Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 13, Number 11, 1 November 1996 — Nā Mamo — Hawaiian People Today [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Nā Mamo — Hawaiian People Today

By Kelli Meskin The Hawaiian cxeation myth, the Kumulipo, along with other chants and songs are honored in Jay Hartwell's new book, "Nā Mamo - Hawaiian People

Today." The first wā (ehapter) of the Kumulipo is in the opening of chapter one,with the birth of man and woman. Their offspring are nā mamo, (their descendants). The book features young and old who make up nā po'e Hawai'i, the Hawaiian people, who perpetuate Hawaiian traditions today. Ten chapters reveal the images and personalities of some of today's contributors to the Hawaiian renaissance: a kapa maker who taught himself the art through books, a singer from the well

known loeal group, the Mākaha Sons, a hula teacher from the Windward side of O'ahu, a family immersed in the Hawaiian language, a eanoe eoaeh in California, a waterman from the Leeward side of O'ahu and more. A set of 60 photographs, by Hawaiian artist Anne

« Landgraf, captures the spirit of these people. Together, Hartwell and Landgraf bring the reader up close and personal. Through the stories of these renaissance men and women, the reader ean feel the strain on the bent back of a taro farmer in his lo'i (irrigated terrace) and the ambition of a Hawaiian activist,

from a close-knit family in the mids of a "graffiti-rid-dled downtown tenement." One experiences the adrenalin rush of a eanoe paddler I racing across the I Ka'iwi ehannel. I - Hartwell *-

records the unique perspective of ' Hawai'i's native people. Holding tight to their eulture for their identity and their life. There revealed is the struggle of perpetuating a Hawaiian lifestyle today. Hartwell's subjects try to save the Hawaiian language through their children. They restore the religion through practicing Lono rit-

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Literary Perspectives

Kana'e Keawe has revived the art of making kapa through research.