Last updated: June 1, 2020
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Ho‘onā‘ū - Prolonging an Ancestral Breath: Kālaimoku
Article IV. Kālaimoku
Shaping Reality in an Oceanic World
Na Kahaka‘io Ravenscraft
Featuring excerpts from a prayer uttered by the kālai ki‘i over the hafting of a stone-adz
Symbolism is the language of the Mysteries. By symbols men have ever sought to communicate to each other those thoughts which transcend the limitations of language… in a single figure a symbol may both reveal and conceal, while to the ignorant the symbol remains inscrutable.
- Manly P. Hall
An island world teaches one to observe. To utilizes the senses and experience life through conscious perception. An island world illustrates perfectly the notions of coexistence and codependence. When one becomes a part of an island world, a holistic understanding of place and presence may be achieved. This sense of understanding has, in ka Pae ‘Āina ‘o Hawai‘i, come to inform tradition on a number of levels, expressed through subtle yet numerous facets within the cultural aesthetic. There is an elemental presence both primal and heavenly represented in the practice of ‘aiha‘a (traditional dance), or in the tonal incantations of oli (chant), and expressed visually in the material arts of kapla (geometric print) and kālai (carving). And an elemental presence is one not bound to static interpretation but is fluid in nature, traveling through cycles of time and relevance, defining without being defined. Such things are the aesthetic quality lent to the pressing or weaving of patterns, the carving of images, and even in the subtle shape and design of tools, implements, and adornments. Look at the arch of the rainbow or the crescent moon, see its shape in the form of a fishhook, the crest of a mahi‘ole helmet, or the protruding jaw of a ki‘i. Look at the shape of a shark’s tooth or the peak of a mountain precipice and see its shape in the patterned embellishments of a makaloa mat, upon the stained surface of a gourd water-vessel, or in the tātau ‘uhi tattooed upon the skin of a warrior-chief. It is no coincidence that these elemental expressions viewed in the natural world find themselves in geometric representation, imprinted throughout material culture from the mundane implements of daily life to the sacred vestments and icons of the kahuna at their places of ritual.
To truly observe and experience the material culture of ka Pae Āina ‘o Hawai‘i with a sense of understanding requires a willingness of the mind to accept traditions as multifaceted expressions informed through nature by a myriad of human experiences. For a living culture cannot be bound to a single paradigm; rather it must shift and pivot its sails to catch the ever driving winds of change across oceans of conscious existence. Contrary to the beliefs epitomized by Western academia which portray kanaka Maoli as being of a primitive ethos affixed to ridged law and superstition via oppressive means such as the kapu system, kanaka Maoli, in ka Pae ‘Āina ‘o Hawai‘i and across the oceanic expanses of Moananuiākea, developed a diverse culture able to adapt and thrive in a range of biomes through dynamic understandings of time and place. Through observation of elemental forces, those both explicit and subtle, kanaka Maoli shape and are shaped by the realities of an Oceanic world.
E Kaneuakea
Eia ka alana
He moa ualehu
He moa uakea
He moa ula hiwa
He alana keia ia oe Kane
To repeat the words of loea Sam Kaha‘i Ka‘ai, a Kālaimoku is the shaper of the world. When we speak the word kālai in the mother tongue it means to carve, cut, hew, or engrave. It is the process of shaping a canoe; kālai wa‘a. It is to divide, and also to plan, formulate, or budget. Kālai is an enterprise or intellectual policy. And those men skilled in the craft of kālai received the highest regard within Maoli society. The title of Kālaimoku – a name which truly means shape the world – was instilled upon the most highly regarded of warrior-chiefs, whose demonstrations of intellect, skill, strength, and discernment, elevated such an individual to receive that title, a political ranking second only to that of the paramount or sovereign Ali‘i-nui himself; a position reflecting heavily the duties of the Prime Minister of Western governments. A Kālaimoku is minister of affairs and a shaper of tradition through the implementation of law and the division of resources; a political protocol in ka Pae ‘Āina ‘o Hawai‘i called kālai‘āina.
