Issue 27 · Vol. 13, No. 3

ALOHA 'AINA The Native Hawaiian Issue

Cover an by 'Imaikalani Kalahele.

Hawai'iReview logo redesign by Guy Gokan.

Joseph P. Salaz's "No Moking" was a winner in the first annual Poetry on THE BUS contest in 1985, and was published in its earlier version as a display placud which appeared on public transit buses of the City and County of Honolulu.

Dana Naone Hall's "The House of Light" was first published in Poetry HafiHiii, Frank Stewan and John Unterecker (eds.), Honolulu : The University Press eX Hawai 'i, 1979.

Michael McPherson's "The Green Flash" and "To My Brother in SanJuan" wm published in Singing With The Owls, Honolulu : Petronium Press, 1982.

Wayne Westlake's "Dogo" and "Flawed Intelligence" first appeared in RamrotiS (1984) .

Hawai'i Review is a tri-annual publication of the Board of Publications, University of Hawai ' i at Manoa. It reflects only the views of its editors and writers, who solely responsible for its content. Correspondence and subscriptions should addressed to Hawai'i Review, Depanment of English, University ofHawai'i, 1 Donaghho Road, Honolulu, Hawai 'i 96822 . The editors invite submissions of drama, fiction, interviews, poetry, translations, reviews and literary essays. scripts must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. rates: one year (three issues), $10.00 ; single copies, $4.00. Advertising rates available upon request.

Hawai'i Review, a member of the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, indexed by the Amencan Humanities Index, the Index of Amencan l:'el.,·l 11111.~ Verse, and Writer's Market.

© 1989 by the Board of Publications, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. 0093- 9625 .

Staff for this Issue

Dellzell Chenoweth Amy K. Conners Puanani Fernandez-Akamine Kelly Ellis Nguyen T. M. Goto Paige N . Donner

Editor-In-Chief Co-Managing Editors

Fiction Editor Poetry Editor Nonfiction Editor

Advisory Board:

Joseph P. Balaz* Dana Naone Hall* Richard Hamasaki

Rodney Morales Michael Simpson Kathryn Takara

*Native Hawaiian, works selected by Staff included in this issue

Special Thanks to:

Kalama Akamine LeRoy Akamine WesCalven Zohmah Charlot Eric Chock Philip Damon Willis Dunne Antoinette Konia Freitas Christine Froechtenigt 'Ekela Kani'aupi'o

Joseph Kau

Charlie Kupa DarrellLum Mari Matsuoka Paul Pinkosh Tony Quagliano Margaret Russo Alben]. Simone Mei-Li Siy Frank Stewart Dorothy Tamura Jeannie Thompson

CONTENTS

FICTION

THE 'ULUPALAKUA MEN 4 Leialoha Apo Perkins

POHAKU'S DREAM 29 P. Delos Santos

THIRTY CAUBRE 42 Adam Campbell

DIGGING FOR L01US ROOTS 47 Kathleen Ngit Jun Young

LEGENDS 58 Brenda Pualani Santos

POETRY

KEAUHOU (SONG OF RENEWAL) 1 Mahealani Ing

THE HOUSE OF UGHT 2 Dana Naone Hall

ONE LONG BLAST 24 Chris K. Taniguchi

THREE CONCRETE POEMS 26 Joseph P. Balaz lWO POEMS 33 Ho'oipo DeCambra

'0 KAHO 'OLAWE I KA MALlE 38 Ko Kahakalau

TWO POEMS 40 Chauncey Caner

TWO CONCRETE POEMS 44 Wayne Westlake

HAKIOAWA BAY 46 Phyllis Coochie Cayan

THE BRAND NEW DAY 66 Les Awana

KA WAI 0 KULANIHAKO 'I 54 Kalina Aloha TWO POEMS 56 Tamara Wong-Morrison

KA'ILI PAU 64 John Dominis Holt

TWO POEMS AND ART 68 'Imaikalani Kal1hele

TWO POEMS 72 Michael McPherson

CHANT

OLI MANOA 22 Jonah Hau'oli Akaka

SONG

THE LARRY CHING SWING 67 David M. Kupele and Puanani Kini

IV

NONFICTION THE REVITALIZATION OF

THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE "HAWAIIAN" VS. "KANAKA

MAOLI" AS METAPHORS KA LIONA HAE 0, KA

PAKIPIKA (THE ROARING LION OF 1BE PACIFIC)

74

77

80

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 81

v

Larry L. Kimura

Kekuni Blaisdell

Keith Keeaumoku Mews

JOHN WA I HEE O Ovi: IIIIIJroi O,.

aXI!CUTIVI! CHAM .....

HONOl. U \.U

MESSAGE FROM GOVERNOR JOHN 1V AIHEE

I am very pleased to extend my congratulations and best wishes to the staff, contributors and readers of Hawai' i Review on the occasion of its special "Aloha Aina" issue, exclusively featurmg works by writers of Hawaiian ancestry.

The Review is a distinguished publication which brings the best of contemporary-rsland literature to University of Hawaii students and subscribers from around the world. It is a mark of the publication's cultural sensitivity that it should showcase the works of writers in Hawaiian and English who spring from the original people of the islands.

The "Aloha Aina" issue will be a collector's item and an outstanding example of the talent which resides in the native-born of Hawaii. I applaud the inspiration that conceived it and commend its authors and publishers on their appreciation of the unique contribution of the people of the land.

JOHN WAIHEE

Mahealani Ing

KEAUHOU (SONG OF RENEWAL)

This earth is sweet, Its spirits full of providence. Mountains shake torrential skies, Cloud and leaf scatter Before their winds. Each far shore is a vision Of colors hovering, disappearing, Circles of light encircling rain.

This place is sacred, A sacrament of blood,

earth, shell and bone. Wraith spirits dance, Teeming gossamer, Transparent wing and gill, While Night Marchers keep Their ancient sojourn.

This land knows the dark incision Of steel, granite, glass; Gray boneyards of iron , Chilling slabs of highrise, Concrete vaults, embalming places For four million souls By the Coroner of Commerce.

This land still sings: Grass, flower, gulls, Surge of ocean, thunder, The wind's lullubye, All a chorus of renewal, A mighty chorus Of eanh 's eternal song.

1

Dana N aone Hall

THE HOUSE OF LIGHT

I

Here is a man with a lamp growing out of his head. When he looks behind him the beam of his light shines on where he has been, the past receding like a tail drawing back into itself. Ahead of him the future dissolves as he goes toward it. He disappears from this moment as though he had come to a turn in the road , taking with him our father the light.

II

Lying on our bed of dreams, the sheets rolled back in waves. You have been swimming toward me all night determined to reach shore by morning. Legs in sight. I feel you pull yourself up my body slapping your fish belly against mine, while the light leaves its desert and sets a root down in us.

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III

Two years gone by. My mother is sitting near the open window when I come in the room. By the light of the moon she shows me growing from the palm of her hand a tree she can't cut down.

IV

The light gone out in the nests, the damp leaves hide the sleeping birds. Under the arm of night I hear the sound of a key that won't turn in the lock. I rise from my bed to open the door, thinking it is you: a star has fallen on the doorstep, I follow its broken light into the street.

3

Leialoha Apo Perkins

THE 'ULUPALAKUA MEN

In the old days, the chiefs ate the eyes of other chiefs, it was said, after conquering them. Chiefs ate chiefs. And the people shifted after.

Then would a man rise up . He would eat the chiefs. Then call himself chief, Ali'i 'ai moku. And the people shifted after.

Finally, the people arose. And they shifted, eating each other up. No one said what happened to the children.

That was Uncle Kinohi 's story. He was talking about Moke, someone said, afterward. Moke was his oldest son. Moke worked for a lawyer in Wailuku. There were many sharks in Wailuku. They were now nosing 'Ulupalakua. Moke was an 'Ulupalakua man. But when he came back, as he would, like Maka himself, called to come by Uncle Kinohi, who wanted to settle his will among his sons (born to him by two wives and one, hiinai­ed, adopted, from his sister, so that there would be all his sons, born and hiinai-ed, as the haole law said it was important to mark in your mind, sep­arately, for inheriting the land, in the end), if there was land to inherit. Kinohi, whose name meant beginning, would divide the land evenly, among all, someone said. Kinohi was one of the last of the old breed of 'Ulupalakua men. He cared for his cattle . He cared for his men. But he was troubled, it seemed.

Over the telephone, the connection jumping with static, Kinohi said there was something he wanted to say to Maka that was more important. "More important?" Maka asked. " More important than what, Uncle?" Maka asked. Kinohi said: "Come. Come." So Maka, Kinohi's hiinai-ed son, came.

Moke, who, as the eldest of Kinohi's natural sons, was also coming. He was arriving by car (his own, he said , bubbling with wonder and glee that even the live static could not put down). Moke would come before sundown, probably. The roads were bad, after the main highway to Kula, because they were quasi-private ; but he would want, of course, for every­body to see his new car.

Maka arrived in early morning, by foot part way, and , part way after hitch-hiking.

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"Take care," the last truck driver had warned him, letting him off. The man laughed uneasily. "Las' time I let one young guy off, dtey wen' find 'is body t'ree days afward in dta bushes down the beach. Dta guy on'y wen' like go surf."

"I'm an 'Ulupalakua man," Maka said , stiffly. Then nodding, testily, he added, "Where're you from? "

"Lahaina," the guy replied. "Oh, yeah. Lahaina. I'ss in dta papers," Maka added, slipping into

Pidgin English as though to get a better handle on the subject. "Fo' mur­der an' dt ' ings. But dtis 'Ulupalakua."

"No make difference iss w'at I saying," the driver finished softly. He smiled weakly, if good naturedly, and ground the gear shift, and waved. The truck jerked forward, then continued in a whine to crawl uphill toward Kula.

Maka shook his head. What did Lahaina people know about 'Ulupa­lakua? 'Ulupalakua people are different. Not only did he know it. Every­body else said so. In Waikiki, even the tourists knew it: they had to pay extra, five hundred dollars, just to ride the bad roads to Makena and this side of Hana, up to see Kaupo Gap on the sea side. They paid one thou­sand dollars more each person to get their behinds blistered sore from horseback riding, over the volcanic flank, if they wanted to see Kaupo Gap the way the 'Ulupalakua paniolo men saw it.

Maka laughed to himself. There was, in fact , little to see, if someone didn't point out things that most people thought not imponant. So one scientist, a botanist, would point out the kinds of weeds growing about, and another scientist, who knew shells, would walk the beach and collect broken shells, and a third scientist, who knew about volcanoes, would walk slowly and poke in the ground pulling up soil and crumbling the earth in his hands. There was a man for bugs, too, and another for special native plants . The whole works. The tourists paid for these people, from the Museum in Honolulu or the University in Honolulu, to talk. Nobody paid attention to the 'Ulupalakua men who sometimes stopped to watch them and listen a little before moving on with their work.

Maka shook his head and turned, heading down toward the beach. He wondered where the young surfer's body had been found. He had heard about the surfer earlier from a retired cowboy visiting his mother in Honolulu. The boy was naked when he was found. Naked. That was some­thing new in 'Ulupalakua, Makena, and Kaupo country. Maybe the guy worshipped the sun like the Indians in South America. Maka smiled. Well, why not? he thought again, wryly, still smiling, wondering why 'Ulupala­kua men didn't do it, too , as they used to , when they were children, visit-

5

ing the Makena shores. His own ancestors worshipped the volcano: they said they worshipped the goddess Pele. And she was right across the chan­nel, smoking, as alive as the sun that woke in the pit of Haleakala. Maka turned to look at the mountain, rising up so high it was deep in mist and clouds. The sun had to sleep there, where it rose, after rounding the sky everyday, as the myth had it. At least that's what Auntie Malia, Uncle Kinohi's second wife, had told him when he fust came to the country.

Auntie Malia knew all the stories (some said, and others-she didn't) 1

and some people's genealogies that she wasn't supposed to know at all but told anyway, if asked by the right people who were supposed to know and somehow didn't, and were grateful to know, finally. All the old stuff, Maka thought, could kill a man. He himself didn't ever know of any man who had been killed by it, but as a child, he had heard of several, some of them relatives of Auntie Malia's, who belonged to the Kuloali'i family. A man in the old days could be crushed by knowing too much. Just as he could be crushed not knowing enough. And when to know it.

Maka reflected on that . He himself knew nothing about the sorcery behind some of the talk. Thank God. Almost everything he "knew" he in fact only felt. That was probably true for everybody else, too, except the kahuna, the Spirit Men. But those had died out when he was very young.

Knowing in those days was feeling. You could be killed feeling. That was how chiefs came to eat other chiefs, whether it was for the mana of the eyes, or the mana of the blood, which was the same as the people that he ruled over, ka po 'eo ka 'aina. Something more than the 'ohana, because a bigger thing, like the 'aina too. People killed for mana. Without mana, you couldn't live. Everybody knew that. Only if you worked hard, like Uncle Kinohi, did you not seem to have to think about mana. Uncle Kinohi never claimed to know anything about mana. He said he knew about what was kapu. That he told his sons about it over and over again. "That's kapu; so is this; and this, and the other thing .... " So obviously he knew many things. He never knew, he said, how to say them right, sometimes, but he prayed to the spirits, the ancestors, or the mana bearing force, for forgiveness before or after he talked. He never claimed to know anybody who was dead from kahuna 'ana'ana. Auntie Malia, his second wife , knew almost everybody that had died, of both natural and spirit causes. Or, of course, she said she did. As a boy, Maka believed her. It was only after he had had his fust girl that he stopped believing she knew. He knew that what she knew was only what she felt. Feeling was knowing. She was like anybody else, that is, like him, for instance. Deep down inside, they all knew the same thing.

But Uncle Kinohi must have had mana, anyway. He was ending

6

living a long time. He outlived three sons and a daughter and two mo 'opuna. One of the mo 'opuna, the third grandson, died just from fall­ing off a horse. Uncle Kinohi said that that one wasn't meant to be a paniolo like the rest . He was meant for lawyering, he laughed, spitting on the ground. That's probably what gave Moke the idea that lawyering was what you ought to be if you couldn't stay on a horse even if you wanted to, which he didn't. The bad thing was: the family began to break up, just about that time.

He himself had left 'Ulupalakua because of the war. He wanted to go to war. So he went. When he came back, to Hawai' i, he knew he now knew too much. He knew the wrong thing. And it wasn't from feeling. He knew it in his mind. He knew it in his bones. It was like staring at the sun. There was nothing a man could do for that kind of knowing. But to think one more idea after it, and then after that. It was the way the haoles knew any­thing, by their minds, first, or at least they thought it was. That was when he got Uncle Kinohi's static jumping telephone call. Come, Uncle Kinohi had said. "Maka, come," Kinohi said. Maka came.

