Weeding and caring for the land are good examples of aloha ʻāina. However, aloha ʻāina means many things. Our kūpuna were amazing people who taught us many things and watched over us. They are the true aloha ʻāina. I realized this when I went to Papahana Kuaola, a learning center where people of all ages can experience and learn about the Hawaiian culture. I felt this was important, so I wanted to create themed lesson plans for 4th graders to learn more about aloha ʻāina. During my time at Papahana Kuaola, I also created three rules to help me to survive, stay close to my ancestors, and aloha ʻāina.
Whenever I think about the Hawaiian culture’s past, a certain verse in the song, Kaulana Nā Pua always comes to my mind. This verse is one of my three rules. It says, “ʻAʻole mākou ʻai minamina, I ka puʻukālā o ke ʻaupuni, Ua lawa mākou I ka pōhaku, I ka ʻai kamahaʻo o ka ʻāina (We do not value, The hill of dollars of the government, We are satisfied with the rock, The wondrous food of the land).” At Papahana Kuaola, I learned that our ancestors are everywhere, always protecting us. They can be rocks at the stream or the coconut tree at the beach. We don’t need money to gain the knowledge of our ancestors because they will always be with us. I use this rule to survive the life of the modern days while also staying grounded and connected to the ʻāina and our kūpuna.
My second rule comes from the article Aloha ʻĀina―Love of the land written by John Charlot. It is “Uwe ka Lani, Ola ka Hōnua” (The sky weeps, the earth lives). Without a balance of nature, the world will never be the same. At Papahana Kuaola I learned that if nature is not in balance, the world is not in balance. This rule helps my wahi to survive because just like the sky and the earth affect each other in different ways, we affect the environment in different ways. If we pollute the stream, then the stream will carry the polluted water and the fish will die. We need to learn to look at our actions and think how those decisions will affect everyone around you. We need to learn how to think of others rather than ourselves. Only then will we survive. We need to always remember who we are and where we come from.
We are Hawaiians Now and Forever, we should not let what other people think of us affect our personalities. We should stay true to ourselves and stay close to our kūpuna. My third and final rule come from the song, Kulāiwi, “He Hawaiʻi Au, Mau A Mau (I am a Hawaiian, Now and Forever)”. At Papahana Kuaola, I learned that our kūpuna did many magnificent things such as sail a canoe and plant kalo. I realized that we sometimes forget ourselves. I use this rule to help keep me grounded and avoid drifting too far from our kūpuna. Through learning the story of Hāloanākalaukapalili, I can see why I need to be connected to my kūpuna which is what I use it to survive.
During my visits to Papahana Kuaola, I have learned that our kūpuna were amazing people who will always be with us and help us to keep our world in balance. I realized that aloha ʻāina does not necessarily mean to care for the land. It is about our kūpuna and how they help us to navigate life through the good times and the bad times. They give us hope. By using the three rules, I feel that they help us to survive the amazing life that God has given to us. I realized that our kūpuna were the true aloha ʻāina. They passed down knowledge and shared it to the next generation. With my lesson plan, I hope that more keiki will learn more about aloha ʻāina and maybe even create rules of their own.
Aloha ʻāina is a lot more than what it appears as. Iʻve learned this through Ekolu Lindsey, Arthur Mederos, Anakala Kamuela, and many other people. A group of kids and me, have gone on six amazing field trips to a place in Heʻeia named Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi which is a non-profit organization that cares for 405 acres of land which was once owned by Pauahiʻs father, Pākī. Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi’s goal is to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture and it’s spiritual practices.
Our plan to make Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi better than it already is, is to make a stamp card which will make people want to come back and once all slots are filled, then they get a tour around Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi. Our goal is to get more staff at Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, get more people to come on community workdays, and to allow people to make fun-life lasting memories. Our project will help Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi to thrive because they are doing fine right now, but with this stamp card, they could be getting more people than ever before at workdays. This is a great example of what aloha ʻāina is. Through the people around us, I have learned to tell others about restoring the ʻāina, realize how important our culture is, and that we should treat the land with respect because our kūpuna once roamed these same lands.
“Spread the message of protecting the land to young ones,” said Ekolu Lindsey during a TEDxMaui. This rule can be connected to my wahi because spreading the word about Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi is what my group is all about. At Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, they are trying to tell everyone to go and help work in the fields no matter what age. The quote by Ekolu Lindsey would help our wahi to survive because by telling children to help work at Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi will allow them to get more help, then when those kids get older, they will tell other children, and that cycle will keep on repeating. Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi needs the land to make poi for the people, but in the bigger picture, it is about helping restore the land. When we restore the land, the land helps to restore us culturally and spiritually.
