Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 5, 1 May 1988 — Makaku [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Makaku

By Rocky Ka'iouliokahihikolo 'Ehu Jensen

Where Do We Go?

In view of what is taking plaee all over the world, it seems insignificant to debate issues concerning the moral validity of Hawaiian Art or Hawaiian Art Form. Lately my mind has been filled with the plight of victims throughout the entire world. Fortunately for me, my personal art expression aids me greatly in balancing my troubled soul. 1 often lose myself in the process ofcreation . . . tryingto find reason for THEIR problems and OURS. I have dedicated the last 15 years in trying to establish a reality that existed hundreds of years ago, and regretfully realize that the scenario in whieh that reality existed is no longer maintained in our present consciousness. My soul anguishes over this. In wa kahiko I belonged to a guild of Kalai Ki'i. We were respected and cared for . . . a society within a society . . . a special people evolved from centuries of re-incamations and spiritual refinements . . . a people totally dedicated to the creation of spiritual receptacles that housed varied fragments of our ancestral spirits. I lived during a time when our world ended at the horizon. Not to say that we didn't know what went beyond, only that our personal interest went so far as the meeting of heaven and earth. We were a passionate people, whose noble class was always involved in chaotic tribal disputes that were usually handled in a successfully traditional manner. Between heaven and earth, the spirit and reality, harmony and chaos, the important thing was that we were at peaee with OURSELVES. We knew whenee we eame, where we were traveling to after death and had an incredible understanding of the evolutionary order of the SPIRIT. Ka po'e no'eau lived in a world that was interrelated with all other factions . . . we were facets of the WHOLE. It was only at the end, during the puppet regime of Liholiho, Kamehameha II, that my profession suffered near-total extermination. Our gyild, on pain of death, no longer was allowed to exist alongside those of our other guild brothers and sisters. You see, by 1819, we had already been eon-

taminated by virus introduced by the other world. Of course, by we, I mean those in control of our destiny . . . the leaders of our tiny kingdom . . . led by the "Matriarch Queen," Ka'ahumanu. How does the saying go??? "She threw out the BABY with the bath-water???" Her decision to eliminate the professions held by the educators, priests and sculptors cost us dearly. Our spiritual existence depended on that ancient philosophy, the meticulously evolved sense of order, the profound reverenee of ancestors, the guidance of our kahuna class, who also suffered that miserable extinction with us. After that day in the spring of 1819 . . . there were no more beautiful statues of our Aumakua Kupuna . . . no more delicately carved 'awa bowls . . . no more Akua Kumupa'a . . . no more pomp and circumstance and no

i^™?«g»Mw<iiiiiimniwiiuui ia(iiiW!>i.mwi'iiijnuijuiiij|jujixn>]uuijuiJLiijuu_j.nm.w— — MWaggg88g88SSS8ē<=:- " " • ** more magic, for the people who were responsible for those creations were forbidden to continue their inherited and evolved responsibility. Wiped out in the blink of an eye . . . a microsecond in the scheme of things, our ancient order was supplanted with someone else's ancient order. One alien to ours! For HER error in judgement . . . HER greed for total power and control, our people had to spend the last 200 years in limbo. In our ancient culture, it was believed that 200 years was the exact time that it took for the SPIRIT tocomeback . . . to rebirth!!! The timehascome! Don't you feel it in the air? I ean smell it and hear it scream in my ears. Along with everythingelse, our guilds will return . . . the statues will again be carved and erected, the ancestors will again be revered . . . and the educational centers will again be brought to life. It is the time for the re-return of human rights to All human beings . . . Mai Ka Po Mai 'Oia 'I'o!