Article

Bay View Girl’s Mele Aloha ‘Āina

Article written by Nicole Martin, PhD
Typewritten text of song
He mele no Kalaupapa (A Song for Kalaupapa) as it appeared printed in the newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, 1921

Special Collections, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai'i at Mänoa, 2001

“He mele he inoa no Kalaupapa / Aina kaulana puni ka honua.” (“A name praising song for Kalaupapa / World famous land.”) So begins the He mele no Kalaupapa (A Song for Kalaupapa) that appeared in 1921 in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa – the longest running publication of its kind.

He mele no Kalaupapa is a form of mele (songs or chants) called mele aloha ‘āina, patriotic songs that praise someone’s homelands. They demonstrate intimate knowledge and love of the land. In early Hawai‘i, mele were how Native Hawaiians celebrated and remembered the stories of their gods and great deeds of their leaders. They have long brought people together, in moments of happiness and struggle. In the weeks after American businessmen overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893, mele aloha ‘āina became a powerful means for expressing not just feelings of anguish and bitterness but also stories of rebellion and resistance.1

What makes this mele aloha ‘āina remarkable, though, is the credited author: “Bay View Girl.” Bay View was a group home for those afflicted with Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, in the remote Kalaupapa Peninsula on the northshore of the island of Moloka'i. While nothing is known about Bay View Girl, the fact she wrote He mele no Kalaupapa while living at Bay View suggests a love for the place that transcended bodily pain and forced separation from her home and family.

Kalaupapa’s Bay View Home

From 1866-1969, first the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, and later the territory and state of Hawai‘i, banished over 8,000 people afflicted with Hansen’s disease to the Moloka'i settlement. At least 90 percent were Native Hawaiians. The disease began to appear in records as early as the 1830s and likely came from migrant workers. For late nineteenth-century government officials faced with an epidemic with no known cure at the time, expulsion and isolation from society seemed to be the only answer. For those forced to leave, including young children, it was a devastating experience of loss – of their families, homes, and the lands of their birth.2
Black and white photo of group of Hawiian youth in costumes.
Girls from the Bishop home raising money during WWI.

NPS Photo/KALA

Conditions at the initial Kalawao settlement were deplorable, as the first patients worked hard to secure shelter and produce food, while petitioning the Board of Health for supplies, materials, and medical care. Volunteers were sent to provide compassionate care to patients, including Father Damien in 1873. He helped build houses, organize schools, and established the Baldwin Home for Boys. As the population grew, Mother Marianne Cope arrived in 1888 and managed the Bishop Home specifically for girls and women.
Established in 1901, the Bay View home served the elderly, blind, and disabled. As a group home, it helped alleviate some of the pain of isolation through community building, including shared meals in a central dining room. Patients also received round-the-clock nursing care. Rebuilt after a fire in 1914, improvements were added to the Bay View home complex over many decades. When the Hawaiian government’s forced quarantine ended in 1969 after new drug therapies made Hansen’s disease patients no longer contagious, many chose to remain in Kalaupapa, as it had become their home. Bay View continued to house patients until 2007. Kalaupapa National Historical Park was established in 1980, and the home now serves as offices and housing for park employees and volunteers.3
Long, rectangular brown building with continuous porch sits about tropical trees at base of lush mountain at sunset.
Bay View Home

NPS / Michael Langhans

If a patient, the Bay View Girl was likely not an actual girl but an elderly woman. How long had she resided there? Did she arrive as a young girl, forcibly removed from her mother and father? Those who have written publicly about their experience stress the turmoil and fear thrust upon them, particularly the pain and trauma they endured being separated from their families and loved ones. Former Kalaupapa patient, Bernard Ka‘owakaokalani Punikai‘a, explained,“This story of separation from our families is the story that belongs to most of us – to all of us. This story comes from the heart.”4

The Resistance of Mele Aloha ‘Āina

When Kalaupapa park employee, Mikiala Pescaia, sings He mele no Kalaupapa, it is from the heart. You can hear a sadness and longing in her voice that echoes the thousands of exiles who yearned for home. However, as the song continues, a sound of strength builds, swelling to match the faint sound of ocean waves in the background. This strength captures both the great beauty of the landscape and the collective resistance of those banished to Kalaupapa.

  • He mele no Kalaupapa


    A mele aloha ‘āina (song praising one’s homeland), "The He mele no Kalaupapa (A Song for Kalaupapa)" by “Bay View Girl," 1921. Sung by Park Ranger Mikiala Pescaia.

    Credit / Author:
    NPS/Mikiala Pescaia
    Date created:
    10/30/2023
    Audio Transcript
As much as former patients have emphasized the pain of isolation, they have also spoken to the beauty of Kalaupapa. Olivia Robella Breitha, who resided at Kalaupapa for most of her adult life and later became a Hansen’s disease activist, explained in her memoir, “What was once a prison to me is now a paradise.”5 He mele no Kalaupapa captures the love of this paradise throughout the song, detailing with great care the natural features the author sees before her. When describing the sweet fragrance of three individual blossoms, she describes the physical effect it has on her, making her “heart race intensely.”
Turquoise waves crash against volcanic coastline, deep, lush valley and mountains in background.
A view of the coastline looking into Wai'ale'ia Valley mentioned in Bay View Girl’s mele.

NPS Photo/Hailey Shchepanik

When Bay View Girl decided to write He mele no Kalaupapa, she joined a community who continuously fought back to improve their lives. Together, they not only supported and cared for each other but also forced the outside world to see the people of Kalaupapa fully: their dignity, creativity, and diverse talents.6 The very act of writing the mele aloha ‘āina was an act of resistance. By expressing her love for the land around her, Bay View Girl reveals that she created a new home and made a new family on Kalaupapa, not to replace the old, but in order to endure and make life anew.
1 Eleanor Nordyke and Martha Noyes, “‘Kaulana Na Pua’: A Voice for Sovereignty,” The Hawaiian Journal of History 27 (1993).

2 Anwei Skinsnes Law, Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2012), 3.

3 “Bay View Home,” Kalaupapa National Historical Park, National Park Service.

4 Bernard Ka‘owakaokalani Punikai‘a, foreword to Law, Kalaupapa, ix.

5 Olivia Robello Breitha, Olivia: My Life of Exile in Kalaupapa, third printing (Pacific Historic Parks, 2016), vi.

6 Law, Kalaupapa, xi-xiii.

Part of a series of articles titled Home and Homelands Exhibition: Resistance.

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Last updated: September 17, 2024