Kauhi Maunakea-Forth

 

I am 17 years old.   I have been living in Kaneʻohe for about a year and a half, where I have been pounding paʻiʻai by hand and studying my culture.  Before that, I grew up on Maʻo farm, where my parents have a community-based program that helps youth to grow on the path of doing what my parents had already done.  That brought me back to what was always there for me – ever since I was a child, that was the land. 

 

Before that, I was born and raised in Nanakuli, where my motherʻs family is from.  They say that is not the real name, though.  The real name may be Nanakuʻulei – one of the 3 sisters of Māui.  Nanakuʻulei, Māʻili, Waiʻanae – all sisters of Māui.  All cave dwellers.  Some people say that “look to the knees” actually refers to the coral caves beneah your feet.  There wasnt a lot of water in the area unless you knew where to find it.  My grandma used to tell me stoiries about it.  Hawaiians would not give such a negative name.  There a was a lot of mana to the name, obviously.  I always try to look at things from a different perspective.

 

Ive been kuʻi-ing kalo steadily for about one year now.  I first learned when I was six.   I say one year, because it is during this year that I have had real understanding of the meaning of what I am doing.   I got to the point of learning more about the kalo now, and I am trying to get above me, into feeding my ʻohana my community.  We kuʻi at least five times per week.  That is one way to stay healthy!

 

Before, I was going through typical teenager stuff – running away from home, stuff like that.  Working with Hāloa, it became less about me.  Working with the kalo, scraping down the hewa to become the purest form that I am.

 

 Just from kuʻiʻai, constantly working with stone, weight, and the constant energy you spend pounding kalo helps you to keep in tune with your body.  When I pound, I have to switch muscles to keep pounding.  We are constantly developing our technique.

 

I want to go to college, because I think it will help me to achieve my dreams.  I have many dreams that I would like to try to make into reality.  For example, I have a dream of realizing the concept of  “he moku he waʻa, he waʻa he moku”(the island is your canoe, the canoe is your island).  I would like to actually have a canoe, or a fleet, that actually goes around, helps to rebuild loʻi, fishponds – in a single day!!  If you have a whole fleet doing that for a coupe of years, Hawaii is a thriving, beautiful place again!  I believe that if you create the opportunity, eventually the people with the same vision will come.  We need to live our dreams, together.

 

I have my own interpretation of the moʻokūauhau, too.  Papa and Wākea needed to find a place where they truly could enjoy each other’s love.  So they created Hoʻohokukalani --celestial navigation; and through her, they created Hāloa and thus a magical food called paʻiʻai, which you could carry everywhere.  Paʻiʻai in general is so amazing.  You can pretty much link it to anything.  You just need the best part of the kalo. 

 

The lifestyle of Hāloa is crucial to our health.  When you kuʻi, and you consume right off the board, you know who that food was grown by, where it came from.  It connects you to so much.   Knowing where my food came from allowed me to refine my understanding of what makes the food the food.  This understanding of what I eat helped me to understand myself, and where I come from, as well as where we all come from, and who we are.

 

We always support the local organic farmer who practives real love for the land and people.  Eating that kind of love makes you stong in love, and in spirit, and in health.

 

There is a huge difference in paʻiʻai versus commercial taro – on a practical level, the difference is in the quality, the grade.  Commercial taro is left in the field to maximize yeild, but the result is lower quality.  Scientifically, overmaturing kalo converts starch to sugars. We support farmer who knows his taro, and when to harvest it.  Some, like lehua, you have to harvest all at once.   Others are different.  Kalo is like all of life.

 

There are three different  grades of kalo – Ulika is gummy, sweet, not completely overripe, still thick.  Iʻo – this is the starch --  literally the essence -- of the kalo.  This is what we pound.  The iʻo has all of the beneficial bacteria which allows the kalo  to ferment and not sour.  loliloli – this literally means to change; it happens when the starch converts to sugars.  Although this grade can be used, it is inferior for pounding.  Crushing the molecular wall of the kalo releases the sugars that make paʻiai.  Commercial poi goes through a mill – it is entirely different.  The Department of Health had to rewrite the definition of poi – truthfully, commercial poi is really a poi-like product.  Real poi is made from paʻiʻai.  I am not trying to talk badly about anyone else’s efforts, but there is a deep understanding of this difference that is crucial to the understanding of Hawaiian health on the essential level.

