Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 7, 1 July 2011 — Herb Kane -- Nation Builder [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Herb Kane -- Nation Builder

Herb Kane changed my life. I'm a pre-baby boomer. I grew up during an age when it was not eool to be a Hawaiian. We were a lost

and wandering people without a reflection in the water. It was a time of assimilation, a time to shed what was left of our cultural skins to be something - anything - other than Hawaiian. The prevailing historical images of Hawai'i up until then were renderings of us by sketch artists who traveled with the early European explorers such as Captain

Cook. These images of us and our culture made us seem like little more than cultural curiosities. Some of our ali'i who traveled to Europe were paraded around like zoo animals. That was the Hawaiian history I grew up with. In 1975 I eame home after 20 years on the mainland as somewhat of a eultural vagabond. I did learn to play the 'ukulele and guitar and sang a few Hawaiian songs but beyond that I had little elue about what it meant to be a Hawaiian. Deep inside me I felt something was missing from my life but couldn't explain it. When I stepped off the plane at Honolulu Airport, I stumbled on to a Herb Kane poster of the Hōkūle'a, majestically broaching a wave, crab-claw sail rising high above the sea, a feathered lei hulu flying from the mast, warriors standing proudly on the deck. It stopped me in my tracks. I had never seen such a stunning portrayal of my history and my culture. The Hōkūle'a was still a work in progress and was just building up steam. The Hōkūle'a and everything it represented was transformational for me and hundreds of Hawaiians like me. As Herb Kane the artist, historian and scholar began to unleash the power of his brush and pen, a cultural nation began to resurface. With his powerful images, stories and characterizations of what constituted a Hawaiian existence, Herb Kane defined for us, in great detail, a Hawaiian cultural nation - a nation that did not need an Akaka bill or the government's permission to exist. A

nation that was past, present and future. A nation punctuated with great human achievement. Exploring, discovering and settling over one-third of the earth's surface hundreds

of years before the Vikings, our knowledge of astronomy and the turning of the world surpassed that of the Europeans who were afraid of sailing off the edge of the earth. Our kumulipo story of creation paralleled Darwin's theory of evolution long before Darwin was born. Our natural resource management system is the model that 21 st century sus-

tainable growth planners are attempting to re-create as the "green" revolution. Herb Kane flung open the doors of our legacy and unleashed a firestorm of passion and commitment to rebuilding our cultural lives and identity. He created a time tunnel to our past through images and stories of who we were in an up close and personal way. He rebuilt the nation. He helped us find our dignity and restored our honor. Ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope (the time in front, the time in back). By rediscovering our past he made us relevant to Hawai'i's future. Nowadays, whenever I see men dancing the hula, or a Hawaiian child speaking Hawaiian, or a sailing eanoe, or a restored heiau, or the proliferation of our art forms, I think of Herb. Thank you Herb Kane - from a grateful nation. ■ Contact me on Facebook, or email PeterApoOHA@ gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter @PeterApo.

PetEr Apo TrustEE, O'ahu