In a similar vein, the Kālaiwa‘a, the canoe-builders, create the very means by which kanaka Maoli transverse the oceanic waterways of their island worlds. As a symbol the wa‘a embodies the dynamic relationship between kanaka and ‘āina – between humanity and that which sustains it. The Kālaiwa‘a cannot be compared to the Western carpenter who only takes of the land to produce his craft, for the Kālaiwa‘a had also the responsibility of sustaining all things necessary to perpetuate this existence. A Kālaiwa‘a held true a vast knowledge of the timbers used as his medium, as well as a holistic understanding of the biomes which produced such materials and a reverent comprehension of the ocean upon which his craft would travel. To the Western mind, the ocean represented an impassable distance between two things, a void to be crossed and a force to be conquered only by the most endeavoring of individuals. To the Oceanic mind, the ocean is the causeway that connects all things, each island world itself a vessel for humanity upon pathways of wind and water. An island world is one built upon a universal archetype of interrelated elements; the sea, the land, and the heavens beyond separated only by the limitations of human perception.
He alana keia ia oe Kane
No ke ko‘i kalai
Ko‘i kua
Ko‘i kikoni
Ko‘i lo‘u
Eia ke ko‘i! Here is the toki, the ko‘i, the hafted adze. The ko‘i is the tool by which the Kālai completes his labor, the tool which builds a nation. To examine a ko‘i, to hold it in one’s grasp, is to wield a symbol of a people. Its blade which cuts and hews is father Kāne, shaped out of the hardest basalt stone. Its handle by which the Kālai may grip the adze is mother Haumea, shaped from the timber of the sacred Hau tree. And the cord which binds the two is Kū, twisted finely from the fibers of the coconut husk. A trinity by which a people descended. From the adze is born the wa‘a, the vessel which moves a people. From the adze is born the hale and the hālau, the structures which shelter a people. From the adze is born the ki‘i, the divine expression of a people.
He ko‘i e ka‘i e kalai ai ke kii
He ko‘i ou e Kane ke akua ola
Ke akua mana
Ke akua noho i ka ‘iu‘iu
Ke akua i ke ao polohiwa
At Pu‘uhonua o Hōnaunau this ancient expression is perpetuated in our modern world. To gaze upon the ki‘i at Kauwalomālie, Ka‘ulelewalewa, and Ka‘iki‘āle‘a is to bear witness to a profound tradition of Oceanic thought and understanding. These images are not simply replicas of a time lost to history but living expressions of a people yet in existence, a people who remember ka ho‘omana kahiko. Here the ki‘i recall the ‘aiha‘a, the stance and posture of the body charged with energy; the back straightened and shoulders locked, the chest protruding and full of power, the knees bent and legs set strong. Here the eyes of the ki‘i peer out behind countenances bright with laughter wrought to the point of ecstasy, with jaws protruding like the curve of a fishhook or the niho pālaoa pendant of a high chief. Here the ki‘i recall the higher states of consciousness that are the hallmark of a pu‘uhonua, embodied in the kāhilimana and nīheu elaborations that extend upwards and out from the head. Here the ki‘i are girded in the malo at times of ritual and awakened with the ancestral voice, voices that remember ka ho‘omana kahiko. Pu‘uhonua o Hōnaunau is a reminder of an ancestral breath, the breath of an island world, the breath of an Oceanic world. A world of conscious perception built upon patterns and cycles of interconnected experience. For within every degree of experience comes the cultivation of knowledge, wisdom, and tradition, and with these the potential to persevere.
E ike ia u ia
Ke kalai kii
A ku ke kii i Lanaikawai
O ka wai ola a Kane
E Kane eia kou hale
O Mauliola
NOTES:
This prayer, passed down through tradition, is one such prayer spoken over the ko‘i during the process of hafting, invoked in repetition as the carver binds the adze-stone to its handle of hau wood with fine cordage made of coconut fiber. The above sections from this prayer may be related as such:
O Kāne-white-as-mist
Here is the offering
A fowl ash-white
A fowl mist-white
A prized fowl
These are the offerings for you O Kāne
For the carving adze
For the striking adze
For the smoothing-down adze
For the adze with the bent haft
An adze to direct to carve the image
Your adze, O Kāne, god of life
God with mana
God dwelling in the unfathomable heights
God in the glistening clouds of darkness
Look upon me
The carver of images
Let the image at Lanaikawai stand
The living waters of Kāne
O Kāne, here is your house
There is Life