 

One of diaries we continually read is Mary Kawena Pukui’s.  She covers the entire process, from growing, cultivating kalo and all the practices involved, to the protocols of eating poi.  Just when eating, the protocols are amazing.  If you see someone walking, even a complete stranger, you are supposed to welcome them.  “Hele mai e ʻai!”  Or, “Come, eat!”  This reflects the essence of our mindset.  This is what keeps us healthy.

 

No talking of business is allowed while eating,  because eating of Hāloa is sacred.  Hāloa therefore denied the success  of any business matter discussed.  At the same time, to eat in silence was haole.  Aloha is to be shared amongst all.  She also explains the many different kinds, grades of kalo.  We have learned a lot from her, and have taken this knowledge further in the best way we can.

 

Even with all our technology today, we as humans are just starting to rediscover what is really food.  This is an amazing process.  ʻAi is found throughout place names, food names  -- everywhere.

 

That was my piko, my calling.  From the food I was fed throughout my life through all the study of paʻiʻai, I am learning so much!

 

Food can poison people or empower people.

 

Wai and ʻai are the essentials.  They are what we thrive on.  They are life itself.  

 

When I eat McDonalds, or any food I would consider “ʻai lepo ʻōpala haole”,  there is a whole different feeling, and if you really know yourself, that feeling is not good.  By contrast, paʻiʻai is a recharging experience.   From the time you take that first bite of sour poi, from the moment you open the lid and smell that sour smell, to the first tingle – it’s like one of those energy shots!

 

From the moment we take that first finger of poi, we are alive.  Most of the time I don’t eat the rest of the day until lunch.  When I eat a loco moco or a cheeseburger, I find myself wanting to eat more and more.  I think this is because this “food” is of such poor quality that it just doesn’t satisfy, so the body is unfulfilled, still hungry.  We are trying to fill a need that could be satisfied with only a few bites of real, living food. 

 

Poi is a mild laxitive, and it breaks down other food, helps you to digest.  It is amazing.

 

Our kūmau, “the never-ending poi bowl” sits on the table all the time.  The poi never empties.  When it gets to the bottom we refill it with more poi.  The ancient Hawaiians would keep that process for centuries.  It was almost their storage for ancestral bacteria.  A probiotic farm.  It stays for generations, and refines the connections of an ʻohana.

 

I am working to rebuild this process. 200 years later, if that process continues, my great gtrret grandchildren can eat the same poi I have, and they will know that grandpa made that, passed it to them. 

 

In every family there is a poi bowl.  You just have to look for it.

 

Hāloa in essence is already a food in its purest form.   When you clean down to the sugars you are cleaning yourself.  This purification is important.

 

We never pound angry.  We always poind with love, because we believe that people can feel that.

 

We also go into the bush.  We plant trees, we plant huli.  We do as much in a day as that day offers us.  We push ourselves into hale building, we push ourselves into waʻa – just many of the different things we stay involved in all the time.

 

To contribute to health in the community, we make boards for people to pound their own kalo.  We use a fishpond technique – we soak the boards 2 months in the fishpond, which prevents cracking and evenly dries the wood.  We also offer workshops on how people can make their own boards.  This last year we sent out 100 boards into the community.  Next year’s goal is 1000 boards.  Every board that we send into the community is another family who will then need to grow their own taro, perpetuate lifestyle same as the kupuna did.   That is water that will need to flow and one more family connected to the ʻāina.

 

We also offer all our tools, so that people can make their own board.   If people are fast, they can do it in 4-8 hours.  We teach kids to pound, and help them to start own kuʻi clubs.  We help people in community – they buy taro & ku’i with us, and whatever they don’t finish ku’i they take home.

 

Doing the wide variety of things we do – pounding kalo, cutting trees, eating what I pound, Hāloa brings so much to all of them.  Through working with Hāloa so many different doors are open.

