Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 6, 1 May 2008 — Fallen to Kauwā [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Fallen to Kauwā

By Mūke Kupihea On March 25, on the invitation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, I was a guest on the radio program Nā 'Ōiwi 'Ōlino hosted by Brickwood Galuteria and Kimo Kahō'ano to have a discussion pertaining to the driving force that made me an author. I authored the books Kahuna ofLight, The Seven Dawns of the 'Aumakua, and Cry of the Huna, whieh relate to the spirit of ancestral light or whieh many refer to as human spirituality. This is a very broad statement, considering how many ancestral lines are in existence today in both Hawai'i and the rest of the world at large. I have chosen to master the spiritual line of only one, that of my own, yet knowing all the while that it mirrors many of Native Hawaiian descent. I believe

many of us descend from one eonunon elan of first parents in the beginning, who had descended from one union at its genesis of separation from the other peoples of the ancient world from whieh they had first migrated. I was allotted a one-hour time slot from 8 to 9 a.m., and in eonsideration of media breaks, music breaks, and station and sponsor identifications, there was very little time for actual discussion. There wasn't a way I could truly explain a mere 900 pages of structured spiritual thought that I envisioned on paper into the remaining 20 minutes or so of actual response time. I instead spontaneously resorted to the telling of parables, simple stories told to illustrate a mortal truth, in the tradition of the storytelling of the Hawaiian elders of my youth. The parables of the elders of my youth were more often told in a comedic structure or joke, rather than the poetic fashion that we are accustomed to in western or hihlieal expressions. A story that creates laughter in response is far more likely to adhere to the mind of the hstener than a lengthy lesson in morality, as the listener will ahnost automaticahy conuiut the story to memory for the retehing of what he deemed to be humorous. As the years pass the joke-oriented story wih eventuahy resurface at some point. Especiahy in the inherent mind of the inihal hstener who still ean remember the elder and his surroundings in relation to the loss of the elder "his death," and the loss of the elder's environment "current death of the land and traditional practices inherent to the hstener's own memory in descent." There is a deep sense of loss of

the spirit of the land of the elder's era, of whieh you have heeome a part of, and it is slipping away. What appeared to be a mere joke begins to surface uneonsciously into a parable, for you are now experiencing the same sense of loss. Now the elder's life breath is appreciated more fully and it is passed on to the next generation to be pondered upon as you now repeat by experience the rotations of the findings in your childhood are becoming sorrowfully lost throughout your aging. It is being destroyed by the same rotations brought about by the many invasive foreign cultures that have no eeonomie boundaries of eonscience outside the eeonomie virus it spreads over the land from generation to generation. Henee, there is a virus that exists today educationally afflicting our Hawaiian youth, who will be destined to destroy the remnants of their own homeland by becoming one of the intellectual gears that will speed up this eeonomie rotation. There is an illusion that if it is created by Hawaiians in concept, it ean be twisted to appear Hawaiian as the foreigner uses Hawaiians today for puhlie facades to achieve their eeonomie goals. Goals disguised as Hawaiian in concept and deceitfully presented to be beneficial to Hawaiians if they agree to hold their hereditary breaths of objection out of influential puhlie view and opinion. One of the stories I shared with Brickwood and Kinio was of one of my travels in Wainiea Valley, Kaua'i, with the elder Kala Kapahu during my youth. Waimea is similar in climate to Wai'anae on O'ahu, whieh is very dry throughout most

of the year. If one owned a horse and possesses no pastureland of his own, whieh is the case for most Hawaiians, he would have to go out into the community, on the County Breakwater or on its rich delta lands of grass helow alongside the Waimea River to find a vacant lot of grass to tie his horse. This chore continuously repeats from sites of grass to sites of grass, as one must be aware that a horse ean consume a lot of grass in a single day. Henee it was eonunon for these horsemen, who were really all hunters and mountain men, as keeping a horse as a pet seems to be unheard of during my youth. They fashioned metal pins or stakes from old automohile axles and spindles at the top so that after the pin was driven into the ground the loose end of the rope whieh secures the horse by its neek would then be tied to a metal loop that had been welded unto the spindle, thus allowing the horse to travel around the pin without eoiling the rope unto the shaft, allowing the horse to consume all the grass within the range's niaxiniuni feeding circumference. As most of these elders worked for the sugar plantation, or on cattle ranches owned by the plantation, these pins were often made for them by a friend that they had in the plantation maehine, or welding shop. Thus when you see many younger Hawaiians tying their horses in such a manner today as you travel out into the rural areas of Hawai'i, the pin they are using most probably is a family treasure of the past. A lot of elders in my youth would often say to one another, "No ean beat the axle from one old Ford Model A or Model T now!" I ean even

remember my grandmother having a few of these pins that were made during her father's time from the axles and spindles removed from horse-drawn carriages whose use eame to an end in his day. To return to the story of Kala Kapahu, while traveling with Kala up into Wainiea Valley one day, about half the way up Menehune Road is the old Kaialau family estate where Alawai Road joins that of Menehune. There in the, now vacant, yard stood an old mule tied to such a pin. It had obviously been out of grass for week, as the old Hawaiians say, "You ean count the ribs from here." Thus said the elder Kala, spontaneously, "Look Moke! One Hawaiian lawnmower. He go in one circle until he run out of gas!" With the above in emphasis, the comedic stance gathered so mueh laughter from Brickwood and Kinio in response that if both seek to retell the above to others in the future, then I have succeeded in placing a portion of the elder Kala's history into their minds as well as a portion of my own history into the minds of a vast amount of listeners. Thence in the traditional refrain of our ancestors, a story that first appeared to be a mere joke, uneonsciously, is yet more credited to our spiritual heritage in oral tradition. I believe this rotates through the darkness of past memories to re-enter into the world of present light as a parable of time past reaching out to time present, yet a warning of time future to eome. Moke Kupihea is a Kaua'ibased author. His essay Fallen to Kauwā, written for KWO, will appear in serial form here, and in its entirety in the online July issue at www.olm.org/kawaioIa. ^

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