“We need to dig deeper into our traditions and culture and we need to realize it,” said by Ekolu Lindsey at a TEDxMaui presentation. This rule can be connected to my wahi because at Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi ʻAnakala Kamuela always tells us to reconnect with our culture while we are there. He tells us to close our eyes and slow down what we are doing and listen for anything unusual, or sometimes he will tell us to look at the mountains and he tells us a story about it. This rule is to help Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi thrive because ʻAnakala Kamuela really has helped me to reconnect with my culture and traditions.
Aloha ‘āina has an infinite amount of meanings, and it is your job to find some of them. Telling children about protecting our lands, realizing our culture, and respecting the ʻāina is what aloha ʻāina means to Dr. Arthur Medeiros and Ekolu Lindsey. To me aloha ʻāina means to restore our lands, utilize your resources, passdown your knowledge to young ones, and many more things I havenʻt discovered yet. Aloha ʻāina means to “love the land” in a literal translation, but we must dig deeper to find the little hidden meanings in that one phrase.
Aloha ʻāina, the definition of man's purpose. The ʻāina is the older brother, he takes care of everyone in the beginning and we look up to him. Man, the middle child, we take care of small duties and look after our youngest brother, the plants, and animals, their job is to take care of both us, and the eldest brother in the long run. With this mindset, we can master our purpose, as kanaka, as humans, and as a system.
“You don’t need money to survive you need people because people bring hope and hope is what drives people.” - Ekolu Lindsey. Paepae o He’eia is a nonprofit organization that relies on donations or selling off mangrove for any type of money. Even without loads of money, they rebuilt about ¾ of a completely non-operational fishpond with almost only manpower and the goodness of people's hearts. They spent over 16 years fixing repairing and to maintain the pond. Now it's nearly a fully operational fishpond all that's left is to open the 2 mauka makahaʻs. See they used a little money to buy rocks and some supplies but in the end, it was sheer aloha and manpower that made the project possible. It was the will of the people who brought this project together. It was aloha ʻāina doing its job. So if we the kanaka follow this rule we can accomplish anything that needs to be done we don’t need to survive because we will be thriving if we follow this rule.
“Even if you're not around to see the final product doesn't mean you shouldn't fight because it is your kuleana, you started the legacy and those after you will know it was you who started it.” A quote from Dr. Art Medeiros. This rule is widely used even uncle Kanaloa an employee at our own wahi Paepae o Heʻeia, said: “I’m almost 100% sure I won't see the final product.” The reason he’s ok with that is he was a link legacy that will be passed on and on and one day the finished masterpiece. A good example is a chain you take out a link it breaks thus causing the chain to become smaller. In this situation the pond is the chain and as the chain gets smaller the pond gets more destroyed so one link makes a difference and uncle Kanaloa is a link. So it's ok to work/start on a project and cause or anything even though you might not see the end because you are a link and without you, it wouldn't be possible. If we follow this rule we can bring Hawai’i to its rightful state, we can thrive as Hawaiians we can thrive as a people as a race as a nation.
“Our ancestors were not dumb.” - Ekolu Lindsey. Now, this rule is short and straight to point, but it has a deeper meaning. I think this rule resembles thrive because with knowing this information Hawai’i could strive to be the most sustainable society in the world. Knowing that our ancestors were smart makes me say hey if they can build a stone wall 800 years ago and have it still standing I can at least get an A+ on this test. I know this rule came from Mr. Lindsey seeing the stone wall in his valley, seeing that it stood for 800 years the same time the great wall was being built, and this was before Machu Picchu. So if someone says those Hawaiians were lazy, I be like no we the Hawaiian people were not lazy we worked our butt off. Look at this example Paepae o Heʻeia the pond was forgotten for at least a hundred years and it only took about 12 to get it decently working again.
Money is something we don’t need, but people and hope are a necessity, to be a link is just as good as seeing the final product and we the Hawaiians are not dumb. If we can apply these rules we can thrive. The aloha ʻāina rules are meant for us to thrive at life and culture. We Hawaiians did not survive we continue to thrive.
E mālama ana i ka ʻāina e like me kāna i mālama mai ai i kuʻu lāhui no nā hanauna he lehulehu. “I will care for the ʻāina, as it has cared for my people for generations,” this beautiful line is a piece from the Kā ʻŌlelo Hoʻohiki Kanaka Maoli Pledge, written by Randie Kamuela Fong and Larry Kauanoe Kimura. This line vividly represents the Aloha ʻĀina Project that we as sixth graders have been working on throughout the school year.
