Hōʻihi: Reciprocity and Respect PDF

C H A P TE R 2 Hō‘ihi Reciprocity and Respect When you talk,...

C H A P TE R 2 Hō‘ihi Reciprocity and Respect When you talk, the fish can hear and they disappear. —Charlie Chu, Hā‘ena, 20031 Everything is respect. —Annabelle Pa Kam, Kalihiwai, 2016 The more you share, the more you catch. —Tommy Hashimoto, Hā‘ena, 2010 Hō‘ihi, literally “to make sacred,” means to treat something with reverence or respect.2 Fishing stories from the northern coast of Kaua‘i describe fisher men’s and women’s kuleana to maintain respectful, reciprocal relation- ships between people and resources, which together constitute community. Here, people are part of, not separate from, the natural environment.3 One scholar describes this worldview as a “community of beings... in which humans are part of an interacting set of living things.”4 Hawaiian scholar Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. Uncle Tommy Hashimoto, master Hā‘ena lawai‘a, sharing how to use one of the many nets he has made for hōlei ‘upena (throw net fishing). (Photo by Ron Vave) 17 Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  18 Chapter 2 and kumu (teacher of) hula Aunty Pua Kanaka‘ole Kanahele describes nat- ural resources as “elemental forces, which to us as a people are the deities that sustain our lives.”5 Other descriptions are also based on relationship, such as nā mea a puni (everything which surrounds), or ‘āina (that which feeds).6 Unlike the word “management,” which presumes separation and a concept of human power over the environment, these stories illustrate the importance of maintaining mutually respectful and interdependent famil- ial relationships with the natural world.7 Mana: Mutually Respectful Relationships Fishing families in Halele‘a describe fishing not simply as harvesting but as building relationships with a particular place, as well as with specific in- dividuals within a given species. When Kaho‘ohanohano Pa (1888–1971), a respected head fisherman from the community of Hā‘ena, surrounded a school of fish, he always selected one from the net, whispered something to it, and then let it go. According to his daughter, Nancy Pi‘ilani, he was naming the fish. “When he went back to catch again, he would call that same fish by name, and it would bring the school back to his nets.” Multiple community members recalled Kaho‘ohanohano Pa for the close relation- ship he had with fish in Hā‘ena. One elder attributed this mana (spiritual power), or ability to attract fish, to Pa’s generosity in sharing his catch: “Old man Hanohano, he was so good. He was so generous in sharing the fish. And I’ve never seen anyone like that; the fish would just come to him. He’d be surrounding a pile at Maniniholo and the schools would just be waiting around the corner at Paweaka, lining up to come to him.”8 Master lawai‘a or kilo (fish spotters), such as Pa, were keen observers with Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. in-depth knowledge of spawning cycles, weather conditions, moon cycles, and tides.9 To this day, kilo watch schools of fish from the shore or cliffs overlooking bays and direct when and where crews in rowboats drop their nets. In some stories, kilo were not just directing the boats based on ob- served behavior of the fish, but using their mana to direct the fish as well. One kilo at Kīlauea lighthouse was described standing on Wowoni point high above Kauape‘a beach in the 1950s, wearing a red malo (loincloth) and chanting schools into the nets below.10 As recently as the 1970s, some lawai‘a kept stones that helped them call or move schools of fish.11 Describing a well-known fisherman of Halele‘a, one of his family members said, “He kept some of the old ways. He had a fishing stone, shrine. They [the family] were Christians yeah. They had a stone. Talk to the fish, because you want to move them to a better place [to Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Hō‘ihi: Reciprocity and Respect 19 catch them]. He asked the fish to move, they move.”12 Schools of fish were said to follow this fisherman as he and his stone traveled around the island.13 Kaho‘ohanohano Pa, described above, kept such a stone. Once, a brother who was jealous of his skill and wanted to catch fish for himself took the stone. “His brother tried to do the same thing but he didn’t have that power, that goodness that made the fish come to his net.”14 The power was not in the stones themselves but resided in their keepers’ relationship with the nat- ural world: with individual fish within the large schools that roamed the coast, with the schools, as well as with specific ‘aumākua or ancestral guard- ian animals, such as sharks. Nā ‘Aumākua (Ancestors) For many Hawaiian fishing families, as in the mo‘olelo preceding this chap- ter, sharks are ‘aumākua, embodiments of ancestors who serve as guardians for their descendants. Multiple species, both marine and terrestrial, were considered ‘aumākua, such as honu (turtles), manta rays, and pueo (owls).15 ‘Aumākua were not just any animal of a given species, but particular in- dividuals, many named, who embodied the spirits of recently or long-de- parted ancestors.16 The belief that departed relatives become a part of ma- rine ecosystems within their home area encapsulates the idea of families’ connection to place. There is no division between humans and nature, only between the living and the departed, with fishing as a way to reconnect. Sharks are described helping people in reciprocal relationships.17 In some places, the grandparents of today’s fisher men and women