Once off the main road, which smelled of fresh, hot black tar, and into the woody kiawe trees, which littered the beach with long finger, crooked yellow beans that gave off a musty smell, Maka could hear the cat­tle bleat and in between the bleating, the small cries of men. He sauntered down the trail, side stepping the straw manure dropped by horses, and sighted the long length of the beach, the dunes flagging pink Pohuehue out of green ground creepers. In the Northeast, black clouds came barrell­ing down the sky. But they would pass. The Moaeae Wind would blow drily across the channel to strip Kaho'olawe of its red dust until it was bone bare. It had always been that way, as long as he could remember. For some reason, Maka felt comforted. What did Uncle Kinohi want to tell him that he couldn't say over the telephone? Was he sick? Who talked to him about making a will? In 'Ulupalakua, men made haole wills if they were afraid and thought they were going to die. 'Ulupalakua men made no wills. They talked.

But there was, offshore, in front of him, Uncle Kinohi, loading cattle in the boat, like the rest, like his sons, who were half his age. His hair was white . But he moved as quickly as the rest, bending and pulling, stretch­ing up to engage the tackle and block to the strap on the cattle's back, then slapping the beast, and calling for it to be hoisted . Over and over again, with each beast, Kinohi did this. He looked tireless: always ready for the next one to go. Then the next. Then the next. That was what the old

7

'Ulupalakua men could do , all day, and then lie down to sleep in their beds as though the day had been the most wonderful, satisfying day of all. Someone outdoors would be playing a guitar and the men would be sing­ing; and in the single men's quarters, some men would be singing, too, in their sleep. Unless they dreamed. Or walked in their sleep.

On the whaler, at sea, Kinohi finally unhooked the last steer's hom from the strake on the side of the boat. He guided the animals, treading water on the side, to the steamer. The animal was thrashing the water. The boat began to rock . Probably the beast had struck the boat with its thrash­ing. The surf was rolling, then dropping.

Iosea, Kinohi's youngest son, was balancing himself on legs widely set apart.

Crouched below, in a canoe riding the waves on the side of the whaler, was Apoliona, the cowhand, watching. Beside him, holding the slack in the rope, to give the two boats space, maneuvering the waves, stood Ioanne. Ioanne was older than Iosea, but as thin as a nail file to Iosea's water barrel body. Ioanne too was watching. But unlike Apoliona, he was leaning forward, ready to spring into action . He was a true 'Ulupa­lakua man 's son. And he was his mother's son, for he was as geode as he was quick and helpful. He was known to take great pains, when butcher­ing, to avoid giving the animal pain. Other men had not half the same kindness in their whole bodies. Yet Ioanne never wept. He never wept even at his own mother's funeral. His mother was Auntie Malia's older sister. He buried his mother the same way he butchered cattle, as though it was the last thing he was going to do in his life, and so he needed to do it right. He would have been good, Maka now thought, in one of those old men's houses in the South Pacific, as his Samoan sailor friend told him about, when old men in their tale telling boasted and bragged. Ioanoe would be the kind who, without saying a word , could shut up men bigger even himself. Yet for some reason, people loved Ioanne. The stallions went him without balking. The stray dogs nuzzled up to his legs. The uu~.u'WAI)

climbed his shoulders and got paraded around or swung in the air. The men told him their secrets. Even the women asked him to negotiate, brothers said, disputes between their lovers' fathers and their own fathen.

Maka looked back at the sea, again . The men rose and fell in rh .. ,..hr.r.

with the boat's peaking waves and dropping troughs. The boats took waves diagonally. Regularly, every three to five sweeps of wave, mounted , then fell, rose to sight, then were lost again. The thunder surf on the reefs, like the long, white beach with its vigorous blunting the crawling sand in the wind, lay like a veil of peace over shore.

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Maka lay down on his back, and stretched himself fully, putting his hands under his head. In the sky, the sun ftltered through rolling clouds, billowing like old galleons in full sail. The cool wind nagged him, but the filtering warmth of sun teased him into napping. He dreamed. He found the body of the surfer. It was lying face down in a brush close to a rock peb­bled stretch of the beach. He turned it over. He was shocked. It was his own face . He cried out. Then awoke. He sat up. It was mid-morning and the crew of the Humu 'ula seemed to be lifting the last steers of the second load of cattle for the hold.

This animal was hooked onto a block and tackle. A boatswain (or he looked like one) whistled; the steer was positioned, hanging above deck, as it moaned, suspended over what must have been a hole; then it was swung down, swiftly, deftly. The inertia of its weight, combined with the forward­ness of the wind and the lurching of the ship made it moo loudly and mournfully, as it was thrust out of sight. The next animal , a calf, bleated wildly, bucked and whined , and then slowly was lifted, swung, and put out of sight. There was loud jocular shouting now between the various men on the several boats and the wind shifted landward, carrying laughter like a balm to the forlorn event. And then there was a clink of metal, and the kick of an engine starting up.

Maka lay down, slowly this time, on his back, again, and watched a wispy cloud float by. When would it all end? he wondered. It might never end, he reflected. Nothing ever ended. Everybody just started again, the whole world over, as though forced by habit.

He would not allow that to happen to him, he thought. Or, if he did, he should deserve it. 'Ulupalakua men took care of themselves. He, Maka, was an 'Ulupalakua man, like Uncle Kinohi . Well, almost. Ioanne was an 'Ulupalakua man. He had the best part of everything; he was a rain barrel of a man, and gentle as a lamb.

Yet he was like everybody else. He raised cattle. He bred horses. He took care of himself, whether on the ranch, or when lost on the slopes at night. Maka, in moments of reflection before falling asleep nights, had wondered why he had preferred going to war for the life that lay all about him. He knew now how hopeless war was. But before his own eyes, even life, repeating itself here, for all its independent ways that molded a man, had a hopeless side to it, too . It was the same in the Honolulu nightclubs. Only once did a man, a tourist, ever go up to him and tell him that he had listened. He was a haole from Texas. He invited Maka for a drink. They drank all night, after the show. The next morning, the haole bought a boat ticket to go home to Texas. Maka went on singing. Now, for sure, he must leave that, for this, an independent life, working animals on the

9

land. Or was it the sky and the wind over the land, the animals protesting, the men laughing, that made him feel that the spirits of the 'aina was there with him, talking into his feelings the things he sometimes could find no words to think out loud in.

He would talk to Uncle Kinohi and to Ioanne. And to Apelama, the youngest of Kinohi's sons, the hot head, the impetuous, the quick tem­pered, the handsome one who worshipped his eldest brother Moke, now lawyering in Wailuku.

Apelama was the child that Uncle K.inohi loved the most. He was the last. And Apelama adored his father, even more than Moke, his eldest brother. He made songs up in his head and sang them around the campfire at night, long after almost everyone had bedded down. He sang, at times, as though he saw things through his father's eyes-the 'aina, foe instance, and the spirit of things hovering over it. He sang at night. In the day, he hunted wild cattle.

Maka wondered if Apelama had received the gun he'd sent him for his birthday. It was a Winchester rifle Maka found in a pawn shop on River Street, in Honolulu. Whoever had owned it had loved guns. The Winches­ter was as good as brand new, if not better. The trigger was firm but easy to pull; the barrel must have been cleaned every day. It was a rifle that had been loved. Maka put his money down on the counter, quickly, before the shopkeeper changed his mind about the price. Maka took the gun home, wrapped it in corrugated cardboard and brown paper, boxed it, and sent it by mail. He had not heard if Apelama liked it or not. He was almost sure he would. Enough bullets were sent with it to shoot wild cattle for at least two years. Maka saw to that. Apelama and his brothers had little spare money to buy bullets; so they shot carefully, making each shot count.

Now, it struck Maka as crazy that he should have sent his favorite cousin a gun. He might have sent him new denim pants and a pair of good boots, instead-except that he knew Apelama loved guns. He was a cham­pion sharp shooter among the men. He could shoot farther and straighter than anybody else in 'Ulupalakua, excepting the oldest cowhands, at least ever since he was ten years old. Only Ioanne had a gun; and Ioanne had no love for guns. He used a gun the way he used a knife, to get the job uvLKi•~Jm Then he put it away. Apelama spent hours holding Ioanne's gun, the click of the trigger, cleaning the barrel, over and over again, Ioanne took it away, hung it up, and told Apelama to go to sleep. Apelama stayed up, wide awake, singing. That was after Moke had gone Wailuku. In the daytime, Apelama spent much time looking down road, Levi had said, for Moke to come home. (Levi was then visiting

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lulu to see a doctor about his lungs. He had coughed up blood. He was told to quit smoking. He quit smoking and took up drinking as though to make up for it.)

Apelama, Levi said, was a lady killer except he loved guns, not girls. "Waste time ," Levi finished, spitting. Asked once to draw up a wish list, he wrote busily many things, quickly, so that he was the first to finish, and the first to slap his paper on the table . Every line was filled with the word: girl. That is, until he knew a girl, and like Moke, he would say, instead, woman. Yet Levi was the church goer, the one who tithed and got others to tithe, so that the Protestant Churches all around sought him for fund rais­ing every year and sometimes three times a year. He was the only one in the family that was elected to become a Deacon. Not even Uncle Kinohi had ever got that close to God. Uncle Kinohi had Apelama, somebody once said , as Levi always had a woman, a different one most times, on his mind.

Levi met his women in his fund raising trips all over the island. One year he even got Moke to tithe, for the family's honour. That was the same year he introduced Moke to Iliahi who gave binh to a child, who died , and the year he also brought home the hapa-haole woman Makalena that he said had no family. (Makalena was from O'ahu, she said, but all the rela­tives she talked about somehow lived on Kaua'i .) Uncle Kinohi promptly got Mr. B-, the owner of the ranch, to buy her a boat ticket to return to

O'ahu. "You heard of disease in women?" he asked Levi sharply, in Hawaiian, which the woman did not understand , for she kept wetting her finger with her tongue and soothing a bruise on her arm that was black and blue, and smiled up at Uncle Kinohi as though what he said must have been a compliment. "But look at her!" Levi protested. " She 's healthier than any one of the cattle in your pen!''

The next morning, Uncle Kinohi, ticket in hand, and Apelama beside him, escorted the woman to the boat. The woman had thought she was going to work for Mr. B-and his men, cooking, as Levi had promised, she said. Once she saw herself being led to the beach, she said Levi had told her there was a job for her on Mr. B-'s ranch . What she didn' t say was that when she saw Apelama, on the day she arrived , she forgot about cook­ing. Levi was then not unhappy to see her go. She went, it was said, because Apelama took her. Apelama took with him Ioanne's gun, to go shooting wild cattle, afterward, he said, which is what he did .

That weekend, with a gun, a water canister, a blanket, and a horse , Apelama camped in the forest he loved. It was misted with clouds. It was cold, even below the forest line. Late Sunday night, Apelama brought

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back, slung over his saddled horse, the largest wild Longhorn ever weighed in at the B-ranch.

Apelama brought back also a new song. He chanted the mele, lyrics, in oli ha 'ae 'ae style.

II

Aloha ka 'aina o Haleakala Na kumula 'au o ke akua kahiko Ka mea kahiko -ka zliahi, ke koa, Kawai 'anu 'anu, ka makani 'uwe. Keia ka wahi o ko makou makua Ka wahi wai lele i hele ike kahakai Ka wahi o ka ua kea, o na nalo 'opua 0 na hoku kino /au o ka lanipo 'ele Ihea ka Ia aia ka makahiki? Ihea ka po 'e Hawai'i aloha ka 'aina? Iloko ka 'aina o ka pu 'u wai I ka pu 'uwai /ani aka wai honua I ka wai mauna e lele ike kai. Aloha ka 'aina o Haleakala. Aloha ka 'aina, ke akua o ke 'aina He 'uwe ka makani, piha nui o na nalo He leo o ka ua, he millie o ka wai, Ke kumula 'au ho 'oulu mai Ka mea hanau o ka Ia aka po I ka hale o ka Ia, i ka ipu o ka wa. Aloha o Hale-a-ka-/a.

A horse neighed. A man shouted. A horse galloped. Maka sat up . Ileialoha's horse turned, drawing the steer seaward by a rope around

its neck. Ileialoha had spun his rope in the air and then bent forward to catch the Hereford in a dead-eyed ring. The animal wheeled on its back hooves, bucked, then plunged into the breakers, prancing and playing for a yield in the grip of the rope. Ileialoha drew the rope tighter. He strained at the horse's leash to make the animal turn. The horse turned, obediently, excitedly pawing the sand. The Hereford fell. Bleating frantically, it strug­gled to rise to its feet in the foam, rose, and then lunged toward the ocean snapping the lasso taut. The horse strained; the rope held. The Hereford was then lassooed on its opposite flank by Levi . Together, Ileialoha and Levi drew the animal into the shallows of the water.

Punting their whaler almost to shore, then heeling just before the breakers, Kinohi and Iosea caught the rope from Ileialoha, first, then the

12

rope by Iosea. They tied both to the side of the boat and deftly rowed back out to the ship, guiding the Hereford forward .

On the beach, the wind blew the sand steadily and silently over the green creepers and into the stand of kiawe trees.

For over a hundred years, since the explorer Vancouver had brought horses and cattle to the islands, men had been working the ranches. Now, there were iron horses that carried packed meat from slaughtering houses far away to the islands. The meats were almost as good to eat as those butchered fresh at home. But imponed meat was cheaper. Now, ships much bigger than the Humu'ula were carrying tons of meat in their holds. On the 'Ulupalakua ranch, there was slaughtering only once a week , if that often. And fewer and fewer men to do it . Men were moving away. Their sons were never coming back.

Some men who went away to war married into the military life. It was a man 's life. For some men.

Uncle Kinohi had never stopped his sons from going to war. The sec­ond eldest went . And never came home. The third went. And was killed in action in the Marne. The founh was gassed and died in a Red Cross hospi­tal. Only he, Maka, went, and returned. And for some reason he did not move back to the ranch. He never quite understood why. He just didn't, after an honourable discharge.

He felt uneasy, now. It was as though he had never had the same blood in his veins like Uncle Kinohi's sons . But he had always prided him­self for being an 'Ulupalakua man, even when, in fact, they lived in Makena, on the shores of the Haleakala slopes, not mauka, midway up the volcano's flank. Uncle Kinohi's family were nevenheless 'Ulupalakua men, from original stock.

In a sense, he, Maka, had been his mother's son, in fact, not his uncle's. But it was his uncle whom he felt to be his father. It had been the paniofo life that had made him a man. What the war did was to sour him toward killing anything. A gun was just another knife that a man got uained to turn on another man called The Enemy, somebody he'd never in his own life ever dream needed to be killed or that would want to kill him, first. Uncle Kinohi and Auntie Malia had raised sons into men, and then the government took the sons, it turned them into soldiers trained to kill; it gave them guns to turn a soldier to kill other soldiers, who had also been raised into men. Did he, Maka believe in surviving? A fellow soldier had asked him, when Maka had spoken quietly of his feelings. Sure, Maka had said. I've killed animals. But men? Just kill , the fellow had said. You've got to. Or get killed. That's all. Maka shook his head. The fellow laughed.

