News – Good, Bad and Worldwide

It’s been a good while since I published my last post on eccentricities of counting in Hawaiian. Life got in the way, in both good ways and bad. So I’d like to provide an update on what’s going on in my life and the world that’s relevant to the ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi, as well as provide some resources for those of you who would like to pursue a learning path similar to mine, like honu in the deep ocean.

Good News

As a result of my efforts here to share my humble knowledge with readers, several people reached out to me and I have been fortunate to offer Hawaiian language lessons for free to students at the University of Washington in Seattle. This endeavor is part of a larger effort to create a strong Polynesian community in Washington called Fare Pasifika (Māori for “House in the Pacific”), which was dreamt up and is coordinated by Manuhuia Barcham. Manu is a Māori from New Zealand who has been living in Seattle separate from his community of Māori speakers, except for his young son. Not wanting to lose his connection to his language, culture and community, Manu decided to reach out to other Polynesians in Washington to begin (or further) the process of cultivating a positive Polynesian community to include Māori people (which he says are few at the moment) as well as Hawaiians, Sāmoans, Tongas, and whoever else wants to contribute. My Hawaiian language lessons is a new opportunity to provide a real(er) Hawaiian perspective to individuals young and old alike of not just Hawaiʻi but the world around them, because — let’s face it — not everyone has the luxury or means to live in Hawaiʻi. But anyone can love and learn the Hawaiian language.

It’s an exciting time for Polynesians in general in Seattle and Washington. There is so much interest in our language, heritage and culture that the students themselves are bringing about the change they want to see. Natalie Kamakaʻike Bruecher was instrumental in bringing me and Manu together, and she is everywhere on campus leading and supporting several student groups and even tutoring my class when I am unavailable. She is a born-and-raised Washingtonian but she has the heart (and koko) of a Hawaiian — as do many of my students. I am honored and amazed by their dedication to their language learning and to their active pursuit of a Polynesian identity that can not just survive but thrive in a city as tech-forward as Seattle. Several of my students are part of the Hui Hoaaloha ʻUlana student group, one of my students teaches hula on campus, and another is a talented musician with a recent-obtained degree in Ethnomusicology whose music is influenced by his years living in Hawaiʻi. Find Sabyu’s SoundCloud playlist here.

Bad News

In February of this year (2017), a dear friend of mine Carolyn suffered a senseless accident and fell into a coma. Within a week her loving friends and family, guided by the advice of Carolyn’s medical attendants, decided the odds were not in Carolyn’s favor, and we lost one of the sweetest, bighearted people I have been blessed to know. As is my wont, I put my feelings into a song, two actually: one song is a western-style sad song in French called “Toutes Les Éternités” (“Every Eternity”) and another called “Nā ʻEha ʻEhā” (“The Four Pains”). Nā ʻEha ʻEhā is a more traditional Hawaiian song with six stanzas where the final stanza echoes the first. Because I have no talent for composing traditional Hawaiian songs, I gave it to my brother Nathan and he came up with this amazing treasure! I’m hopeful he will record it soon and put it on iTunes so I (or anyone) can listen to it and remember Carolyn (and all of our loved ones).

World News

Without getting political, I want to recognize and share a couple of articles that have really given me a good feeling in my puʻuwai (the heart organ, seat of western emotions) and my naʻau (the innards, seat of Hawaiian emotions).

Meet the Young Hawaiian Activists Who Are Making a Difference in the Islands

There is a quote that I love in this article whose title says it all: “It’s a good time to be a Hawaiian.” I believe this with all my naʻau. Despite the fact that my one hānau has been occupied for more than 100 years, I am personally doing as much as I can to ensure that ka mauli Hawaiʻi (the essence of Hawaiian existence) continues to thrive. What most people get wrong is the assumption that leaving a place means it leaves you. Anyone who has set foot on the Islands knows that there’s no escape. Whether you love it or hate it, Hawaiʻi is special. So it is with great pride that I acknowledge the works of young Hawaiian in the Islands as captured in this article as well as the young Hawaiians (whether in koko or just at heart) here in Seattle and all around the world who are striving for more, for better, not just for Hawaiians and Polynesians but for everyone.

What strikes me about this article is that simple acts of life like growing your own food or making your clothes have become political in Hawaiʻi and in much of world where the land doesn’t belong to the people who live on it. What Hawaiians understand that more and more people around the world are also coming to understand is that people and their products are transient, ephemeral; the land and the water are eternal. We don’t own any of it; we are merely borrowing it for the term of our existence. That means borrowing it from the surrounding nature, and it also means there is a cycle that no one can raise themselves out of. Be kind to your neighbors and your ʻāina. And if corporations that you patronize are hurting you, your people and your ʻāina, stop patronizing them.

Why We Must Save Dying Languages

This article makes me so proud to speak Hawaiian, to be able to glimpse into the heart and mind of the pre-contact Hawaiian. I am current reading HiʻiakaikapolioPele, which at nearly 500 pages, is a veritable compendium of Hawaiian knowledge and perspective. I will be the first to admit understanding the whole thing less than perfectly (I am especially weak in comprehending the many, many oli and kau that add much flavor to the story), but I persevere and I learn actively, continuously because there is much to learn: about the world that Hawaiians inhabited and their codes of conduct, what they ate, how they created relationships. You could read a translation of the text — and I encourage you to! — but I can tell you that English is a very poor medium for the Hawaiian perspective. My blog contains much evidence for this, but I will briefly identify one concept that is a strength in Hawaiian and a weakness in English, and one that has had a strong impact on our perspective of our world.

Hawaiian thinking, as revealed by the language they spoke, did not place any particular significance on the speaking individual. In English, it seems like most sentences that any individual utters to share a thought begins with “I”: I think, I feel, I like, I would prefer… This reveals the English (and also western, in general — je, ich, etc.) mindset of the speaker as the center of the universe. Let’s consider an example.

The Hawaiian word for “to touch” is hoʻopā. A novice Hawaiian learner can immediately see that this word is an extension of the root word pā. But what does pā mean? In typical Hawaiian fashion, the word pā is what the sun or moon does when it shines, what the wind does when it blows, what a hand does when it grazes against something. In other words, pā is what the world does passively, while hoʻopā is something that you might do to actively engage with the world.

Pā ka makani o ka Moaʻe. The northeastern Moaʻe trade winds blow.

Hoʻopā au i ke pākaukau. I (deliberately) touch the table.

To me, this shows the two-sidedness of an action: one that the speaker experiences, and one that the world executes. Unlike western languages, though, that relationship doesn’t inherently favor the (human) speaker. Before Hawaiian, I wouldn’t have even thought these two events (the wind blowing and someone touching something) were somehow related.

This is the power that can be unlocked through exposure to dying languages. (Note: Hawaiian is not a dying language — anymore/yet — because people like ourselves are actively keeping it alive. But we don’t have the numbers of people to assume it will thrive without our continued attention and care.) The Hawaiian concept of makawalu gives us access to a new way of seeing the world. Makawalu (lit. “eight eyes”) means to look at an object or event from many different angles and perspectives. By making knowledge encapsulated in dying languages available to the world, we are able to makawalu that region (“look at that region from many different perspectives”) and understand how its endemic ecosystems work, what medicines helped its people live long, and what wisdom has matriculated through the millennia until today.

What’s exciting is science is finally recognizing what people close to the land have known to be true for generations.

Mahalo nui loa iā ʻoukou āpau no kā ʻoukou hoʻoikaika ʻana mai me aʻu i ka holomua Hawaiʻi ʻana. Ā hui hou aku nō