We had the opportunity to choose between four different wahi pana that we personally felt connected to. I gladly was selected as one of the few keiki who had the opportunity to learn many new things at Kānehūnāmoku. On my many huakaʻi to Kānehūnāmoku and the He Waʻa He Moku, He Moku He Waʻa Farm, I developed a close pilina with my wahi. I also had the chance to understand the strengths and challenges of my wahi, but also the many rules that they use to help themselves to thrive. I experienced three different rules while at Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy.
The first rule I experienced at Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy was, “The more you enjoy something, the more it changes and evolves your perception of it.” This rule comes from conservationist, ʻEkolu Lindsey. As ʻEkolu explained, "It's not work, when it's passion." To me, this means that the more we enjoy something, the more we do not think of it as work. When we enjoy something it is much easier to be successful and accomplish a goal, then fail and give up.
When we were at the He Waʻa He Moku, He Moku He Waʻa Farm, we had the chance to work in the loʻi. We stomped in the loʻi and pushed the many weeds into the mud. As we were stomping on these weeds, we participated in hehihehi races that allowed for us to have fun while working in the loʻi. Kānehūnāmoku allowed us to work but to also have fun at the same time. This rule truly helps Kānehūnāmoku to thrive because as keiki have a fun experience they will want to come back to Kānehūnāmoku or even advocate for Kānehūnāmoku. As we advocate, more people will come, which will allow for them to succeed and thrive by accomplishing their mission “to perpetuate the knowledge of traditional Hawaiian navigation.” Therefore, it is explicit how this rule helps Kānehūnāmoku to thrive.
The second rule that I experienced at Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy was, “We need to educate others of our culture and our cultural knowledge.” Conservationist ʻEkolu Lindsey stated in his TED Talk, "I ka wa mamua, ka wa mahope...our future can be found in the wisdom of our past." Meaning, the knowledge to shape our future can be found in our past. By educating others of our cultural knowledge and the ways of our kūpuna, we are able to sustain our culture for many generations to come.
Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy taught us many different concepts of traditional voyaging and farming ways so that we will have this knowledge and eventually use it when voyaging, farming, and much more. By passing down our knowledge, future generations will know about their culture and their past. Kānehūnāmoku truly lives out this rule because they are educating others about our traditions so that we will be knowledgeable and pass it down to others. It is our kuleana as keiki to take the many things we have been taught and carry on our culture through this ʻike. By following this rule, Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy is able to thrive in many different ways. By sharing their own knowledge of voyaging and farming through the many programs they offer, they are able to sustain these cultural practices and succeed in their mission. For these reasons, this rule helps Kānehūnāmoku to thrive.
Lastly, at Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy, the third rule that I experienced was, “We need to work together to perpetuate our culture.” This rule came from a person who truly knows how working together can make a huge impact, Dr. Arthur Medeiros. Medeiros explained in his TED Talk that many people came together to work in Auwahi. As more and more people came, they were able to restore most of Auwahi, which is now a majestic native forest. In addition, working together is important because alone we do so little, but together we can do so much.
We learned the importance of working together on our visits to Kānehūnāmoku. On the waʻa, we all worked together so that we could sail. If everyone did not do their part to help the waʻa move, then the waʻa would not function properly. By working together we were able to sail. In addition, when we were at the farm, we worked together as one big group to stomp all the weeds down as we formed a line and held on to each other. By doing this, we were not only able to get the job done faster, but we were able to get the job done efficiently.
Lastly, we all worked together when taking down the mainsail of Kānehūnāmoku. Knowing the sail would be heavy, we all worked as one to make sure we carefully took down the sail so that no one and nothing got hurt. Working together allowed for the job to be accomplished easier. By using this rule, Kānehūnāmoku is able to thrive. If everyone works together we can get many things completed faster and more efficient. We can help our wahi by following this rule and getting many of the goals they are looking to accomplish completed. For these reasons, this rule helps Kānehūnāmoku to thrive.
Through this aloha ʻāina project, I did not only experience three different rules that helped my wahi to thrive and accomplish many goals, but I was also able to develop my own meaning of aloha ʻāina. From the very beginning of the school year to now, my understanding of aloha ʻāina has tremendously evolved and changed. From the many visits I have gone on to Kānehūnāmoku, to our visit to Maui on our Huakaʻi Aloha ʻĀina, I have had many experiences that helped me to understand aloha ʻāina even deeper. Many people think of aloha ʻāina as just loving the land, but to me, aloha ʻāina is about developing profound connections, showing sustainability, and mālama i ka ʻāina. But now, how are you going to protect your heritage, bind your people, and aloha ʻāina?