13

Don't ask questions. Questions stop you from moving. Jesus, Maka returned, said Do Not Kzll. The soldier smiled. Jesus, he said, was some­times dead wrong. The man wrinkled his nose, like one who had smelled a dead horse. The fellow went away. Maka saw him many times later, but never talked to him again.

One day, after the war, a friend discovered that Maka had a good, strong voice . He was invited to sing. Then he sang in troupe after troupe, so that he became quickly known as a singer of the old Hawaiian songs. Only one of his songs was about the life he knew. He came to think that that was because there was nothing to be said about it. If anybody knew about it, they weren' t putting it down in song. The things he would have liked to sing about in Hawaiian came out in the cowboy songs from the haole's Country Western . Everybody loved those. Where were the paniola men, the 'Ulupalakua men? In his singing, he felt, he was his mother's son. In the city, life was soft. He liked it. He liked it very much. But it wasn't, to him, in a sense like life at all. It was more like a dream. Soft music. Soft lights. Soft sell . He worked at night by electric lights. And slept when the sun shone by day.

On the beach far away, the wind blew sand into circling gusts . The waves , the animal cries, the wind blew in sudden whining blasts, like muted fog horns in the stillness.

One by one, as Uncle Kinohi and his men turned mauka, landward, and seeing Maka on the beach, they waved at him from a distance. Ileialoha and Levi had waved, too, before riding off, probably to look for another escaped Hereford. Maka held up a cigarette for the men on horse­back. Ileialoha laughed. He waved, then rode off into a thicket of trees.

Maka lit himself a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, the taste of tobacco delicious in the sea salted air. He would telephone to Honolulu that he was not going back. He would stay. He would stay.

Out from the east, in a glistening morning of sunlight through driz­zling rain, a long winding herd of cattle marched single ftle between a band of men, on horses. Obediently, the cattle followed the leader in the upward climb to theE-Ranch.

Maka waved at the 'Ulupalakua cowboys. They waved back, rocking slightly on their saddles from the high stepping horses. Maka removed his cigarette and watched them. That was the real life, to him. That was the life he'd never forget.

He imagined himself in the saddle, among them. Exhausted, having got very little sleep and having had too much caring of the cattle for days

14

on end, he knew the wonder at the sight of Haleakala, and of 'Ulupala­kua, nestled among trees halfway up the barren mountain slope, In the three days past, the radio news bulletin had been gloomy about torrential rains in Hana. The nights had been moonless and the night rains, treacher­ous for the cattle. Some of the cattle would be walking with pneumonia, like the men, filing alongside them. Upcountry, there would be hot coffee, dry clothes, and bed. Looking downcountry, it would seem that driving the herd from Hana was just in the day's work. It was. And it wasn't. Men died from it like the cattle. Some men, like some cattle, never survived the ordeal, en route.

The herd had been driven from Hana to Kipahulu to Kaupo and then to 'Ulupalakua, through the Makena shore gate . This herd was mainly of Holsteins. They were for milking. Their hooves would be bleeding. Of a hundred head, sometimes a fifth died upon arrival. Raised to the lush soft soils and green of Hana, the cattle had to be forced, inch by inch, over the trails and narrow gauges of mountain coastal passes, skirmishes of valleys, among rocks, over soft and dry sand. The passes rounded palisades that divided Hana from Kaupo. Some parts of the foot paths were scarred, defacements of the rock from cattle hooves . Other parts ran so steeply in places that the animals easily could slip on the wet stones to their deaths in the valley below. Sometimes men and animals were tempted to loiter, for the green, from the danger. It was necessary to press forward, to go at an even pace, to keep moving, bearing the dangers in the momentum. Always, a man kept his eyes on the animals, seeing that they didn't stray, didn't turn aside and slip , didn't rush, didn't stop-just kept up the even, cautious pace set by the lead, step by step.

There were spots to camp at, and spots not to camp at; and at times, no choice but to camp where it was no place to camp. One such place was a narrow pass that was covered with moss and fern, whipped by swirling mists blown inland by the winds that ran across the narrow waterway from Kaho 'olawe Island. A freak wind could move in an angry red dust storm over the channel and blind cattle and men already wending their way through mist and over slippery, precipitous rocks.

There were cool waterfalls that thundered down into the valleys below. On the Hana side, the vegetation was lush as in paintings of para­dise. On the 'Ulupalakua side , there was rock. Scrub. More rock. Scrub. It was Haleakala's volcanic slope and its deep valleys that were grand, that bound the men, with their animals together, as of one and the same, 'ohana, family, on earth. Where one place was scrub, the other was richly fertile ; where one was for breeding cattle, the other was for gardening.

A good herding would come from three nights by moonlight.

15

Even so, the sight of the 'Ulupalakua slopes, the volcano head above it shrouded in douds, was like light after knowing a darkness. The animals sensed this. They moved more quietly, nodding. The paniolo galloped up and down the flanks of the herd, whooping things up, laughing, stretch­ing the horses' legs from the cold cramp of the treacherous long march. He, Maka, would stay. But it could, in the end, kill him, as it had others­the Kukulu Brothers of Huelo, the Simpson boy of Kaena, the Kahikiola men of Kahakuloa, even some of the best paniolo, Ikua and Pono, their brothers and fathers, for generations, all 'Ulupalakua men. These had broken in the wild white stallions of Vancouver and helped to tame the land. But in the end, they had won only for the day. In those days, that had been all a man asked for: growing up on the land, loving it, wanted nothing more than the feel of 'ohana between the old and the young, the sky, the sea, the land. Now, there was something more, something fore­boding. Men seemed obsessed with possessing the land. Men killed to own it. Something evil had crept into the old life. Where was that young haole surfer found, the truck driver said? Who killed him? The land itself was stained by the blood of the innocent young, perhaps by other young. Usurpers. Was Moke one of these , in his lawyering? Was he playing chief? Was anyone an Indian? Apelama had to be an Indian. He could never be anything else. Io was a chief but believed he was an Indian. Only Kinohi knew he was an Indian. He let Moke be chief. Moke, who loved girls and lawyering, was chief. Maybe knowing how little love was lost between him­self and Moke, Uncle Kinohi had called him to 'Ulupalakua. Maybe his coming was to play the two hands off against each other. As for himself, he never wanted to own the land. He wanted only to use it: to use cattle, and keep a garden, and go camping, and stumble across ali'i bones such as were found at Kanaio- of men who must have been gods, it was said, because like Owekolani, the earth trembled when they walked and the wind howled that old man Hapakuka could rope all cows by himself that the young took two to hold, one for the head, one for the legs, both let go, in the end, because they were not yet men. Today, men sought to buy and own land, even when they had no love for it, knowing it could, and in some cases probably would kill them. Did Kinohi want him to meet Moke, Chief? Maka smiled wryly. Moke, who was like a boy before a woman, could sign the 'ohana off the land. And there would be nothing anyone could do. The children would be sent away, like Makalena, to shift for themselves. Among the 'Ulupalakua men lived a worm. And it could kill all, because it was trusted-and loved. And loved, even after it betrayed them. And it knew it. It knew it. Because it was one of their own.

'A 'ole aloha 'aina. Aloha ka po 'eo ka 'aina. It wasn' t for love of the land. It was for love of the people. I ka wa kahiko, ho 'alike keia mea ke/4

16

mea. In the old days, they were one and the same. I keia wa, ho 'alike 'ole. In these times, they are not alike.

And so the children, becoming like chiefs, ate their elders. And then, because they hungered for more and more, they began to eat each other.

III

In the summers , since he was six, Maka had worked the ranch. He helped to herd cattle; he watered them. Some, the soft eyed Guernseys, he milked for Mr. B-'s children. Mostly he helped keep the Herefords. He cleared the pastures of stones for walls. He repaired wooden fences . He restrung slack wiring and tested the wells that sometimes went dry, when the sugar plant­ers sneaked to the watershed and laid temporary flumes to route the streams into their fields miles away. That left little for small ranchers. For some, it left nothing. For those luckier, it left water only between three o'clock in the morning and five. That would be the schedule one day. The next day, the schedule changed. In Wailuku, the lawyers said that the water had to be opened once a day for the people. But the law didn't say which hour, or which people. Of the haoles , only Mr. B- helped the small ranchers like Kinohi; but he couldn't do too much, he said, or too openly. He, too, had to live among the others. He wasn't, in a sense, a man like Mr. R- of Kaua'i, who had Hawaiian in his blood and fought everybody, for justice. Haoles like Mr. R- were like manna in the Bible. Only a place like Kaua'i would have a man like that. Other men had to be careful. Everybody, they said , needed his day, his place. The question was: where was the Hawaiian paniolo?

Once, Maka helped a County Engineer draw up a map of the water table. The man had nearly fallen off his horse, when trying to dismount, at the house. Uncle Kinohi gave him okoleha, because the man said he was cold. He was sweating from the heat, probably, but he said it was from fever. He must already have had a jug before he arrived. He looked grog­gily at the men about him and then laughed that they were eyeing him in turn. He confessed, he said, that he was stronger on the "theory side" than on the "facts" about mapping a water table. In the end, he went to sleep after telling Uncle Kinohi to put down on the roll of butcher paper that he carried in his saddle bags, what Uncle knew of the streams, the probable underground sources, and their points of origins and convergences. Uncle got the boys, after work, to trace the streams they knew about, and to

observe the distances, before writing things down in a school tablet he bor­rowed from Maka's school bag. Then they collaborated on the mapping. When the County Engineer felt fit to leave, the work was mainly done. The Engineer took the map to Mr. B-. Later, when the map was published,

17

there was a note thanking Mr. B- for his help, not Uncle Kinohi and the men. Mr. B- apologized for it. The Engineer wrote nothing back, no apol­ogies, no thanks, nothing.

" Well," said Uncle , " That's not an 'Ulupalakua man." Apelama spat. Uncle Kinohi tousled Maka's hair. "You learning, eh?" he asked.

Then he asked in Hawaiian: Can you learn to map an underground stream, living in Honolulu? Maka sheepishly shook his head. Everybody laughed. Maka was then known as a Honolulu boy. In the regular parts of the year, Maka went to school in Honolulu, "to go learn English," his mother said, ''because you nevah going be not' ing if you no can talk good, an' write yo' name down come sign pepa time." In Makena, where Uncle's place was, he was considered soft. In 'Ulupalakua, he was thought mainly ignorant about growing up a man. " In Honolulu, you on' y push pepa, eh,?" Ileialoha once said as though he were asking instead. He laughed, and then seeing the others laughing, he stopped, and took the boy under his wing. "Nevah min' ," Ileialoha assured him. And to the others, he said, " 'Ohana iss 'ohana. "

But it was loanne who rescued Maka. Ioanne taught him everything that needed doing and when. Ileialoha was only a few months older than Maka but bigger. He had "finished" school at grade seven, because in two years he had grown six inches taller and put on seventy pounds so that the other school children began to tease him. Uncle Kinohi agreed that he could stay at home if he read his books; but the teacher never came, as she had said she would, to check on him, so his books got dusty and finally torn up for making a fire . The next year, his mother had to pay the school for it and buy him another one.

By comparison, Maka knew very little compared to others his age. At age twelve, Ileialoha could rope Longhorns that had strayed from Kolikoli Cone, where the B- family had once kept a corral. He could do everything perfectly, so Maka was put to learn from him. But it was Ioanne who showed Maka how to do things, step by step. Ileialoha could only do things, all in a flash. But he didn' t like to answer questions. He said that that was not the way the 'Ulupalakua men worked. They watched. And then they did it. That was all. "Honolulu people-diffrent. Dtass all," he concluded. So Maka went to Ioanne.

After the second summer, Maka asked Uncle Kinohi if he could live on the ranch all year. When Uncle worked for Mr. B- which was much of the time, the boys helped him; then they returned home to Miikena to work their ranch.

Seven years went by. Maka got a Cenificate for finishing the ninth grade. Mainly he checked off answers to things. Or he put down sums, like

18

store keeper Kulolo, who wore glasses to watch every penny add up, said, and after ten years still didn't trust the numbers in his head

wrote down everything. When Kulolo died, and the families got the •'-''uuL" that he had kept of what they owed him, and paid or didn't pay him, they were amazed how beautiful his handwriting was and that they owed him still so much money that they had forgotten about. But, in fact,

had worked for Kulolo when they couldn' t pay the debts. There were no dollar signs after their names for the times they worked, when they couldn't pay him back. But they framed his accounts, anyway. Or covered their walls with the bills. Some covered their unpainted parlors with the paper, to close the cracks between the slats of wood, keep the rain and wind out , and give the room a spruced up look. Maka liked Kulolo . He imitated him. He licked the pencil lead for good luck, like Kulolo, before writing things down. He did very well in his school papers. He had a strong memory. And he didn't mind reading. Ioanne, who read his Bible even better than the minister of the church, taught Maka how to read the Bible. He memorized verses, and then whole passages, and then the psalms. Ioanne was delighted. Maka was happy to repay him with the pleasure. In the end, it made the great difference between himself and the others, who didn't like to read, but could recite longer parts of the Bible than he. Except for Uncle Kinohi himself, who spoke even less than Ioanne , but from whom everybody waited to hear things fall, in his rich, resonant voice , his phrases cadenced like Apelama's lyrical songs.

Apelama had dropped himself over the side of the canoe and had swum back to shore. Stumbling up the beach, he yanked his pants back up over his slender thighs, buttoned himself, stretched and snapped the sus­penders over his shoulders, and ran to Maka.

"W'at you doing heah, Bra?" Apelama asked, embracing his cousin. "Ei, I wen' get dta rifle. T'anks, aah? Ev'ybody like go use 'em, firs' t'ing, fo' hunt pheasant! Dtat firs ' time , we get t'ree. I nevah write because . .. well, you know . .. hard fo' write , you know. I not like you! But how come you can get dtat kin' money? You rich o' somet'ing?"

"You look good," Maka said, studying him-a tint of red in his dark hair. "You in the fields all the time, now? "

"Yeah. I'ss goo ' fun!" The boy was almost six feet tall. He was scarcely sixteen.

"An' ev'ybody else?" "Good. Excep' fo' Moke. He wen' change his name, you know. He

like you go call him Pita, now." Apelama spat on the sand. It hardly dark­ened the sand, for the force of it.

"Pita," Maka repeated. " Did he tell you why?"

19

"He going be like one lawyer now, fo' real. He can make pepa. All by himself." Apelama spat.

