Ho‘onā‘ū - Prolonging an Ancestral Breath: Moʻoʻōlelo

Article II. Mo‘o‘ōlelo

Concerning the Tradition of the Spoken Word and Stories of Origin
Na Kahaka‘io Ravenscraft
Featuring excerpts from Kumulipo, a cosmology preserved from ka wā kahiko

Wana, ina, and pūnohunohu are the sea urchins, an important traditional food source and considered among the forms of 'aumakua (family gods) in Hōnaunau. Wana or wana'ao also means "to appear" as in the flash of a ray of light.

NPS Photo

A tradition in the spoken word is an echo of an ancestral voice. To see and hear tradition continue through the spoken word – in Hawai‘i nei demonstrated through means such as skillful oration, through chant, and through the practice of prayer – is to witness a genetic expression given life. In ‘ōlelo makuahine, the mother-tongue, kanaka Maoli refer to the spoken word tradition as mo‘o-‘ōlelo. Mo‘o means to continue, continuation, succession; mo‘o is a segment, as in the vertebra of the spinal column; it is each link in a genealogical chain, it is the individual sections of a DNA strand. Mo‘o is the name given to the serpentine and the reptilian; the lizard, the gecko, the skink, and even the scorpion. Mo‘o is the endearing name by which a grandparent speaks of their grandchildren. Mo‘o-‘ōlelo. ‘Ōlelo is the word itself. ‘Ōlelo is language, it is speech, it is the voice through words. So we say mo‘o-‘ōlelo; tradition through the spoken word. Culture and tradition as we know it are born through this expression of voice. Voices shaped by human experiences and informed by interactions with the interconnected elements of an environment. This is the meaning of wahi pana. In a sense it is through these experiences of social and biological stimuli that we have the depth of language and the meaning of sound and inflection, and through these experiences elements of culture form and evolve.

Oia ka wahine noho lani a pi‘o lani no

Oia wahine haulani a noho lani no

Noho no i luna a iho pi‘o ia Kii

Weli ai ka honua i na keiki

Hanau o Kamaha‘ina he kane

Hanau o Kamamule kona muli

Hanau o Kamamainau o kona waena

Hanau o Kamakulua kona pokii he wahine

Noho Kamaha‘ina he kane ia Hali‘a

Hanau Loaa he kane

A kāka‘ōlelo is a man given the power of the word, the power of voice. He is the orator, the speaker of the house, the proverbial ‘talking chief’ within the houses of politic and ritual. A kāka‘ōlelo speaks with the authority of his ali‘i and expresses their words and will through skillful oration, deliberation, and conjecture. A kāka‘ōlelo utilizes the power of the word to inspire and incite action within his nation, and in fact must become that very expression of voice by which a nation may be known. So a kāka‘ōlelo carries both the privilege of voice and the responsibility of understanding the burdens that come with authority. Integrity of word is his greatest burden, and greatest power. Mana kō ka ‘ōlelo. Power of word and voice forms not only an expression of authority and will, but more so can represent the collective wisdom of a people. A tradition in the spoken word carries this expression, this understanding, and this integrity to transcend throughout the time and space we occupy. A tradition in the spoken word is a narrative of a people.

A true effort to observe and experience the material culture of ka Pae ‘Āina ‘o Hawai‘i with a sense of understanding requires a willingness to part with colonial narratives regarding the peopling of Oceania and examine native traditions of lore and story-telling through Oceanic perspectives. One historical narrative cannot negate or discredit another, no matter the ambiguities present, as an examination of perspective is essential to understanding the complexities of human interaction. Robert Borofsky PH.D, in his contributions to Remembrance of Pacific Pasts (University of Hawaii Press. 2000), ascertains that the

credibility of a narrative… may well change over time depending on the contexts in which it is presented and who else supports it. Historical narratives are not invariant truths. What we call history… gains credibility through others providing additional information that confirms an author’s assertions. Without such confirmation, assertions about the past remain just that—assertions.

Among the most sought after traditions to gain the attention of early European interests were stories of origin amongst Oceanic groups. These island people, representing so many cultures and customs of a multifaceted nature, presented an enigma to the outlanders now coursing the waterways of the Pacific. In the vein of European curiosity, the very notion of a people populating the vastly spread, remotely located island realms of Oceania manifested in the Western mind as a mystery, one to be solved via empirical deduction. The Puzzle of Polynesia, or so author Christina Thompson calls it in a subtitle to her book Sea People (Harper. 2019). As the sands of an island world became impressed upon by footprints from faraway lands, inquiring minds embarked on the odyssey that is Oceanic history and lore.

By the middle of the 19th century, as the West began to breach the threshold of an industrial revolution, a number of scholarly efforts attempted to decode the traditions related across Oceanic groups. In time a fascination with lost civilizations and artifacts of antique or curious nature brought about a rise in the fields of archeology and anthropology, and with it an array of theories regarding the peopling of the pacific. So the query is posed, where did you come from? Yet in a perplexing manner, the answers given to Europeans by islanders did little to enlighten on matters of origin and settlement, for the very nature of the question was understood on a fundamentally different perception of reality. Oceanic cosmologies appear poetically composed in descriptions vividly colorful, supernaturally fantastic, and explicitly sexual in nature. Failing to understand this perspective, Oceanic cosmologies and stories of origin became reduced to the acid daydreams of primitive heathens by the patriarchal minds of Western conviction, unable to accommodate such a stark intellectual contrast. Oceanic narratives are not linear chronologies of a people’s existence across the Pacific Ocean but rather esoteric expressions regarding what the people of Oceania understood of the nature of the world and how their peoples came to be as they are, rather than where they are.

