Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 8, 1 August 1993 — Three views on culture [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Three views on culture

Hawaiian tradition moves into 21 st century

As the Hawaiian "renaissance," a flowering of native eulture and arts continues to grow, more Hawaiians are coming together as a people to share their knowledge and to reinforce the values and shared history that makes them Hawaiian. Contemporary Hawaiians are searching to return to their roots through the language, the arts,

study of their origins and genealogy, and maintaining cultural values and traditional lifestyles of self-sufficiency. Hawaiian eulture is alive and being practiced, and continues to evolve as it adapts to modern influences. This is the challenge Hawaiian culture faces today: to innovate and remain vibrant, yet to retain connection to the past.

Some amount of re-creation and innovation is inevitable if Hawaiians are to live their eulture, especially when knowledge of "traditional" ways is lost-or obscure. * OHA culture officer Pīkake : Pelekai notes, "When we try to re-create, we should re-create as closely as we ean. Maybe it's the teacher in me that says, 'Do your

homework and eheek it out.' You don't just make something up and put it out there as genuine." Pelekai suggests that practition- . £rs and would-be practitioners > read what Hawaiian historicans Samuel M. Kamakau, David Malo and John Papa 'I'i have written, and the Kumulipo creation chant.

Other practitioners contend that traditions, though based on the past, must respond to the needs of today's Hawaiians in order to continue as living culture. Ka Wai Ola O OHA asked four cultural experts about these issues, and what Hawaiians ean do to mālama our culture today, and for tomorrow.

Riches of the past cherished today: hula students at their 'uniki, graduation ceremony.