 

We always say your first kalo is the hardest, because it is there that you start the process of looking for answers of how to do it better and better.  Teaches you to keep looking from a different perspective, because what you see on the board isn’t always what it is.   This keeps our minds agile as well as our bodies.

 

In terms of community health, I believe that the two most important things that get taken away from the people are land and water. These are also the two most  important things that our community needs. 

 

It is important to understand what happened.  400,000 Hawaiians lived on Kalo.  By the 1900s, most taro cultivars were Japanese.   Then during WWII, the Japanese got kicked off their land, and suddenly there were only 200-400 acres left.  We are trying to expand this to make Hawaiʻi sustainable again.  It is a big job, but it can be done.

 

How would we be able to sustain ourself without the ships coming? We need the ʻāina in any real sustainability.  You can’t spell sustainability wout “aina” in the middle!

 

My grandma, Katherine Maunakea always said, “Nehuli ka lima i luna, pololi ka opu.   Nehuli ka lima i lalo, piha ka opu.”  Turn your hands up and you will always be waiting for your next handout.  Turn toward the land, you will always find that there is a way to feed yourself.  If everyone perpetuated that lifesyle,  rather than expecting something to be handed to them, the quality of life would go up for everyone. 

 

Most problems that the  community has – like stealing, beating people up -- why can’t we put that energy into feeding ourselves?  Give a false crack through kuʻi-ing the kalo.  For all these problems that the community has, the kupuna had a solution.  Kalo was one of the most important medicines.  We can learn from it. 

 

I also believe that wearing clothes is a form of oppression.  The malo is superior.  When we wear malo when we kuʻiʻai it’s because we dont want to sweat into the food. It’s comfortable.  Malo are designed to adapt to our environment and to keep us from going where we are not supposed to go.  Hawaiians are very in tune with our environment.  I would like to get more people into wearing malo.  When I wear a malo, though, I often encounter ignorance.  I get asked, “what are you wearing?”   And I want to ask them, “do you know where you are?”

 

Hawaiian language too.  Uncle Daniel went into court speaking all Hawaiian.  They couldn’t understand him at all.  Didnt even have a translator. 

 

We are in Hawaiʻi.  Why cant the ethnic language of Hawaii be perpetuated -- even in an everyday kind of setting?  What if my neice is trying to escape a fiery building; does she really have to speak English to know how to get out? 

 

We like to get fun and creative with kalo too.  We make cinna-buns, calzones, whatever – we get hungry, we create it.  Itʻs fun.  Getting the awareness out there on what is poi.  For a hundred years, no one knew what poi was.  In the legalization process, we had to rediscover.  We found out that a lot of what we are doing has already been done.  Paʻiʻai and banana fritters – all done in Mary Kawena Pukuʻi’s day and age.  They made bread, fried kalo in lard, sun dried it with salt, so many different things. 

 

Every single moʻolelo, every piece of knowledge we stumble upon, we test it out.  Planting naked in the loʻi on full moon, eating 100-day old paʻiʻai (we made poi out of it!) – we put the manaʻo to the test.  There was a thick layer of mold on that paʻiʻai – it was so ono! The best tasting part.  I think that the mold is where the action is.  Sour poi you’re not supposed to put in fridge – the way we make it is unrefrigerated. We leave it on our counter – it’s amazing.

 

We have lost a lot of knowledge that we are now working to rebuild.  Think about it.  When Kamehameha came, he had to kill off all his opposers.  With every warrior he killed, there was a farmer, and a practice for that specific variety of taro, that was lost.  When you look at how many people he wen make, you start to wonder how much knowledge was lost.  It’s incalculable.   And then the diseases, and all that followed.

 

Now I am trying to kūlia i ka nuʻu.  Get back into my culture.  Take the time and initiative to ask those questions.  I want to test our moʻolelo, to actively pursue our Hawaiian culture, and dig up all of our ancestral knowledge.

 

I think we don't need to fight America anymore.  I want to break down that wall of America by slipping in, trying to change their heart with good food.   I know that if I am not able to break down that wall, and create a sustainable Hawaiʻi, my kids will be able to.  And surpass.