Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 11, 1 November 1997 — Marie K. Place, continued [ARTICLE]

Marie K. Place, continued

| chests, or kīnehe, used in a i cleansing tea. After finishing the ninth grade, Aunty moved to Lahaina, Maui where she worked as a housekeeper. Two years later, in 1948, she retumed home to care for her mother, paralyzed by a stroke. The following December 7, Aunty Marie married her former classmate, Damien Plaee. "It is good for you to know

lā'au because when you have children, you will have to tend to them. It is too expensive to go to the doctor's office," Aunty Marie's mother told her, and she was right. Aunty Marie and Unele Damien had nine children of their own and adopted their grandson Ikaika. Except when they were bom (because they needed a birth certificate), Aunty's children have never been in a hospital. She raised them with lā'au. tending broken bones, ehieken pox, measles and mumps.

Onee, Aunty Marie dreamed the mountain facing her 'Ualapu'e home was unusually brown and very dry except for a green spot behind a water tank. Curious, in her dream she walked to that spot and found a beautiful garden with ha'uōwl, hinahina and tī leaf. These three lā'au, when combined with Hawaiian salt, lemon and urine, ean mend broken bones. Her mother had used them when brother John fell off the horse. For Aunty, the dream confirmed her gift for healing and her responsibility to

share her gift and help others. "My plaee is to help people. I go. If they eall me, nighttime even, 1 travel, I go," Aunty says. She makes house calls in an age that deems them outmoded, unnecessary and inefficient. Moloka'i doctors recommend Aunty Marie when Westem medieine doesn't work or patients seek altemative ways of healing. Aunty has taught classes on Moloka'i for Maui Community College and has taken her students to see lā'au in the natural environment.

The proof of Aunty's success is the baby who ean breathe because her chest is clear, the mo'opuna who now lives asthma-free, the adult whose broken leg heals in six days instead of withering in a cast for weeks, and the grateful smiles of people who eome to Aunty for help and are never turned away. We honor this beautiful kupuna for her skills as a lā'au lapa'au practitioner who has perpetuated and preserved this ancient science and has healed so many lives. ■ PHOīO COURTESY: COLETTE MACHADO