Maka smiled. "What's this? First you love 'im; then you hate 'im?" "Moke iss who I know. Pita I no like know." "Why?" "He wen' sell dta lan' ." "Did Uncle tell him to?" "No. He wen' tell ' im go borrow money. Make loan. He nevah wen'

tell him sell. But he wen' sell." "He gave him the power of attorney?" "I don' know w'at. All dtat stuff!" "He sold all the land?" "Well, not all. I t'ink." "How much?" "Dta goo' part. Dta part fo' raise cattle. Dta part get water. The res'

-iss junk lan' . You no can go do not'ing on 'em, but sleep, night time. No mo' tree, no mo' wate' , no mo' not'ing, but one sinkhole. Oh, yeah. Get dta sinkhole. You know-dta sinkhole you an' Moke wen' fight, one time, fo ' show off in front Papa?"

"Yeah. What about it?" "Dta gov'men' wen ' send dta tax man. He tell us: go borrow money.

Dta banks like len' us dta money. So we sen' Moke go talk to dta bank. He wen' talk, an' when he come see us dta nex' time, he tell us 'Okay! Paul' Two weeks afte'ward, one letter come. It tell us we gotta move."

"Who bought the land?" "I t'ink dta bank." "Which bank?" "Mok-Pita's bank." "What do you mean: Pita's bank?" "He work fo' dta bank. Ei , he get one ca' now, an ' one truck, too.

Nex' to one gun, dta truck is-woo-hooooo!" Apelama laughed with great pleasure.

"How much did he get for the land?" "Dta tax money." "Dta tax money?" "Yeah. On'y w'at we wen' need." "Is that what Uncle Kinohi told Moke, or is that what Moke Pita­

Moke," Maka finished "wen' do himsel' ?" "He wen' go do 'em himsel', Maka. Nobody else know how fo' do

dtem t'ings, excep' maybe you. An' you stay Honolulu. You no stay Maui. So w' en you go in' come back fo' goo'? We gotta move, now."

20

"So how much did he sell the land for?" Apelama shrugged his shoulders . "Papa wen' tell Moke-Pita: Get

what the gov'ment need. On 'y borrow. No go sell 'em . But Pita said no can do dtat. Dta bank like buy, no like rent. Dta bank said, 'Gif some cor­rattle.' "

"Collateral," Maka nodded. Apelama smiled. He imitated Maka. "Yeah," he answered.

Maka fell silent. He had sat up, very straight now. And Apelama had thrown himself

onto the sand. The wind had died down a little. The rain had nearly died. Ua /iii such rain was called: poverty stricken, so fine was it, it swept through the air like an unseen spirit that touched the skin lightly and then vanished.

"So, what's Uncle Kinohi going to do?" "I dunno. We t ' ink he going ast you. You know? Nobody else know

how fo ' answer 'em." " What did Mr. B- say?" " He said he no can do not ' ing, because Uncle wen' sign dta pepa. It

give Moke-Pita dta right to do w'at he like, fo ' get money." Apelama studied Maka's clothes. "Hey, Dude. You get nice clothes now, ei? Real nice! You look goo'! How come we nevah wen' see you fo ' long . ~, tune, now.

But Maka was staring at the whaler and the canoe. The Humu 'ula stood rocking on the waves like a rearing horse, violently, silently. A gust started up in fitfuls of sand, slinging spits and whorls into the air and then slapping them back onto the beach flatly.

This is Spirit Country, Uncle Kinohi had once explained to Maka and Moke, when they were rounding up steer for a drive. A sand storm had started and then died, and then another had arisen, each in succession _like swirling dervishes come to possess something in the land.

" You believe the 'aumakua are good," Uncle said , in Hawaiian. "The Ancestors protect their own. Believe that."

Maka smiled. His soldier buddy, the one he never wanted to meet again afterward , the one who was part devil had said much the same thing , too. "Everybody thinks God is on his side. The Germans believe it. We believe it. You got to believe it, no matter what."

21

Jonah Hau' oli Akaka

OLIMANOA He oli we he keia i haku 'ia e Jonah Hau 'oli Akaka i ka Ia 2 o Akukake M. H. 1988 no ka Ia puka kau we/a mai ke Kula Nui o Hawai'i ma Manoa, 'o ia ho 'i ka lapule 14 o Aukake 1988 ma Andrews Amphitheatre.

Li'uli'u wale ike a'o 'ana mai Maikawa po a hiki i ka wa o ke ao Ia e, Ua malamalama ka na'au i ka 'ike A e pio 'ole ia lamaku i K4kea a me Kahaukani o Manoa, Manoanoa a he nani ke kuawa o Manoa ali' i, Manoa kanaka 1

Ke 'ike i ka iho mau mai Ia o ka ua Kuahine ma ka honua uluwehi, Ho 'oulu ka 'aina i ka ho 'okahe wai i Kanewai A i hi'ipoi no ka 'aina aloha 'o Kanewai i ka Hawai 'i, Aza make kualapa o WtJ'ahila i 'akoakoa ai Ko Kahikina a me Ko Komohana ike kikowaena, 'Ae, ua 'ikea ua kahua nei i wahi mai Ia '0 ke kahua rna mua, rna hope ke kukulu, 2

E nii 'oiwi e ho 'omau, Ho 'omau i ka imi na'auao a e holomua e.

1 "M~oa ali' i, Manoa k~aka"

"Manoa of the chiefs, M~oa of the commoners"

In ancient times, M~oa was divided among the chiefs and the commoners. Aii 'i lived on the west side of M~oa and the commoners lived on the east side of the valley.

2 " '0 ke kahua mamua, mahope ke koJrulu" "The site first , and then the building"

Learn all you can, then practice .

SOURCE: 'Oielo No'eau: Hawaiian Pro11erbs and Poetical Sayings, Mary Kawena Poku'i, Bishop Museum Press 1983: pp. 268, #2459; pp. 233, #2139.

22

MANOA CHANT This is an opening chant written by Jonah Hau 'ali Akaka on August 2, 1988, for the University of Hawai'i at Manoa Summer Commencement Exercises on Sunday August 14, 1988, at Andrew's Amphitheatre.

Much time has been spent on one's schooling From a period of ignorance (darkness) to enlightenment (light), The mind has been enlightened with lore And this torch shall not be extinguished; not even by

Manoa's powerful Kakea gust or the Kahaukani wind, So vast and beautiful is Manoa of the chiefs, Manoa of the

commoners to behold The downpour of the Kuahine rain of Manoa upon the lush earth, The land flourishes as the waters flow ever so placidly at Kanewai And the beloved ground of Kanewai is truly cherished by the

Hawaiian people, It is there by the ridge of Wa 'ahtla where assembled are Easterners and Westerners alike at the crossroads (center), Yes indeed this aforementioned foundation has been

witnessed and experienced as it has been said First choose a site and then build upon it, 0 native sons and daughters persevere Continue to seek wisdom and succeed.

23

Chris K. Taniguchi

ONE LONG BLAST

Gene, I once sailed for a living, and I still miss it very much. The lines I drew on cham were churned into the swells behind our ship, the white foam in our broad wake breaking and swirling away like smoke. And ahead of us a vast trackless sea held down by a horizon that always retreats. Those first lines I drew were but conjectures, intentions, hopes, they could have been drawn with smoke. I learned to smell for each port, long before raising them on the horizon, each had a distinct smell, always mixed with a land breeze (homeport had the sweetest!), and that is how my nose strengthened my faith in those lines I drew in water. The work I do now no compass or sextant , no chart drawn can help. You showed me how bearings are taken between the heart and the mind into the soul, a sea with no bottom and no horizon . The hours you spent with me, the many words spoken, behind us now.

24

There is a moment before every voyage, Gene, just as the last line is cast off when the ship signals she's underway with one long blast on the whistle, a one-note song of farewell every sailor has sung, the one I sing in these lines as you set sail for home.

25

NO EbMOKING

Eh, somebody wen scratch out

da S, on da NO SMOKING sign

on da bus­Wat? I kannot ride den? ..

NoMoking joseph P. &Ia;

.mpbp. au o u n e n h -• 0 0

Protestant Hawazian joseph P. Balaz

KO l\0 KO KO

KOKO 1<0 KO

KO

Mokuiliana

KO KO KOKO '<0 KO KO ' KO KOKO

KO KO

tro KO (\ KO KO

KO KO KOKO

KO

"0 1(0 I\ \

KOKO KO

KO KO KO KOKO

Joseph P. Balaz

P. Delos Santos

POHAKU'S DREAM

The midday sun reached its zenith as amber waves of sunlight came down through the sparse clouds on a lonely figure near the beach at Waiehu. It was mid-September and Pohaku walked the coastline that day, with his throw-net draped over his right shoulder, looking like a matador stalking an invisible bull. The waves gently broke on the gleaming white sand as the old fisherman peered through the blue patches of the foaming sea to catch a glimpse of that silver shadow, or that hint of color that betrays the cover of those schools of fish that feed on the limu that grow abundant near the shores ofWaiehu.

He had combed this stretch of beach twice that morning hoping to land a catch that was reminiscent of his younger days. Aweoweo, enenue, manini, and papio used to fill up his net during the days when Pohaku's hair was darker and his posture more erect, held firmly together by tanned muscles that were developed during endless hours of swimming, diving, and surfing near the ocean he loved.

But he has aged since those days. The once-powerful physique just a shadow of its prime, his hair a wash of silver. With his vision waning, he had to rely on experience, the only thing that accumulates with age , to bring food to his table. But food was far from his thoughts. Ever since he lost his lovely wife , Malia, his appetite had been dulled. Earlier, he had lost his son Kawika to the war in Vietnam, a memory hard to erase even with the aid of liquor. And soon he will be losing his home at Waiehu. The home where he was born; where his father had also been born; where his grandfather had stalked out the boundary of shoreline that was given to him by his ancestors .

Perhaps Pohaku came to the beach that day, like those many days before, to catch memories of the past when life was good, simple, and free from worry.

He felt very alone on that beach, and without much effort he could remember the days when he and Kawika dove for octopus and lobsters while Malia waited patiently, weaving baskets out of coconut fronds , her silky black hair shining in the sun.

29

But Pohaku was tiring now, his arms growing heavy under the weight of his net, his body glistening with sweat mixed from the ocean's salty spray. Tradewinds that blow through Waiehu are characteristically absent during these September days, and today seemed the hottest day of the year. He sought refuge in the shade of a kiawe tree and sat down to rest.

Leaning back against the tree, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag that held the dried roots of the awa plant, and he began to chew on a strand. Keoni , an old 'drinking buddy, had given Pohaku some awa to help ease his craving for alcohol, since he gave up drinking after Malia's death . The awa always worked for Pohaku and he has grown very fond of it. His dreams were vivid and pleasant whenever he chewed awa and it gave him sleep on restless nights .

A cool breeze blew in from the northeast, and Pohaku began to fall into a deep sleep. Soon he was drifting into a time where he was young again . But in this time there was no family, no friends , no one but he­young and strong, his hair long and dark, his body tanned and naked. A house was nearby and he walked over to it, curious to find out who lived there.

On a line drying in the wind there hung a beautiful red malo. He took it and wrapped it around his body to cover his manhood. Feeling hungry, he picked up a pointed stick and headed toward the beach. When he returned, he brought back with him two mullets and a handful of opihi. As he walked about the yard he eyed some ripe bananas hanging from the tree near the house. As he began to pluck some of the succulent yellow fruit he suddenly heard a woman's voice call out to him, "Will you share your bounty with me, Pohaku? ''

He thought it was Malia and turned to greet her but became dumb­struck. Before him stood a beautiful woman with fiery red hair the color of his malo and skin white as the meat of the coconut. She was not Malia, nor was she of Hawaiian blood. But she knew him and she called out to him again , "Are you not hungry, as I am, Pohaku? I have not eaten all morning."

"Nor have I, but there is enough for both of us," replied Pohaku. Bewildered at first , then suddenly ashamed after taking the woman's malo and picking the fruits from her tree, Pohaku said, "Forgive me for using your malo and stealing your bananas, I was unaware of your presence." "But I made it for you my dear," she said, "and the fruits of my garden are free to anyone who comes this way."

Totally perplexed at what had just transpired, Pohaku asked the beau­tiful woman, "How do you know me? Why did you make this malo for me? Who are you?"

" My name is lwa," she said. "I have seen you many times here on this

30

beach. I saw you this morning and thought that a gift would lift up your spirits ."

Pohaku was becoming pleasantly entranced by his beautiful host and calmly offered his catch from the sea to Iwa, who quietly reached out and took him by the hand and led him into her home. Strong feelings were brewing deep within Pohaku, feelings that lay dormant for many years now. He could only think of that first night he spent with Malia, when the moon was full and Kawika was to be conceived.

Once inside, they sat down on the soft matting and began to eat with­out talking. Their eyes, however, were fixed upon each other and neither could look away from each other's stare. When the meal was over Pohaku reclined against the wall where a ukelele stood and picked it up and began to strum it lightly. Iwa came over to him and lay by his side, resting her head upon his lap and softly she began to sing. The sounds that came from her were haunting, yet soothing. They were not human sounds, they sounded more like a bird. A lost , lonely bird.

Those powerful feelings he had inside of him could no longer contain the desire that he held for Iwa. He stopped playing the ukelele and tossed it aside. Gently he cradled her into his arms and held her close to his bosom. He pushed back her soft, flowing hair and their eyes met again , this time they were smoldering with passion. Just as their eyes were locked their lips drew closer and immediately the two became one. Amidst the heat of their passion, Iwa unexpectedly tore away from Pohaku and began to weep. Pohaku took her into his arms and tried to comfort her. As he began to speak, Iwa immediately hushed her lover, gently pressing her smooth palms against his mouth and said, "Do not speak of love my dear, for you cannot have me, and I cannot have you. Let us relish this time together, for tomorrow will never be, for you nor me."

Pohaku replied, " If we cannot have each other for tomorrow, let us experience this moment today, so that this memory will become ours for eternity."

Overcome with mounting passion, Iwa surrendered her body and soul to Pohaku, who fully reciprocated with uninhibited abandon. They shed their clothes and savored the carnality of each other's desires.

Day flowed into night as countless birds sang an endless melody accompanied by the resonant pounding of the waves on the beach. As the dawn broke, Pohaku turned to Iwa but found that she was gone. He jumped out of bed and yelled out her name. He ran outside and caught sight of a large white bird perched above the banana tree. Confused and near hysteria, Pohaku cried out for Iwa, turning and searching for the source of her voice. "I am here Pohaku, above you." Pohaku turned around and faced the banana tree with the white bird. He fell to his knees

31

and began crying. "Iwa! Iwa! do not leave me, please! I care not if you a bird for I am not human without your love. Please, stay with me!"

Iwa, with tears rolling down her white-feathered breast, said in somber voice, "Everyday I fly above this beach, I see you and the collltlDCI of your world. I have tasted your love and it is as sweet as the blossoms ginger. But your world can never be mine."

