Sites and Sights on O'ahu Kyle Kajihiro and Terrilee Keko'olani,
Kanaloa Kaho'olawe: He Wahi Akua/ A Sacred Place Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor,
Fences and Fishing Nets: Conflicting Visions of Stewardship for Ka'ena and Makua Laurel Mei-Singh and Summer Kaimalia Mullins-Ibrahim,
Beneath the Touristic Sheen of Waikiki Ellen-Rae Cachola,
Sakada N. Trisha Lagaso Goldberg,
A Downtown Honolulu and Capitol District Decolonial Tour Craig Howes,
Unearthing 'Auwai and Urban Histories in Kaka'ako Tina Grandinetti,
Displaced Kaka'ako Adele Balderston,
What's under the Pavement in My Neighborhood, Puowaina Noenoe K. Silva,
Mapping Wonder in Lualualei on the Huaka'i Kako'o no Wai'anae Environmental Justice Bus Tour Candace Fujikane,
PART IV. Hawai'i beyond the Big Eight / New Mappings,
Where Is Hawai'i? Hawaiian Diaspora and Kuleana David A. Chang,
We Never Voyage Alone Linda H. L. Furuto,
Law of the Canoe: Reckoning Colonialism and Criminal Justice in the Pacific Sonny Ganaden,
Reconnecting with Ancestral Islands: A Guide to Papahanaumokuakea (the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands) Kekuewa Kikiloi,
Conclusion: 'A'ole I Pau (Not Yet Finished) Hokulani K. Aikau and Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez,
Glossary of Terms,
Select References,
Contributors,
Index,
What People are Saying About This
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