Na Mo‘olelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Traditions) Na Mo‘olelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Traditions)| Hawaiian mo‘olelo,
or traditions express the attachment felt between the Hawaiian people and
the earth around them. In Hawaiian culture, natural and cultural resources
are one and the same. Native traditions describe the formation (literally
the birth) of the Hawaiian Islands and the presence of life on and around
them, in the context of genealogical accounts.
All forms of the natural environment, from the skies and mountain peaks, to the watered valleys and plains, and to the shore line and ocean depths were the embodiments of Hawaiian gods and deities. One Hawaiian genealogical account, records that Wakea (the expanse of the sky) and Papa-hanau-moku (Papa—Earth-mother who gave birth to the islands)—also called Haumea-nui-hanau-wa-wa (Great Haumea—Woman-earth born time and time again)—and various gods and creative forces of nature, gave birth to the islands. Hawai‘i, the largest of the islands, was the first-born of these island children. As the Hawaiian genealogical account continues, we find that these same god-beings, or creative forces of nature who gave birth to the islands, were also the parents of the first man (Haloa), and from this ancestor, all Hawaiian people are descended (cf. David Malo 1951:3; Beckwith 1970; Pukui and Korn 1973). |
Portion of Hawaiian Language Newspaper “Ka
Hoku o Hawai‘i” (issue date July 10, 1928); |
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One of the ancient mele (chants) handed down through the generations, that gives a mo‘oku‘auhau (genealogy) of the islands tells us:
Through the brief narratives cited above, one begins to sense that in
a traditional context, natural resources—such as rock outcrops, a
pool of water, a forest grove, an ocean current, a mountain, the flat
land expanse, the small hill and the natural lay of the land—are
all valued as cultural properties by the Hawaiian people. It is this “cultural
attachment” to the natural world that defines a significant body
of traditional cultural properties and cultural practices in Hawai‘i. Hawaiian Language Newspaper and Manuscript Translation ProjectsAmong the archival resources that Kepä has an extensive and somewhat unique knowledge of, and which he brings to the work done by Kumu Pono Associates LLC, are historic Hawaiian language reference materials published in Hawaiian language newspapers and land documents. The native language records contain a wealth of resource information pertaining to the life, practices, beliefs, occurrence and use of native sites and resources, and values of Hawai‘i’s indigenous people. Between the 1840s and 1940s, nearly 100 Hawaiian Language Newspapers published, and to date only limited indexes and translations of these papers are available, thus a wealth of material awaits “rediscovery.” Kumu Pono Associates LLC has developed an extensive index of Hawaiian language newspaper article arranged by island (e.g. Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Maui, and Hawai‘i etc.) and place name accounts, and he has translated numerous Hawaiian narratives. These native language narratives: 1) provide readers with access to otherwise unavailable
sources of information for interpreting Hawaiian sites, |
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