"But Iwa!" Pohaku cried, "Grant me one wish that I may be with throughout all eternity!"

Iwa then responded, "Go, then, to the farthest point of this bay cast your net into the surf." With a shriek and a flutter of her wings, large and beautiful white bird flew off into the blue sky.

"Iwa! Wait! Iwa! Iwa!" Out of his sleep Pohaku awoke with Keoni by his side. Keoni said,

"Another good dream, eh Pohaku? Who is this girl, 'Iwa'? Is she pretty?" Pohaku spoke in a solemn voice, "Take all that is in my house and

it as your own. I no longer have any use for it." He gathered his net walked away from Keoni, heading for Kahakuloa Point just Waiehu.

Keoni, drunk as usual, said to himself, "Poor Pohaku, too much today."

Mter an hour of walking Pohaku reached Kahakuloa Point. looked about for Iwa but saw no sign of her. He crept up to a shon and looked into the sea. In the water he saw a flash of color and .... · ............ , tively cast his net into that area. He jumped into the water to gather his and lo and behold there was a school of fish trapped. But he did not pate the size of his catch. His net began to swell into a silvery blue room gleaming with what seemed to be papio and akule. And at once flock of birds appeared from nowhere to feed on the catch. Pohaku, ous from the sudden realization of his dream, turned around and faced cliff. There he saw Iwa standing- beautiful in her human form. No needed as their eyes communicated the message of love. Pohaku ....... ..,."" up out of the surf and reached out for Iwa. As they touched each Pohaku became young and handsome again. They embraced tightly shared a passionate kiss. For a moment, time froze the two. A large broke upon the cliff where they were standing and, as the water rec•eaea. Pohaku and Iwa were gone.

A week later, Keoni read in the newspaper about his friend's pearance offKahakuloa Point. The paper read that the fisherman's net found torn at the base of a large phallic-shaped rock, below a nest of white birds.

32

Ho' oipo DeC am bra

I'VE BEEN TO INDIA AND BACK

Living in a first world country. That is the most depressing. Culture Shock! I don't want to wake up. Just sleep, sleep , sleep.

My daughter says, "Mom, you are getting out of this house, even if I have to drag you."

I really don't want to go . Don't want to shop anymore. Can't choose between green, yellow, beige, white, floral or printed, scented or unscented.

I've been to India and back.

Talked to my friends. They don 't understand. Surrounded by misery, nick-nacks, patty wacks, we all fall down.

Cardboard shanties. Children gathering firewood . Water shared from a common well. Dirt floors, crippled children, tea served in a silver cup.

I've been to India and back.

33

Third World country, India. You give me shelter. You give me food. All the while I'm with you.

Three meals a day. Transponation. Your generosity is beyond comprehension. But I am the developed nation. The first world. And yet you meet my needs and I contribute to your oppression.

I've been to India and back.

Auto rickshaws too small to carry Pacific Island women. Respect for life. Everything recycled.

Funny wiggle. Looks like you are saymg, no but you are really saying, yes.

Mahatma Ghandi road. calls fonh memories of a struggle for self-determination and independence.

34

I've been to India and back.

Opening day at the 1986 Hawai'i Legislature Pan-Hawaiian speakers of both houses quote Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Recognition of Indian 's struggle of self-determination. Black's struggle for self-determination.

No mention of the Hawaiian's struggle for self-determination.

Living in a fust world country. That is the most depressing. Culture Shock! I don't want to wake up. Just sleep, sleep, sleep.

I've been to India and back.

35

Ho' oipo DeCambra

MAGIC AMERICA

Cement tombs for nuclear weapons embodies Concord Naval Weapons Station Bloodstained tracks resist carrying aid to the Philippines , aid to the Pacific , aid to the Contras

A magic nation America home of the brave give me your burdens A magic nation America o'er fields of grandeur we traveled to Concord to witness the tracks No glamour, no press just pure witness A magic nation America

Death- shrouded moment young marines, teary-eyed guard, protect these arsenals Everyone's job is on the line just a job gotta do my job can't think about it

36

Black death rolls on tracks across fields of amber o'er ocean and seas presenting gifts weapons explosives guns bullets bombs This black death will not passover

This black death has marked and numbered the days of our sons and daughters The clamor, the fright of marines running in combat boots to protect boxcars of death A magic nation America

Smells, like burning flesh looks like a baby's head blown off feels like a blood- drenched dead child

America, a magic nation eats my flesh drinks my blood

37

Ku Kahakalau

'0 KAHO 'OLAWE I KA MALlE

Ma Hakioawa i lohe 'ia ai ka pu Aza na ho 'okupu ma ka Hale o Papa me ka Hale Mua MaMoa'ula ilohe 'ia ai kapu Aza na ho 'okupu ma ka lele luna Ma Keanakeiki i lohe 'ia ai ka pu Aia na ho 'okupu ma luna o ka wa'a Holo ka wa 'a i Kealaik.ahiki E hiki hou mai ana ke Akua me Makali'i 'Ike maka'ia na ho'ailona Ke ho 'oulu nei 'o Lonoik.amakahiki i ka 'aina 'Aina aloha 'ia e kakou 'Aina hana 'ino 'ia e na koa E ha'alele, e kapo'e hana 'ino E miJiama, e aloha i ka 'aina 'Aina punahele o kakou '0 Kaho 'olawe i ka maize.

38

PEACEFUL KAH0 10LAWE

At Hakioawa the conch is heard There are the offerings at the Hale o Papa and Hale Mua At Moa'ula the conch is heard There are the offerings at the highest altar At Keanakeiki the conch is heard There are the offerings on the canoe. The canoe sails on "the Path to Tahiti" Our God will arrive again with Makali'i The omens are visible Lono of the makahiki celebrations is renewing the land Land loved by all of us. Land abused by the military. Leave us, oh you people of destruction! Preserve and love the land! Our favorite land Peaceful Kaho 'olawe.

Hale o Papa: men's heiau Hale Mua: women's heiau Makali'i: Pleiades

39

Chauncey Carter

At an arboretum you don' t look at trees,

you read 'em

40

Chauncey Carter

The hean examines what comes out of the mouth while the mouth is flapping

41

Adam Campbell

THIRTY CAlffiRE

The sun shone brightly toward the East as it started to settle in the West. I lay on the freshly mowed grass, the bare skin of my back feeling the sharp poking of the blades. The ground was moist, full of brown and yellow leaves from the monkeypod tree that reached about thiny feet into the air. To the right of me there grew seven rows of ti leaves flourishing in the hot sun, while to the left were tall red gingers growing formally, each plant having its own leafy, dark red flower in the center.

Uncle Charley stood on the cemented floor of the pigpen with a steel fence around it and a rectangular dome on top. "Eh, boy, go get me my knife from da truck for cut da pig. Stay in da sheath in da compartment. Eh, and no forget to dose da door, uh?"

Uncle never really talked to me as if I were his young nephew. He always talked to me as though I knew everything already, as if I were as old as one of his friends. Uncle was shooting down the cemented area now, hosing off all the waste that lay there. I started to get up and a body came towards me from behind. The wide image startled me as I turned my head quickly toward the moving shadow. A huge man asked, "Ho! What you doing here?''

"Who's dat!" I said. "Oh, das you, Bull! " I was relieved. "I thought you wen go surf with the boys."

"Nah, I wanted for come see your brother." "Oh! " I said. I was glad to see my cousin. He was the best cousin I

had. He sat down on the green grass with his faded blue jeans and his wind- blown Town and Country surf shin full of little holes on the front .

"I thought Ted was supposed to go with uncle," he said as he put his hand under his head , lying down on the green grass.

"Yeah, Ted was supposed to go with uncle , but he had to go to school today."

"Oh," Bully said. "Brah, then you betta watch out for uncle. Some­times he get mad real fast."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I goin' get uncle's pig knife. I come back before he get mad. You know Hawaiians, yeah?"

42

"Wait," Bully said. I was just getting up, dusting off all the leaves from my body when Bully showed me the knife. " I brought it from the truck when I was coming here."

" Aw, nah! Right on! How you knew?" I said as I grabbed the sheath with the knife in it and thanked my cousin.

"Eh, I knew. Shoots, I gotta go already. My fada goin' bus me if I don' t come back fast. I told him that I was goin' drop something off at Uncle Charley's house. 'K den, check you guys out later."

Bully got up and walked away. "Kaa'hele," he called over his shoul-der. "No forget, da first time is da hardest."

"What?" I yelled at him. Bully stopped and turned around . " I said , da first time is da worst." I stared at him. "Forget it," he said, turning and walking away. I went over to uncle as he was rolling up the green garden hose. Uncle

gave me a hard look. He never talked to me. All he did was point at things, and I would have to understand, or he'd yell at me.

Uncle Charley dropped the hose outside the pen. His wrinkled face and body moved quickly around, trying to catch a particular pig. He pointed to his gun under the banana tree. I ran there, grabbed it, and took it to him. By now uncle had the pig cornered in the pen. He held a long, pointed stick to keep the screaming pig pinned in the corner. I gave uncle the .30 calibre rifle, but he pushed it back at me. "You shoot'um," he said . I looked at him with amazement and astonishment. He repeated it: "You shoot'um, I said!"

The pig was squealing louder and louder. Uncle kept poking him with the sharp stick, pushing him back and back. The sound of the screams echoed in the valley. I started to shake at the cries of the animal. I held the heavy . 30 calibre and opened the chamber while uncle handed me the brass bullet. It was so noisy I was getting more and more confused.

I tried aiming the gun at the pig's head. Then I dropped the gun gen­tly to the concrete floor. I couldn' t do it.

"Shoot'um!" he ordered, even louder, as his face turned red from heated anger.

I picked up the gun, stood it gently in the corner, and walked away. Uncle Charley kept screaming at me: "Get back here and shoot'um, I

told you! " I could still hear him yelling, but I just kept on going. I couldn't go

back.

Uncle died last year. He left me his .30 calibre.

43

Do go

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Flawed Intelligence Wtzyne Westlake

Phyllis Coochie Cayan

HAKIOAWA BAY

Hakioawa Half moon bay Rocky points stand guard Kiawe trees edge the hillside.

Hakioawa Swirling brown waves dance A 'ama and opihi cling tightly Makani whispers secrets softly.

Hakioawa Dusk falls gently on your shoulders Pohaku purple blends into shadows Kiawe twigs sigh to the ground.

46

Kathleen NgitJun Young

DIGGING FOR LOTUS ROOTS

Lotus roots grow deep in the mud. They are delicate, and break easily in harvesting. However, they are also light, and float to the surface when the soil above is cleared away.

I

I was never sure if it was patience or a slowness of mind, but my father was the only one who could tame the wild kittens occasionally birthed under our house. He'd put food in the frying pan he'd found on the side of the road leading to Mosquito Junction, usually cut-up tilapia or sting ray, then he'd sit in the garage, about five feet away, and make his fishing lines, tying the hooks with his "special" knot, not seeming to pay any attention to the wild kittens, who, because of the smell maybe, or the sound of buzzing flies, were creeping out from under the house, heading cautiously towards the frying pan.

II

"How do you let your children know that they've done something you dis­approve of?"

The psychologist scrutinizes Mr. Wong, searching for any sign of con­nection. Mr. Wong, in turn , holds his face blank, and steady.

"I just no say nothing and they should get the idea." Matter of factly . . "But how are they supposed to know what they've done, if you don't

say anything?" -pushing, always pushing, these haole birds think they know it all­Me. Wong closes his mouth in a tight line and makes no answer. She

should get the idea. Silence. Mrs . Wong is uncomfortable and wants to say something­

anything. She glances at her daughter, staring out the window and blink­ing, at her husband, shut away now, and at the psychologist, writing the family problems down on a yellow pad.

47

"How much are we paying an hour?" Mrs. Wong asks, looking long and hard at her husband.

III

There are two figures made with colored tissue paper standing in front of the coffin. They are the servants, there to make the transition into heaven easier. The nam mo is chanting and hitting the gong arrhythmically, call­ing out the names of the children "KamJun, Kam Chew, Kam Loy, Kam Ngao, Kam Kwai . . . "in tones rising and falling.

Time to get up again and circle the coffin. I don't know why my father does not lead the line. He's the oldest. But my Uncle Jimmy goes first, the firstborn of Popo's second marriage. If this bothers my father he doesn't show it. Same flat impassive face. Solemn as his only suit, a dark blue for many occasions.

We place paper money across Popo's body, single layers of gilt paper, some green paper in case heaven's currency is no longer gold, then gather it up to burn. My mother motions for me to stay next to the coffin and con­tinue laying the paper out. I try not to imagine what I'd do if a bug crawled up my arm. I watch the smoke billow up to be caught by the white, vaulted ceiling. This funeral parlor really wasn't built for all this burning and gong chanting. The cemetery outside is filled with bodies placed in different directions: the yup pun chai lie with their feet towards the mountains; while Popo will have her head towards the hills, feet to the sea, like the rest of the Chinese buried there.

I've already determined, with a quick glance, that Popo looks nice, peaceful , her face lightly powdered, jade earrings in her ears, a between her lips to light the way. I don't think about the pearl, the ness of death to be lit in an imaginary, or at least unknown journey. If must look at her, I look at the jade. I've never seen those earrings before.

IV

The house stood on stilts next to the stream. Mud flats of lotus began a yards from the front steps. The floor of the house was in constant need repair, as the boards damply rotted away, exposing the wet ground On the dry slope in back, the chickens kicked up dust, half wild but ing in the scrap metal hen house.

Yook Fa lived in this house in defiance of her mother. Three down the road, her mother owned acres upon acres of rice. Ah Yook four young ones with a fifth on the way. It was getting hard to carry up the rickety stairs into the house, and there had been no eggs laid for

48

days. She had sent the oldest out back to look for nests among the haole ~oa, just in case. Her oldest was seven, and the image of his father. Serious, brooding, with a blunt tongue and a slow fuse, just like his father, her dead husband, the one her mother had never wanted her to marry because he was too old and owned only a lotus farm .

Kam Ngao knew that he wouldn't find any eggs at this time of day. It was past noon, and if the rats hadn't gotten to the eggs, the mongoose would have. Kam Ngao squatted in the shade of the hen house to think. He wondered what mongoose tasted like. Probably better than crayfish­more meat. Kam Ngao wanted to set a trap, like the old man next door had taught him. All he needed was a box and some string. Kwai was good at asking people for things. Kwai was probably with the old man right now, eating milk candy.

"Ngao! Eh! Try look what I got!" Kwai came scuttling down the hill, something clenched in his hand, his eyes round and bright.

"Lemme see. He wen give you candy?" Kam Ngao asked, prying the object out ofKwai's fingers. It was a clam shell. "So?"

"Come, come, we go to da pump," Kwai whispered, giggling . "I show you."