fed ‘aumākua sharks in rivers or nearshore waters.18 Fishermen fed sharks a share of their catch, tossing some of the harvest to a particular shark who would in turn Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. help herd fish into nets. One great fisherman of Hā‘ena, Pa‘itulu, who lived through the turn of the twentieth century, is said to have called a certain shark when he wanted to go fishing along the inaccessible cliffs of the Nā Pali Coast. The shark would carry him on its back down the coast then return him with his catch.19 Today, while spending time in the ocean, div- ers and fishermen of families with shark ‘aumākua often encounter large sharks, but say they are not afraid, because family members know the sharks are there as guardians. Families with shark ‘aumākua or ancestors have received protection from these animals. One local ‘ohana gets its surname from an experience, pub- lished in a Hawaiian-language newspaper in the mid-nineteenth century, in which family members set off from Kaua‘i in a sailing canoe only to have it capsize at sea. Large sharks came and carried the family members Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  20 Chapter 2 back to shore at Hanalei Bay. From then on, the family carried the name Ka‘aumoana, meaning to swim the ocean.20 Family members of one well-known Kaua‘i lawai‘a (fisherman) recount him diving to adjust the net while surrounding a pile of fish in a local bay. He was hit on the head by a lead sinker, knocked out, and sank toward the bottom. His niece recounts how her father, the fisherman’s brother, saw him, but could not dive deep enough to reach him. Then, the brother saw two large sharks approach. They swam underneath the sinking, unconscious man and nudged his body to the surface so that he could breathe.21 This family explains the fisherman’s survival by saying that sharks are their fam- ily ‘aumākua, recounting that the fisherman’s grandmother regularly fed a particular shark in one Kaua‘i bay. In these stories, cross-generational rela- tionships bind families of this coast with individual animals of particular species. ‘Ohana (Family) ‘Ohana relationships and interactions on land also influence fishing suc- cess. Children are cautioned not to argue while a parent is harvesting. As one fisherman, Bobo Ham Young, explained, “When you go holoholo, ev- erything has to be nice. And the niceness comes from the home.”22 One kupuna (elder), Uncle Valentine Ako, shared an example from the 1960s, in which a catch depended on relationships within a fishing family. A school of akule had been in the bay all day, just out of reach of the konohiki’s (head fisherman’s) net. The ‘ohana was assembled on the beach, waiting to pull in the school, which drifted with the swells just outside the bay: “The head fisherman, he had his whole family down there with his net and everything, Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. but the fish stay outside, and he know somebody stay grumbling.”23 Sensing something wrong, the konohiki gathered his family on the beach for ho‘oponopono, a discussion to air and resolve problems, particularly among family members: “He [got] the whole family together and they had ‘ohana [a family meeting] and right there, the whole school comes right up to the shore. The only thing, you gotta go put the net around them.... I was told the akule has eyes to see and ears to hear and when your kūpuna have problems in the family, the akule stays outside, and when you ho‘oponopono the akule comes in.”24 Abundant harvests depend on maintaining mutually respectful, harmo- nious, and interdependent relationships within families, including with re- sources considered family. These relationships are integral to living in sus- tainable balance with the natural world. Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Hō‘ihi: Reciprocity and Respect 21 Mea ‘Ola (Sentient Beings) Fisher relationships are founded on respect for marine life as active par- ticipants in fishing. To say the word “fishing” out loud is thought to bring bad luck, because the fish will hear this and avoid being caught. Some elder fishermen on their way to holoholo are said to have turned around to head home upon encountering other community members who asked what they were doing, feeling the chances of catching fish were ruined. Marine species other than fish also choose whether or not to be caught. Fisherwomen of Halele‘a and Ko‘olau, known for their skills in catching he‘e (octopus), would walk far out to sea on large barrier reefs, where it is shal- low. In this way, some of these women provided most of the protein for their family without ever learning how to swim. One fisherwoman in her sixties from Wanini described going out by herself one day: So... I see this he‘e just sprawled out in this tide pool, pretty good sized.... So I look at this he‘e and I say, “You know I really want you but I don’t know how I can catch you. Why don’t you swim to shore?” And do you know that darn he‘e swam to shore, and I followed him in and finally when he got to the very end over here, I wooshed him up onto the sand.25 Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. Aunty Violet Hashimoto, expert he‘e fisherwoman and shell-lei maker of Hā‘ena with Pi‘ina‘e Vaughan. (Photo by author) Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  22 Chapter 2 In another story, marine life helped to select the konohiki, who would regu- late fishing for an entire ahupua‘a. One woman in her sixties recounted how elders and master fishermen from up and down the coast gathered on