O La‘ila‘i

O Ola‘ikuhonua

O wela. O owe. O owa ka lani

Oia wahine piilani a piilani no

Pii ao a lani i ka nahelehele

Ohenehene lele kulani ka honua

O kama ho‘i a Kii i oili ma ka lolo

Puka lele. Lele pu i ka lani

Kau ka omea ke aka ula ha‘i hailona

Kau i ka lae he hua ulu ii

Kau i ka auwae he huluhulu a

Ka hanauna a ka wahine hoopahaohao

Ka wahine no Iliponi no Iipakalani

No ka aunaki kuku wela ahi kanaka

Oia wahine noho i Nuumealani

Chronology in regards to Oceanic history has largely developed as a convention of Western thinking, which places heavy value on clear, linear, defined categorization. Furthermore, in many cases, chronologies as such developed in accordance to preexisting paradigms brought into the Pacific Rim by earlier European visitors. These earliest examinations of Oceanic culture, tradition, and history, conducted predominantly by European men working in the fields of colonial expansion and trade, certainly created a wealth of data, however served little in understanding the people themselves, save to catalog examples of material culture and what little could be said of language and lore through the translation of Oceanic thought into Western languages such as English, French, Dutch, and Spanish. While the translation of ideas can lend some insight, the inflexibility of Western methodology, which struggles with the ambiguities of Oceanic culture and linguistics, has resulted in a trend amongst historians to discredit native accounts as inaccurate, diminishing the voice of the very people this research seeks to understand. Orators of Oceanic tradition depended not so much on defining an accurate chronological order of events, but rather focused their narratives on recalling events based on socio-cultural relevance within a given time. A tradition in the spoken word speaks to the state of a people. A tradition in the spoken word evolves with the voice of its people.

Hoomalino ke au ia ka po kinikini

Hoola‘ila‘i mehe ka po heenalu mamao

I kapaia La‘ila‘i i laila

Hanau La‘ila‘i he wahine

Hanau Kii he kane

Hanau Kane he akua

Hanau o Kanaloa-kaheehaunawela

Ia Ao

Tradition in the spoken word is a thing fluid in nature. Traditions must remain anchored in the past while yet able to expand into the future. The evolution of tradition is the lifeblood of a living culture, without evolution a culture becomes static, stagnant, and irrelevant. Such things are confined to the museum and its deteriorating memories of the past. Kanaka Maoli are not confined to the museum, we live and continue to live and evolve in time. ‘Ōlelo makuahine is relevant today. Pu‘uhonua is relevant today. The ‘aumakua are relevant today and these things will be so for generations to come. These things are so because a people make them so. This is the pulse of a place describe by the term wahi pana. In a living culture a people must identify what is relevant in the ever changing world, and with the knowledge of tradition, establish the means to persevere. To be Maoli today is not to remain affixed to a static tradition but to see it evolve and unfold in time.

O ke au ka huli wela ka honua

O ke au ka huli lole ka lani

O ke au i kuka‘iaka ka la

E hoomalamalama i ka malama

O ke au o Makalii ka po

O ka walewale hookumu honua ia

O ke kumu o ka lipo i lipo ai

O ke kumu o ka po i po ai

O ka lipolipo

O ka lipolipo

O ka lipo o ka la

O ka lipo o ka po

Po wale ho‘i

Hanau ka po

Hanau Kumulipo i ka po he kane

Hanau Po‘ele i ka po he wahine

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NOTES:

Kumulipo remains the most intact intellectual record of Oceanic creation in ka Pae ‘Āina o Hawai‘i. Composed in the form of a chant of some 2,102 lines in length, Kumulipo is a record of both genealogical succession and cosmological origin. Accepted as having been composed in the 18th century for ruling chief Kalani-nui Ka‘ī‘iamāmao, the author entertains the idea that the chant is of a more deeply antiquated origin, amended over time to include the pedigrees of paramount chiefs. In the 18th century this was done by the kahuna Keaulumoku to include the genealogy of the aforementioned Kalani-nui Ka‘ī‘iamāmao. The above selections taken from this Oceanic cosmology can be related as such:

She the woman dwelling amongst the heavens and of heavenly union

She the woman of the surging heavens and amongst the heavens dwelt

Lived up there and descended to join in union with Kii

The world swarmed with her offspring

Born is Kamaha‘ina a male

Born is Kamamule her youngest offspring

Born is Kamamainau her middle child

Born is Kamakulua her pokii, a female

Kamaha‘ina dwelt with Hali‘a

Born is Loa‘a a male

O La‘ila‘i

O Ola‘ikuhonua

Hot. Murmuring. Roaring are the heavens

She that ascends to the heavens

Strived to the heavens by the forest

The chiefly altar of the world

Offspring of Kii appeared from the brain

Emerged detached. Flew off to the heavens

Set the red sign, the red signs by which they are known

Upon the forehead a ruddy breadfruit

Upon the chin shot roots of fire

The offspring of the mysterious woman

The woman from Iliponi, from Iipakalani

From the firestick the passion of man

She that dwells in Nuumealani

Tranquil is the time of innumerable night

Calm as the night spreading from afar

Called there La‘ila‘i

Born is La‘ila‘i a female

Born is Kii a male

Born is Kane a god

Born was Kanaloa-kaheehaunawela,

‘Tis day

At the time that turned the earth to be hot

At the time that turned the heavens to unfold

At the time that subdued the light of the sun

To cause light to break forth

At the time of the night of Makalii

Of the slime which established the earth