Kwai led the way to their swimming hole. Lying on his stomach and motioning his brother to do likewise , he looked into the shallow water, where mosquito fish were swimming among the ung choi.

"Watch dis." Inside the clam shell was a dark brown, waxy substance. With a reed,

Kwai scooped out a lump and dropped it into the water. "So?" demanded Ngao, tired of his brother's secrecy and thinking

again about the mongoose trap. "Try look da fishes," pointed Kwai. Some guppies were attacking the brown lump furiously. The others

were swimming around erratically, almost spasmodically. "Api in," Ngao said, gulping. "That old man sells opium."

There's a picture of my father and I that has no place in my memory. It's of my father holding my hand as we walk along the pier at L-dock.

The thing is, I do remember going fishing with my father: I remem­ber that we used to wake up at five o'clock in the morning in order to catch the ferry to Ford Island; I remember throwing crab nets offL-dock, thank­ful to get rid of the stink of the hammerhead bait ; I remember being cut by the gill of the omaka as I was trying to get the hook out of its mouth; I remember afternoons of combing the shore near the dock, stones and

49

broken shells crunching under my slippers, looking for the unusual ... What I don't remember is my father ever holding my hand. I guess he must have, when I was small. I just don't remember.

VI

" I can't see the boxes, how do you expect me to park between them?!" It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and my father was trying to teach

me how to parallel park. "Okay, see dis can? I going put 'em right on da corna' of da box. Now

you can see 'em?'' My father stood next to the box and waited. "Big help ," I muttered , putting the car in reverse . "Turn da wheel, turn the wheel! Da adda way! " he ordered. The coke can fell off the box with a clatter. "I can barely see the can! How do you expect me to do this?" It was

hot and we had been doing this over and over for days. "Concentrate," my father said. I noticed that he never seemed to

sweat. "Make up your mind to do it."

VII

"I needed one pencil. I neva have nothing." Kam Ngao's gaze was direct and unflinching. He only spoke English to his mother now, so she could learn.

" Why didn ' t you tell the teacher, like Kwai did?" Ah Yook said sharply in Chinese. She did not meet her son's dark eyes.

"I not Kwai. You wen send me school with nothing, just one white shirt on my back, das all." Ngao turned to look at the mud flats . "Da school said fo' us come early an' get cod liva oil an' poi. Dey no like us get malnutrition."

K wai turned his back to his mother to change. His dark skin taut, outlining his spine and ribs. He knew he was skinny, but he also he was strong. And he could harvest lotus roots without breaking tubers.

VIII

When my parents went to China for the first time, Popo asked my to burn incense for her when he saw the statue of the great Buddha. had been born in Hawaii and had never been to the homeland. And that time she was too old to make the journey.

50

My father burned incense and made donations at every temple they visited. At Tunhuang, while visiting the Mogao caves he climbed the cliffs alone so he could circumambulate the huge Buddha there. He circled it twice.

When the typhoon hit Shanghai, my parent's tour group missed it , having left the city just the day before. After that everyone on the tour burned incense at the temples.

IX

Somehow our neighbor, who worked for a veterinarian , had heard that I'd wanted a kitten . I think my father had told her, in not so many words, that a kitten might take my mind off my mainland college failure. I left home shortly thereafter; nevenheless, our neighbor brought over an abandoned kitten.

According to my mother, the kitten looked like a wet, black rat, except that it mewed all night. My mother refused to even touch it, but my father listened to our neighbor's instructions and accepted the cans of for­mula and an eye dropper.

The kitten was blind, as newborn kittens are, and fit into the palm of my father's hand. He fed it with the eye dropper, the kitten cupped in his hand and resting against his stomach.

My mother named it Sambo, my father call it Rambo. Rambo grew up to be a huge, sleek cat, who attacked and bit every­

one except my father. I guess no one else had the touch . I once watched my father pet Rambo and was surprised that Rambo's fur stayed on.

X

The flats of lotus stretched out to span ten acres, bordered on either side by the lush green of neighboring watercress. The once vibrant green lotus leaves were turning brown, curling inward.

Kam Ngao stood knee-deep in mud, thigh-deep in water, swatting at the biting flies and cursing. The field did not drain-not only did he have to dig deep into the mud, but the few inches of water standing above the mud would make more work . Hopefully, the roots would not be deep . Otherwise, he 'd have to feel around with his feet and risk breaking the long tubers .

Mter hacking at the rough stalk and throwing the leaves onto the bank, he followed the stalk down into the mud with his hands, turning his face before it touched the muddy water. Ngao could feel the ~ump of the

)1

root extending to the right, and he quickly dug at the layers of mud at the surface, forming a channel over the anticipated tuber growth. Gently, he began to dig around the sides of the root, using his forearms to hold back the mud collapsing back over the root. At the same time he carefully dis­entangled the keiki roots to put aside for replanting. When the long seg­mented lotus root was free of the weight and grip of the soil, it floated to the surface.

After the harvested lotus roots had been washed and cleaned, Yook Fa could sell them-for three cents a pound.

XI

Every Tuesday my father and I would visit Popo. We'd stop at Kameha­meha Shopping Center to buy ground beef and bread. Popo made excel­lent " hamburgers" -she would mix together beef, old bread, green onions, eggs and milk and then fry the patties.

My father would turn down Tom "Dynamite" Dancer and ask the usual questions as Popo cooked. I would look through the many family picture albums.

Shonly after Popo's second husband died, all the albums containing pictures of Popo's first family disappeared. Albums containing pictures of the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from the second family remained, however. I never mentioned this to my father, but I did stop looking through the albums, and visited less frequently.

XII

Kam Ngao had mastered the an of mongoose trapping. Using a wooden box propped up with a stick and a long string tied to that stick, Ngao baited the trap by cracking an egg under the angled box. He then hid, length of string carefully pulled so there was no slack, and waited.

Once caught, the mongoose would provide the day's It would be bagged, its fighting body subdued by the press of a piece wood, and its leg drawn out of the bag. Swiftly then, Ngao would lliiUUIU'I;I!

the mongoose's leg to a two by four. Then he'd let the dogs loose.

XIII

Clarence Kam Ngao Wong lay propped up in the hospital bed doing ratory therapy, which consisted of blowing into a tube so three blue

52

balls could be carried by his breath. It was a ridiculous thing to do, his chest hurt, but the respiratory therapist was cute. And it was the doctor's orders .

His wife entered, the crease between her eyebrows deepened from the waiting, waiting for him during the bypass, waiting to see if his strength would return.

"The doctor says you 're doing good." "He tol' me fo' stop chasing the nurses ; no good fo' my heart, bum­

bye I get one 'notha heart attack." "Clarence! Really." His wife smiled, and the crease softened. She

gripped his fingers tightly.

XIV

One thing I forgot to mention about my father and I. We look very much alike. Everyone said so when I was growing up. My father and I would hold our hands out, palms up , next to each other. My hands looked exactly like his, only smaller.

CANTONESE 11pi in: opium um mo: priest t~gao: ox, lotus root JUP pun chai: Japanese

53

Kalina Aloha

KA WAI 0 KOLANIHAKO 'I

Hanini ka wai o Kulanihako'i

He pa' akai auane' i ke kanaka o hehe' e Ho' i ka ua a uka noho mai

Heua

Ka ua o na lani Ha'awi ike ola i ka 'aina Ho' oulu i ka 'aina

Heua

Hanini ka wai o Kulanihako' i Ua ka ua, ola ka nohona o ka 'aina kula

Hanai i ka 'aina Heua

54

The water of Kulanihako 'i spills

Man isn't salt that melts The rain goes to the upland and there it stays

It's raining

The rain of the heavens Give life to the land Making things grow on the land

It's raining

The water of Kulanihako 'i spills Rain pours, life comes to the land

Nourishing the land It's raining

55

Tamara Wong-Morrison

08-31-1987

steel gates electric for her eyelids,

close when she hears their words. "They are regional," she says. " Poetry should be understood by all." Chrome-plated mouth

terses enamel. She cannot understand. She chooses to rationalize . They write stones that are thrown in the air

and disappear! Their language drips as

rain off tin roofs. Their verbs roll as

Pacific breakers toward islands.

Someone tell her, the simplest English is their native language. Bird calls in B-flat minor in banyan trees. Slack- keyed music in their movement. Hear the lichen growing on lava rock. There is salt in here, listen to the rice.

56

Tamara Wong-Morrison

CONTINENTAL DRIFf for Nell

Craving for dinosaur meat and bones Blood-white of the desert sands She scratches the ground until mouths dry and crisp taste slightly of salt. Do I understand her need that these islands cannot fill? This red dust and gold lava taste another salt. So, you ate oak and maple leaves then went crazy on raspberries. That hili-a hump of brontosaurus . . . and that silver stream through cornfields caught your adolescence, dreaming and dangling on summer trees. Even the echoes on Crystal Pond color differently this evening. Yes, you are a child of the land too.

57

Brenda Pualani Santos

LEGENDS

He turned toward the sound. His body, heavy with the weight of backpack, slouched. There was nothing there, but he did hear it, quite tinctly; it was a human voice.

The earth smelled moist and fragrant; Joshua liked that. Growing in Philadelphia, he never really smelled the earth before he moved Waimea, Hawaii . He did not know why out of all places in the world, chose this area. He wanted to ftnd something that made sense in his he wanted to belong somewhere. He knew this place, although he never before been here.

He had hiked all day and decided to make camp near the pool mountain water. He slid the pack off and guided it gently to the ~·vuu~o.a. ; He stood up straight, arms suetched above his head. Suddenly he o..n., ...... ~ enveloped in chilling air. It was as if someone had swathed his body in an ice cold cloth. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. As quickly as the sensation appeared, it disappeared. "That was strange," he thought out loud.

He pulled out his small two-person tent, found a level area of ground and set camp. He had no idea what time it was, for when embarking this adventure he had decided not to be concerned with man-made houn. In the lush, deep of this forest, darkness comes early. Faint rays of sun tered down. It was near dusk.

On his trek through the mountain this day he came across guavas, passion fruits, and mountain apples. He saved a few for ..,A ... ...u .... ~, and would eat the remainder with his dinner. He refused to bring any canned goods; that would go against his reasons for taking this to get back to nature , to center his life. So his meals consisted of fresh fruit and, if he was fonunate, some son of game. Joshua took out small throw net he had purchased in Kona and went ftshing.

He located a small perch that hung above the deeper pan of pond. He gathered up small pebbles and threw them at the outskirts of pond to draw the ftsh inward; it worked. With the ftsh under him, he the net fall. Just for a fraction of a second before the net hit the water

58

a young woman's face reflecting with his. He swiftly looked over his .. vu•u-.• , there was no one there, the leaves and undergrowth undis­

Joshua shook his head in disbelief, then looked back at his net. medium-sized fish thrashed about, trying to escape. He quickly ran , waded in, and retrieved his meal.

He built a small fire, speared the fish lengthwise on a long stick, ..., ............. and secured it in the ground so that it was suspended above the p arnes by about five inches . While it cooked he gathered some water from

small flowing stream for drinking and washed the fruit . Joshua sat next to the fire while eating and reflected upon the strange

...,.,,..nt-c that happened to him today. First, that voice, then the cold air, and the image of a woman in the water. This place was definately getting

best of him. He decided that tomorrow he would turn back and see if could find out more information about the area.

It was dark and cold. Joshua doused the fire , then turned in . He on the flashlight and spread out his sleeping bag inside the tent,

crawled in after it. He slept with his head at the entrance to the tent some hidden fear, no doubt, that someone would drag him out by his and he would become entangled in the canvas and suffocate. He

•tll1rnc~a off the light and placed it near his shoulder. As he lay listening to the menagerie of forest sounds, his eyes closed, a

voice seemed to whisper in his ear. Joshua awoke to bird songs in the early morning. He'd had the most

........ u • • ou dream last night; he could not remember it all, but he did •n·'"'·""..,"' that the beautiful woman he imagined in the pond was in it.

had long, thick, dark hair which cascaded down her tan back. She did wear contemporary clothes, rather just a plain wrap around her hips. had rich dark brown eyes, full sensuous lips and a deep voice that

to him in a language he did not know. He had dreamed that she had her body over his and that they had made love. He rested his head in palms of his hands and drank in the image; it brought a smile to his It was at that moment that he realized he lay naked under the covers. it a dream? He quickly got dressed and broke camp. Something very strange was

-·~IJ'""'."'t:. here , and he wanted to find out all he could. He would head and eat his breakfast while on the move. If he hurried, by about noon

could make it to the little town he had gone through yesterday. To say that the town was little was an exaggeration. It consisted of a

..... ,~11" of small plantation homes, and a small general store, which held the post office and room that served as the public library.

Joshua walked into the store. An elderly weather-beaten man looked

59

up and smiled, exposing his pink gums where once teeth were. Joshua smiled back.

"What can I do for you?" the proprietor asked. "Oh, I was just looking for some books or information on this area,"

he replied. "Well, I don't have too much stuff like that, but you can look in that

room if you like." He pointed to the small room at the corner. "I would like that, thank you." He entered the room; it was obvious that it had not been used in

many years. The selection could not have been more than twenty-five books. The shelves held dusty old leather-bound books that gave the impression that they had never been opened. They were some of the clas­sics-Moby Dick, Wuthenng Heights, 'War and Peace. On one of the lower shelves Joshua noticed a small collection of new paperback books. He pulled the largest one out; it was entitled Hawaiian Folklore and Legends of the Big Island.

He took the book and walked back into the store , but the old man was nowhere to be seen. Joshua called out, but there was no answer. He found a piece of paper and wrote out a note with his name saying that he was borrowing the book and would return it in a few days. He placed the note on the counter then left.

He walked out into the bright day, eyes squinting to relieve the glare, and walked down the deserted dirt road which was the main street. There were probably only a few older couples still living in this town, for he nei .. ther saw nor heard any evidence of children. Their children had probably moved away, and it was easy to see why; it was an old , stagnant place. As he was walked out of town he felt strange eyes following him.

He read as he walked. He was impressed by the stories and became sc. entranced he did not realize he was heading back in the very direction had come from this morning.

He found himself walking through familiar settings before he realiz he was back at the pond. It was nearing sundown. Joshua decided would have to set camp there again for the night. After a dinner of fj he slipped into his sleeping bag and continued reading by flashlight.

He came across a story that was set in this area. It was about a yo woman of royal lineage who was betrothed to a neighboring chiefuin' son. It seems that this woman was in love with a young village boy and they secretly met at a small cave located near where waters gathered. It on one of those occasions that they were found out. In his rage, betrothed killed the young man while he travelled to meet her. Th going on to the cave, he found her waiting; he sealed her up in the cave grieve for her lover's death and face her own. It was believed that her l

60

was so true that the gods granted her solace upon her death. She would be released from her mountain captivity in the evenings to search for her lover, but would need to return to the cave by daybreak.

