Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 9, 1 September 2010 — Pounding taro an ʻunbroken kuleanaʻ for Anthony [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Pounding taro an ʻunbroken kuleanaʻ for Anthony

By Kathy Muneno Funny how life works sometimes. Your punishment as a child not only becomes your life's work but your life's passion. So goes the story of DanielAnthony, who is on a mission. He would like nothing more than to see more taro farmers in Hawai'i. But, first things first. "People need to know how to eook taro," he says. "I get calls all the time, 'Daniel, how you eook taro?' " He obliges, and then he does his part for the next step as well. He pounds taro, a lot of it. "Last year I wanted to see how mueh taro we could pound in one year," he says. From September to lune he says he pounded more than 10,000 pounds at 150 events with 2,000 people. What stopped him was the birth of his baby, his third in less than five years. Why pound taro? "Because I've had access to board, stone and taro all my hfe," Anthony explains. "I ean close my eyes and go back to being 12." That's when he first pounded taro. It was his punishment. A "troubled kid" who didn't want to be there but "had to do it," he says. Lucky for him, he was surrounded by some of the best - Eddie Ka'anana, Walter Paulo, Eric Enos and his father. Twenty years later, he says with pride, "I'm the only one in my family that's holding down this unbroken kuleana that was given to me." He stih pounds taro at events and sells pa'i 'ai, the pounded taro, through his

online business Mana 'Ai (www. m a n a a i . eom). He started the first high school Ku'i, taro-pound-ing club. He researches

taro's history and its nutritional value, even infuses pa'i 'ai with ginger for cancer patients. "I dream big," he says. But he pushes his 12-week Kaholoku'i workshops because that's the pathway to increasing the pounding and consumption of taro. For $10 onee a week you get a 15-minute presentation, 45 minutes of discussion on topics ranging from cleanliness to kupuna health, two hours of pounding taro and you take home the pound of pa 'i 'ai you made. Anthony wants organizations to host the workshops and ideally consider buying the pounding boards and stones he makes, so they ean make ku'i kalo, pa'i 'ai and poi regularly accessible in their conununities. He envisions every home with an 'umeke, or calabash, of poi at the table. It's like going to church every night, he says - a positive, spiritual practice at the center of family. Hi'ilani Shibata says an 'umeke now sits at her family's dining table. She began taking Anthony's workshop about two years ago and now helps at

events. "It's ho'okanaka ... Hawaiians doing what they're supposed to be doing," she says. Shibata's thrilled that her newborn daughter knows the rhythmic beating of taro ahnost as well as her heartbeat, having heard it and felt it from before birth. Shibata says she was in awe when she first saw Anthony's children ku'i kalo. He never really taught them, but they leamed, like hini, by watching. And that's how children at the Kaholokn 'i workshops learn. He doesn't exphcitly break down the mechanics of the stroke, but he says he does explicitly teach values like, "you have to be elean with your spirit first." "Kids get to practice being positive" while they're pounding, he says. "If they ean be more positive, to me, I'm helping to change something." Yet with ah his pounding passion and belief in this pathway to healthierkeiki, kūpuna and conununity, he actually

would like nothing more than to stop pounding taro. What he reahy wants is to be a taro fanner. He's now closer to realizing that dream. Anthony recently got his first lease for fanning three taro patches in Kahalu'u through the Board of Water Supply. ■ Kathy Muneno is a contributing writer for Ka Wai Ola She is a weekenā weather anchor atKHON2. Kaholoku'i workshops Daniel Anthony is offering his 12-week workshops to eommunities anel organizations who woulel like to learn taro pounding, cleaning and more. For information, www.manaai.com.

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Anthony

Hi'ilani Shibatū, shown with boyfriend Joe AAcGinn ond their baby daughter Kupe'ehina, says she's thrilled that Kupe'ehina knows the rhythmic beating of taro pounding. -Pholo: KathyMuneno