Joshua fell into a restless sleep. The sounds he heard through the night were unnerving. It was as if someone was crying in agony. He tried to block it out, but even the heavy rain could not diffuse it. The cry grew louder and louder, and just as Joshua felt he would scream, it faded away.

He woke up to a dark, wet day. It had rained steadily throughout the night. Although the sky hung low with dark clouds, it was not at that moment raining. He sat huddled, wrapped warm in his sleeping bag, and stared out. It was beautiful there-so quiet and serene, the foliage drip­ping, green, fragrant . Joshua felt content-even fulfilled. Barefoot, he walked over the moist, moss-covered ground that absorbed his steps, to the little river, to wash up.

He noticed something odd this morning; it seemed that because of the consistant rain throughout the night a series of smaller streams emerged and fed into the river, which fed into the pond. " Could this be the area I read about last night?" he mused.

After breakfast, Joshua decided to scout around . He left camp and headed for the base of the mountain near the pond. He searched for hours before he found a small cave partially blocked by a boulder, ferns obscur­ing its entrance. He managed to roll the stone to the side. The bare earth exposed, insects scrambled to avoid the light. He illuminated the cave. Cobwebs laced over the entrance glistened in the sun. With a sweep of his hand the delicate cloth disintegrated . He bent over and entered the cave.

The entrance opened up to reveal a larger cavern, and Joshua was able to stand erect, the roof of the cave arched closely overhead. The cave could not be more than seven feet high, twenty- five feet deep and ten feet wide. Joshua stood at the entrance, hesitant to go any funher. This is definately a cave, and it is near where waters meet, he thought. The question is, do I really want to look for the remains of a body that supposedly has been dead for hundreds of years, if there are any? Joshua contemplated this. Don' t be ridiculous, he thought to himself, it is just a local fairy tale. With his flashlight probing he walked on, searching the corners of the cave. Just as he suspected, nothing. But Joshua neglected to notice the trace of wet footsteps on the cave floor.

Content in the fact that all that was going on here was his imagina­tion , he decided to stay and explore the area further; but right now his main concern was to gather some fruit for lunch and dinner. He left camp and moved forward past the pond. This was an area he had not yet gone through, and he was surprised to find that there was a hint of some sort of trail. He followed it.

61

It wound back toward the mountain. The trail was lined with yellow ginger; the fragrance ftlled his lungs and intoxicated him. He walked on, not as purposefully as before, rather just for the sheer enjoyment of the surroundings. It was getting dark before he came upon a large guava tree. He stopped to pick the ripe fruit, when out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a large man coming up the trail. He look directly down the trail, but saw nothing. It was probably just a brief shadow, a play of light.

Mter gathering up the fruit he turned back toward camp, just as an icy breeze brushed quickly past him. Joshua shook off the chill and contin­ued on. First thing back at camp he would build a ftre .

Joshua began searching for firewood on his way back to camp, but unfonunately all the pieces of wood he found were soaked with rain. He remembered he had seen a small pile of sticks in the cave. He hurried back.

When he got back to camp he could barely see his tent; if it weren't for the fact that he'd had the foresight to take along his flashlight, he did not know where he might have ended up. He placed the fruit on his sleep­ing bag, then went to gather the wood from the cave.

Upon entering the cave he became uneasy; he could not explain what it was exactly, but his stomach tightened, and his hean raced. He quickly picked up the wood and left. Soft moans followed him out .

He quickly built the fire and warmed his hands over it. He sat down just inside the entrance to his tent and gazed up at the sky. The clouds had cleared away and he could see the stars through holes in the forest canopy. It would be a clear, cold night.

Cocooned in his sleeping bag, he picked up the paperback and pro­ceeded to read on. Although he did not comprehend anything, he the pages and continued on. The story of the young woman played and over in his mind as he fell asleep.

She came again to him this night while he lay sleeping and ··r lv~•r1NI

his dreams. Like the first night she lay over him and they made love; difference this time was that when she spoke, although it was in a .... ,.6 ... "6,.

foreign to him, he was able to understand her. "I have waited much too long to be embraced by you, my love,"

whispered, her warm breath caressing his ear. "And I have waited lifetimes to be reunited with you," he replied. " I would have come to you last night ," she said, "but I could not

you because of the rain." "So, it was you I heard crying." "Yes." She smiled down at him. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders and breasts, pooling on

chest. He pulled her to him, and they embraced.

62

He woke up, arms empty, embracing only himself. However, Joshua was at this moment happier than he had ever been before. He knew he would again spend the night there on the chance that he might see her. He knew he would stay until he did see her again; he was as sure of that, as he knew he needed air to breathe.

He busied himself during the day by gathering fruit and fishing . As nightfall approached he headed back to camp. As he got nearer, he

heard her calling. He dropped the fruit, crushing it under-foot as he ran toward the sound. It was coming from the cave. When he got there, he saw why she was crying out in terror. The stone he had moved away from the cave entrance was being rolled back in place by some unseen force. Joshua cried out, and it stopped. Then he felt it, cold, hard and strong; he was knocked down.

It was her eyes piercing his soul that aroused him. He awoke cradled in Mahealani's arms. It was then Joshua realized that he loved this woman, this entity. Malealani smiled at him, released her hold, and without a word stood and entered the cave. Joshua lay alone on the damp, cold soil.

He returned to his tent and broke camp. Folding everything neatly into his backpack, he closed and secured the flap, and placed it next to a stone under a fern.

He went to the cave and rolled the stone back in place to seal the entrance. Joshua stood up, arms reaching out welcoming the darkness, and smiled as he inhaled the dank musk of the cave.

63

John Dominis Holt

KA 'ILl PAU

Give me something from The towering heights Of blackened magma Not a token thing Something of spirit, mind or flesh, something of bone The undulating form of MaunaLoa Even lacking cold and mists Or the dark of night , it Is always forbidding: there is a love That grows between us. Ka 'iii Pau, you are a crazed 'ana- 'ana With a shaman's tangled hair, Reddened eyes, and his Laho- malo 'o. He falls in love with his 'umeke and its Death giving objects. These gifts form the times of confusion Come from the mountain heights Wild skies, deep valley cliffs and Darkened caves Where soft air creeps into darkness Gently touching bones and The old canoe's prow Inside the stunning skeletal remains Ofmoepu'u My companions in death My own skeleton stretches long Across a ledge Above the ancient remains Of boat and bones

64

Give me your secrets locked In lava crust Give me your muscled power Melted now to air and dust Give me your whitened bones Left to sleep These many decades now as The pua of your semen have multiplied down through The centuries. Sleep ali'i nui and your Companions Sleep in your magic silence in Your love wrapped in the total Embrace of death You have given us our place Your seed proliferates Weare here And we sing and laugh and love And give your island home A touch (here and there) of Love and magic , these Live in you makua ali'i sleep on. In your silence there is strength Accruing for the kamali'i.

65

LesAwana

THE BRAND NEW DAY

At Dawn, through my opened window, I gazed upon a breathless and heart-stopping sight.

On the horizon in front of me appeared an aurora of mystical lights, reflecting deep into the cavities and ridges of the surrounding mountains.

Before me the early light penetrated the morning mist causing the Perpetual Golden Rays to illuminate through the highest mountain peaks, awakening the earth below.

As I peered closely, brilliant colors of light stretched upward like fingers on a hand . . . into the yet-dawning sky.

Oh, as I gazed at this precious sight, time itself seemed to be waiting and wanting to grasp hold of the first beams that would burst fonh from the East and to witness the sun's smile beckoning The Brand New Day.

66

Specially written fOf and dedlcaled to Mr. Larry F.C. Ching, businessman, historian and first President of the HAWAII CHINESE HISTORY CENTER.

Words and Music By: David M. Kupele

(ASCAP) Puananl Klnl

Sunday March 2 , 1986

+THE LARRY CHING SWING+

~ Happy Bounce Tempo 1 (F) f i It§ • e

J

(G7)

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t/t Yoga

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will his the

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on u - -a hel - ping

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and laugh

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buil-ding is watch him clown

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ku in balls

le - - - a - - na, to ac - tion, he mia - sea,

with and when

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ha - na , rec-tion, kis-ses,

So, He•a Then

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reszttp t!M'& Now you 1ve heard the song of this great man, the one with heart of Gold, it is told . hia love of great affection, he daily puta to action,

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So, let's get into the Swing with Larry Chinq • ... . ••

- ry - mi - cy

II

'lmaikalani Kalahele

I HAVE A NEED

I have a need it's in the mountains in the trees and plants of the mountains

I have a need it 's in the ocean in the beasts and plants of the sea

I have a need it's in the dark of the night in the quiet and calm of a hied's song

I have a need it is in the stars and flows to the sea

I have a need and the need is life and all that it needs.

68

~~~ ... ~. , .. ' ~

'Imaikalani Kalahele

'Imaikalani Kalahele

FROM THE SOURCE

From the source to the source for the source

the secret revolves

from capable hands to capable hands for capable hands

70

'/maikalani Kalahele

Michael McPherson

TO MY BROTHER IN SAN JUAN

Today the stillness in the mountains whispers into town, dark valleys so lush they seem to undulate, a chant of ancient names. Trade winds rise slowly, lifting forests into light. I know something of time outside these islands, there are consolations. But the nearness of an ocean is something we both need. On a hill in France, in a town called Manosque, I crossed streets that fell into fields of lavender, and I turned each time expecting the azure sea. I knew then I wouldn' t leave it for long, nor understand how people live without feeling its presence, are never inside it to feel skin as a membrane between oceans. I drove past the harbor on the way home today, and the first little north was slipping in over the ledge. By morning long waves will feather over the same reefs as ever when we remember the islands.

72

Michael McPherson

THE GREEN FLASH

I am a witness. I see it once from the parking lot at Ala Moana, on one of those six-foot late summer days when we all are younger. The sun is in its summer southern position, far off Barber's Point. Some other guys are there. It's on a ruler edge high tide that washes over and puddles in the dirt fill in front of the cars, the kind of day Toku kicks his board off the rocks, jumps out on it and with his arms extended like a scarecrow or God he rides the wind all the way out into the lineup, the day's last waves and one bent ray of real magic.

73

Larry Lindsey Kimura

THE REVITALIZATION OF THE HAWAllAN LANGUAGE

Language is the vehicle through which cultures live and die. I u 'olelo no ke ola, i ka '6/elo no ka make. " With language rests life; with language rests death" is the traditional expression of this fact. As much as the fate of the survival of the Hawaiian culture and identity of the Hawai­ian people rests with the Hawaiian language, the fate of the Hawaiian lan­guage rests with the people of Hawai'i. In less than one hundred years, however, Hawaiian has moved from being the native tongue of almost every person born in Hawai'i, Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian alike, to being the native first language of less than 1,000 people. The primary source of this decline has been the Hawai' i school system which worked toward replacing Hawaiian with English.

The Department of Public Instruction of the Republic ofHawai'i offi­cially adopted a policy of English only in 1896 during a time in Hawai'i's history when the sovereign nation ofHawai'i was being engulfed by Amer­ican interests. The Hawaiian language was forbidden on the school prem­ises and English became the sole medium of instruction. Children were punished in various forms for speaking Hawaiian, their mother tongue, in school. Some were made to stand on one foot in front of the class, balanc­ing two glasses of water in either hand. If any water was spilled, the teacher struck the student on the foot. Some students were kept after school to do menial chores and to write five hundred times on the black board, "I shall not speak Hawaiian." Others were spanked with a stick or a rubber hose for using the Hawaiian language. This incursion on the Hawaiian language for a child of just a few years proved to be the most effective way of stopping the continuation of the Hawaiian language from one generation to the next.

Today, of the estimated 1,000 native speakers of Hawaiian, 200 live on the isolated island of Ni'ihau. The Ni'ihau population is the only group that uses the Hawaiian language as their first language. The remain­ing 800 or so speakers are mostly over seventy years of age and rarely use Hawaiian as their first language. The majority of these non-Ni'ihau native speakers come from isolated settings of rural background, where they were

74

raised in the hanai system-a traditional practice of being brought up by grandparents whose sole language in this instance was Hawaiian.

Early in 1983, a small group of deeply concerned people, most of whom are second-language speakers of Hawaiian and teach the Hawaiian language, got together to form the 'Aha Punana Leo and a decision was made to work towards opening three centers for preschool age children, where Hawaiian would be the only language used for the daily program. A State regulation, however, doomed the program from the start, basically precluding almost all native Hawaiian speakers from being teachers at a Ponana Leo school due to their lack of college education credentials. It took the Punana Leo over two years of going to the Legislature, while work­ing constantly to stay open on waivers and temporary licenses while at the same time proving to all who thought this program a bit ludicrous that it is only natural for young children to speak the language to which they are audible, over an appropriate period of time. Today, four schools are in operation. There is a demand for more Ponana Leo schools but a dying population of native speakers but the lack of fluent Hawaiian teachers hin­ders a more rapid increase of centers.

Another hurdle the Punana Leo group overcame was working with the Board of Education and the State Legislature to remove a law established in 1896 which declared the use of the Hawaiian language as a medium of instruction as illegal. This was the very law that snuffed the Hawaiian lan­guage from the minds of innocent children and again such a law would render the effons of the Ponana Leo group futile. It took two years of per­sistent work to inform those who would eventually amend this law in 1986 that the Hawaiian language can be put to positive results in a new way of approaching education in Hawai'i.

The first few children to graduate from the Ponana Leo schools and to enter kindergarten and first grade in the Public School system served as the impetus for the State's approval of a pilot Hawaiian immersion program in 1987. This state program has been evaluated with positive results and is now being extended to continue with new kindergarten , and first/ second grade combined classes for 1988-89. The very institution whose policy it was, for nearly one hundred years, to eradicate Hawaiian from its educa­tional programs now serves as a means for its survival. It is indeed ironic that the very system that was once the most responsible for the demise of the Hawaiian language is today being utilized for its survival.

The concept of immersion education is not new to places such as Can­ada, in various countries of Europe, for the Maori people ofNew Zealand, and in cenain places of the continental United States. However, Hawai' i's is the first and only American Department of Education to use its indige-

75

nous language to develop an immersion program. Hawaiian immersion brings meaning to Hawai'i's mandate that declares Hawaiian as an official language of this State. This new approach to education is proving to be a tremendous challenge in the area of teacher preparation and curriculum development. All content areas of the basic curriculum are taught in Hawaiian. Much of the curriculum used for these purposes is North Ameri­can-centered, where the " snows of winter, the daffodils of spring" and the "prairie dogs of summer" are difficult to translate into a culture and alan­guage adapted to a tropical Pacific island world. This concern for incorpo­rating the Hawaiian "way" into the content of education, which has until the present time been predominantly infused by American ways, is indeed a huge task for a language that exists precariously among a dying remnant group of about 1,000 speakers. A new generation of Hawaiian-speaking people, who are confident in their identity through the profundity of the Hawaiian language, are meeting this challenge, bringing new life to the Hawaiian language and culture, and moving it toward its rightful place in the modern world.

76

Kekuni Blaisdell

"HAWATIAN" VS. "KANAKA MAOLI" AS METAPHORS

Loss of wholesome Native Hawaiian identity is no more evident than in the ready acceptance by Hawaiians ourselves of commonly misused terms that become metaphors which put us down.

Such abuses not only do not respect us as the indigenous people of Hawai'i in our homeland, they intentionally degrade us as a people. More­over, they perpetuate our oppression in our daily thinking and behavior as individual Native Hawaiians.

A conspicuous and yet much undiscussed example of such misuse is the term "Hawaiian" itself. We are so immersed in this inappropriateness that we no longer seem to notice or care-to our detriment.

Hawaiian Air Lines, Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Hawaiian Electric Co., Hawaiian Telephone Co., Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, Hawaiian Life Insurance, and even the Hawaiian Historical Society are not Hawaiian! Indeed, in some respects they are anti-Hawaiian.

If by Hawaiian we mean, and should mean, concern with the first people of these oceanic islands, and our distinctive culture, language, reli­gion , and special sovereign rights to control of our lands, ourselves and our future , then , clearly, the non- Hawaiian, dominant, Western island estab­lishment has been, and continues to be, anti-Hawaiian. For it is this for­eign presence that has depopulated, colonized, exploited and militarily invaded our once-independent nation; dispossessed our people of our lands and our government; attacked and then commercialized our culture; and forced our assimilation into the Western mode.

Even the term "Hawaiian," in reference to us, as a people, is often divisive and denigrating. For example, it is divisive when we are required in forms to indicate whether we are "part" or "pure" Hawaiian for non­biological reasons. In 1922, the U.S. Congress directly divided us against ourselves when it singled out only those with 50% or more ancestry as eli­gible for Hawaiian Home Lands. And even then, the U.S. and local gov­ernments failed in that promise, for more than 18,000 eligible benefi­ciaries currently remain on the waiting list for land awards, while the majority of the Hawaiian Home Lands have been transferred or assigned to

77

non-Hawaiians. So shameful is this problem that most of us Hawaiians do not seem to be aware that the other 150,000 less-than- 50%-Hawaiians also have yet to benefit from the remaining 1.4 million acres of stolen Hawaiian lands held in the so-called "ceded land trust" for, and from, us by the U.S. and state governments.

Since 1971 , when we were officially designated by the U.S. Congress as Native Americans, we have found it convenient to identify ourselves as "Native Hawaiians." Yet, at a recent community meeting, a haole woman . identified herself as a "Native Hawaiian" because she was born in Hawai'i, just as her mother was a Native Texan because she was born in Texas!

Then there are "wannabees" -those non-Hawaiians who claim to be "Hawaiian-in-heart." While we Hawaiians have traditionally welcomed their sharing enjoyment of things Hawaiian, and their suppon for our needs, it is only we who can truly feel the pain of anti-Hawaiianism, and who must assen the necessary leadership in revitalizing our culture and people, and correcting the injustices against us.

In 1985, the U.S. Secretary of Health , erroneously assuming all resi­dents ofHawai'i to be Hawaiians, declared " Hawaiians" to have no special health problems because the health statistics for the state were the most favorable in the nation. He had to learn the reality that we Hawaiians rank with the American Indians and negros as having the worst health profile in the U.S.

Gavan Daws' widely advenised history ofHawai'i, Shoal OfTime, con. eluded with a chapter tided " Now We Are All Haoles." Shortly thereafter, Prof. Daws gave a dinner speech called "Now We Are All Hawaiians."

Thus, if everyone is now haole and yet anyone in Hawai' i is or can "Hawaiian," or even "Native Hawaiian," then who are we ...... ·.u· .....

Nobody? Does this mean that we are victims of social and political, as as cultural and racial, genocide?

While pro-assimilationists, including some closet Hawaiians who ebrate their deHawaiianization, might welcome such a fate, there are least two other subsets of Hawaiians who would resist such imposed cion.

The second subset are Hawaiians who suppon the popular concept Hawai'i as an ethnopluralistic society. That is, a setting in which each nic group is respected and has equal opponunity in socio-economic ity. The fault, of course, is that the system and the rules are not the of equal input by each ethnicity, but are those of the controlling~--....... society. So there is "equality" only for those who play the haole way.

The haole way, of course, is money-making materialism, .......... ,u,_

exploitation of others, and destruction of the environment.

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The third subset are Hawaiians who yield to the dominant haole sys­tem only as a necessary survival technique. We prefer the traditional Hawaiian value of lokahi (oneness) with self, others, and all in the Hawai­ian cosmos. We are Hawaiians nunured by the land and the sea, and thus, we ma/ama 'aina (care for the environment) as pan of our oneness. We are Hawaiians who share with, rather than exploit, others, because such inter­relationships outvalue individual material possessions.

While respecting the lokahi of humanity-Hawaiians and non­Hawaiians alike-we also champion the vinues and necessity of ethnic diversity, and the primacy of indigenous peoples' rights in their home­lands.

Some sensitive Hawaiians point out that the term "Hawaiian" itself is non-Hawaiian, as is its pronunciation. They have asked, what name did the early Hawaiians use for themselves? The name for themselves that they gave to the first foreigners who asked was not "Indians," as Capt. James Cook called our ancestors in 1778, but kanaka maoli. In the islands that were later to be called Hawai' i (only because most of the foreign contacts in those early times took place on the largest island which the natives called Hawai'i), the term kanaka stuck. Kanaka means human being. In Aotearoa (New Zealand) however, the term maon' stuck. In Hawaiian, kanaka maoli and in Maori, tangata maori mean the same, "true or real person." But in Hawai'i, foreigners quickly misused the term kanaka to refer to a Hawaiian adult male, while the term kanakas referred to plural Hawaiians, regardless of gender or age. With time, kanaka became a deri­sive metaphor, like "nigger." So many Hawaiians resented it, and it fell into disfavor.

More recently, kanaka maoli is staging a favorable comeback. It is pre­ferred to "ka po 'e Hawai'i" (Hawaiian people) because the latter depends on the Western, not Hawaiian, generalization from the island of Hawai'i. Funher, kanaka maoli was the term by which our noble ancestors identi­fied themselves.

Therefore, what could be a more fitting metaphor for an injured peo­ple seeking to restore pride in our identity than kanaka maoli, "true or real person"?

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Keith Keeaumoku Mews

KA LIONA HAE 0, KA PAKIPIKA (THE ROARING LION OF THE PACIFIC) Robert Kalani Hiapo Wilcox {1855-1903)

When I think of the title of this issue, Aloha 'Aina, there is only one person who comes to mind, and he is my great-great grandfather, the Honorable Robert Kalani Hiapo Wilcox. He was raised in 'Ulupalakua, on Maui, by his ship merchant, sea captain father, Charles Wilcox, and his mother, Kalua, who both knew he would be destined to become a leader of his people.

In his efforts to uphold the cause of aloha 'aina, "love of the land," he participated in an unsuccessful, but significant, revolution in 1895 to reinstate Queen Liliuokalani to power and to restore the islands to his people. In 1901, he was voted Hawai'i's ftrst delegate to the United States Congress and represented Hawai'i in all political affairs concerning the welfare and well-being of the Hawaiian people. He also won the right to vote on behalf of his people in political elections of the time.

Although scorned by the predominantly missionary parry that ousted Queen Liliuokalani from her throne and power, my great-great grandfa­ther rallied relentlessly to uphold the true meaning of the phrase aloha 'ilina until his untimely death in 1903. At the age of 48, he was fed ground glass by the powerful white men who feared his influence and sway over the native people of this 'aina.

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Notes on Contributors

Jonah Hau'oli Akaka is a recent graduate of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa College of Education majoring in Secondary Education Hawaiian Language. "0/i Manoa" was presented as the opening chant at UHM Summer Commence­ment Exercises, August 14, 1988, at Andrew's Amphitheatre.

Kalina Aloha is a senior and a Hawaiian Language student at 'Aiea High School. Les Awana lives in Wai'anae. Joseph P. Balaz is the editor of Ramrod, a literary and art publication of Hawai'i,

and Ho'omana: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature. His poe­try has appeared in Bamboo Ridge, Chaminade Literary Review, Hapa, Hawai'i Review, Mtlna, and Seaweeds and Constructions. He has also published a book of poetry, After the Drought (Honolulu: Topgallant, 1985).

Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell is the acting interim Director of the University ofHawai'i at Manoa's Center for Hawaiian Studies as well as being a Professor of Medicine. He has been previously published on a range of topics, including both Hawai­ian and medical issues.

Adam Campbell is a student at the University Lab School. During the 1988-89 school year, his English teacher was Lanning Lee. "Thirty Calibre" won an hon­orable mention in the 1989 NEA Fiction Contest.

Chauncey Carter's poems appearing in this issue are from a book-length manu­script entitled A Better Mouthtrap.

Phyllis Coochie Cayan, a student at Leeward Community College is a keiki 'o ka 'aina 'o Lana'i.

Ho'oipo DeCambra is a member of the Wai 'anae Women's Suppon Group, and her work has appeared in the WWSG journal.

Dana Naone Hall was the Editor-In-Chief of Hawai'i Review from Spring 1973 to Fall1974. Her works have appeared in a number of publications and she edited Millama: Hawaiian Land and ~ler(Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press, 1985).

John Dom.inis Holt is one of Hawai'i's leading literary figures. He has written shon stories, poetry, a novel, a play, and numerous essays. His most recent book is Hanai: A Poem for Queen Liliuokalani.

Mahealani log is the director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. Her poems have appeared in Bamboo Ridge, Hawai'i Review, and Literary Arts Hawaii, as well as in the anthology Malama (ed. Dana Naone Hall, Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press, 1985 ).

Kii Kahakalau is a graduate student in the Depanment of European Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and a Hawaiian language teacher at Aiea High School. In 1988 she organized the Aloha '.Aina Concert in Andrew's Amphitheatre to raise funds for the Protect Kaho'olawe Ohana. (The name of this concert inspired the title of this issue of Hawai'i Review.)

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Dale Alton ' lmaikalani Merlott Kalahele, (Brudah Snake), is a product of Foft Street, Kona, and O'ahu. Artist and poet, 'Imaikalani's art has been exhibited in Vienna, New York, California, Fiji, New Zealand, Tahiti, as well as all the major islands of Hawai'i. He has designed covers for Ramrod, Hawai'i Review (#19), OHA cultural plans for the office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kupu for the Year of the Hawaiians committee, and has illustrated a book of poetry for Kawab Kauraka. Other illustrations have appeared in Ramrod and Bamboo Ridge, Mana edition. His poetry has appeared in Ramrod, Kahuli 'au and Hawai'i Cu"ent. He has also organized, collected and edited o m4kou, a poetic maga­zine of Hawaiian movement poets.

"E mau maoli, nil koko o Hawai'i, Keep Hawaiian Lands, In Hawaiian Hands, An Independent Pacific will be a nuclear free Pacific ."

Larry Lindsey Kimura, in addition to being an Assistant Professor of Hawaiian at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, is also a Hawaiian-language poet and lyri­cist. He is co-founder and present board member of 'Aha Ponana Leo, Inc., the preschool Hawaiian language immersion program.

Puanani Kini (Woo) is Executive Director of the Hawaii Chinese History Center. Ia 1986, in preparation for 1989, the Chinese Bicentennial Year in Hawai 'i, she asked David M. Kupele to work with her in composing mele inoa for Chinese individuals who are public-spirited and sharing. She is half-Hawaiian and half. Chinese.

David M. Kupele (ASCAP) has composed nearly sixty songs, including LeiJ'ua",_, andjungle Rain. He is five-eighths Hawaiian, two-eighths Chinese, and eighth English. "The Larry Ching Swing," composed together with Kini, was presented Friday, March 14, 1986, at the Empress Restaurant on occasion of the seventy-fourth birthday of business leader, historian, and President of the Hawai'i Chinese History Center, Larry F. C. Ching. In Mr. Kupele and Ms. Kini also collaborated on Na Mele 0 Hiram Pong and Kee Fook Zane Hula.

Michael McPherson is attending law school in Ponland, Oregon. Born in Hilo · 1947, he completed his M.A. in English at the University of Hawai'i at in 1976. He was Hawai'i Review's first Fiction Editor in 1972 and over the two decades he has been active as an editor and publisher. His poems and stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently Manoa, Exqui'.rite Corpse, and Passages to the Dream Shore. He founded phobia Press in 1980 and published the magazine HAPA. In 1988, the state Hawaii House of Representatives awarded him a certificate in recognition of contributions to Hawaii's literature.

Keith Keeaumoku Mews enjoys drawing and writing. He also appreciates the doors and goes for a surf whenever he gets the chance.

Leialoha Apo Perkins was born and raised in Lahaina, Maui, into a tri-lingual

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tri-cultural family. She received her Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. A former East-West Center grantee, she served as an Associate Professor of Anthropology and English at 'Atenisi University, Nuku'alofa, Kingdom of Tonga. She has published four books through Kama­lu 'uluole Publishers: Natural and Other Ston'es about Contemporary Hawaiians (1979); The Firemakers: Short Ston·es of Hawai'i, the Samoas, and Tonga (1986); Kingdoms of the Heart (1980); and Other Places in the Turnings of the Mind(1986) .

Brenda Pualani Santos is a student at the University of Hawai' i at Manoa majoring in political science.

P. Delos Santos is an undergraduate majoring in English at the University of Hawai' i at Manoa.

Chris K. Taniguchi received his B.A. in English from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. His poems have appeared in Hawai'i Review and The Paper.

Wayne Kaumuali' i Westlake (1947-1984) was a talented local writer of unlimited potential. The work he contributed to Hawaii's literature will be appreciated for years to come. His poetry appeared in, among others, Ramrod and Malama.

Tamara Wong-Morrison would like to acknowledge Eric Chock of the Poets-in-the­Schools program in Hawai'i for his diligent contribution to the verbal arts. He was instrumental in positioning her in the program-which she's participated in for four years now-teaching poetry fundamentals to elementary school chil­dren on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Tamara is half-Hawaiian and her ancestors are from Kaua'i island, Ka'u, South China, and Scotland. Her works have appeared in a number of publications, including Bamboo Ridge.

Kathleen Ngit Jon Young's "Digging for Lotus Roots" received an Honorable Mention in the 1989 Honolulu Magazine Fiction Awards and was chosen as a finalist entry for the San Francisco's Bay Guardian's Fiction '89 contest.

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Chaminade Literary Review Volume Three, Number 1

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