a certain moon to select her grandfather as konohiki. He was only eight years old at the time. Finally one night they decide he’s ready. So they make a pū‘olo [wrapped bun- dle] with ti leaves.... I never did find out what was inside—and they wrapped it all up and his job was to walk on the side of the river where all the rocks are, all the way around to the point. And so he had to oli [chant] while he was walking. They gave him this oli, so he chanted all the way down. Now this is about midnight, you cannot even see, and they tell him, when you get to this certain rock just stand there and oli. And something will come for the pū‘olo. So he stands there and chants, scared like anything, his knees were shaking, because it was dark and if he fell he would fall on rocks. And a big shark came up on the flat stone, so he threw his pū‘olo. The shark opened his mouth, he threw the pū‘olo, the shark closed its mouth, backed up, and left.26 The shark appearing and taking the pū‘olo was interpreted as a sign that the boy’s selection as konohiki was acceptable to the ancestors of the place. The young boy became the next area konohiki and was later succeeded by his son and grandson, neither of whom had to repeat this approval process.27 In these stories, fishing is not just an activity but a relationship of fisher- men and women with their catch. It depends not only on skill or knowledge, but also on character and respect. Specific marine species choose whether or not to come to fisher men and women, assist with harvests, and, in one case, confirm selection of local konohiki tasked with regulating the fishery. Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. Here there is no separation between people and the natural world. People cannot presume to manage that which sustains them, only to maintain re- spectful, balanced relationships with all living beings. Pilina (Relationship) with Place Relationships with the coast of North Kaua‘i lead to close connections and familial identities shaped not by islands, moku (districts), or even entire ah- upua‘a, but by specific places and their characteristics, on land as well as in the sea. These connections grow by eating from and sustaining one’s family from a particular place over time. One community member from Kalihikai, Blondie Woodward, explained his connection to the area through the taste of its fresh water. “Before, when we were growing up, we had one spring that Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Hō‘ihi: Reciprocity and Respect 23 fed the community—and that was the best tasting water ever.”28 This taste, like the particular taste of the fish and limu of that place, would be known, appreciated, and craved only by someone connected to that ‘āina.29 Uncle Blondie further shared, “Before, when I was [living in] Anini, if I go any other place my thirst is not cured until I come home and drink a glass of water. Only then I am satisfied. My thirst is quenched.”30 Two kūpuna, Aunty Loke Pereira of Moloa‘a and Aunty Kalehua Ham Young of Wainiha, talked to me about specific limu (seaweed) from their home areas as if describing a box of fine assorted chocolates, each appre- ciated for its distinct flavor. When I interviewed Aunty Loke, looking out from a high bluff in Ko‘olau, she pointed out names of the reef in both di- rections. She described one species of seaweed that grew on each—that di- rection, longer, softer, more purple, the other direction, more red and tangy. Adjoining reefs within just one hundred yards of each other not only have different names, but also different delicacies, growing in varied conditions and with distinct tastes. Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. Aunty Kalehua Ham Young showing Kau‘i Fu and keiki of Halele‘a including Piko Vaughan, Kīwa‘a Hermosura, and Kalālapa Winter how to clean some of the many kinds of limu she taught them to gather from a particular area reef. (Photo by author) Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  24 Chapter 2 Local residents identify these different tastes with home. After naming some of the species her home was known for, one mother in her forties described her associations with the harvest and preparation of these fish: “There was always the smell of the ocean and fish blood. And I like that because it tells me we are gonna have that kind of fish. It helped us to learn how to process fish as well, and how to really enjoy it, and how to eat it, and how to express enjoyment, how to give thanks without saying thank you. How you socialize around food.”31 Other interviewees describe their sense of home in relation to other means of being fed by a particular place: a certain view, the smell of the air, and the feeling this gives them. As Sam Meyer, in his seventies, said of coming home, “Just the beauty, the freedom. I mean you don’t have to love fishing, just the beauty of Anini, the peacefulness of Anini. When I was liv- ing in Honolulu and then came home here, I worked in the Honolulu auto industry and [was] just very high strung. I’d hit Kaua‘i and just relax. I’d hit Anini beach road, and relax again. Turn that bend to Anini, I’m just totally calm.”32 Llwellyn “Pake” Woodward, in his early forties, describes how he defines home by the air at Kalihikai where he grew up: “When I got mar- ried, I had move to Kapa‘a side, I had a hard time—just the air on this side alone. It’s alive, it’s moist. On the other side, once you pass Anahola the air changes. And people don’t understand that, they think I’m crazy—If I was to close my eyes and drive over here, I can tell you where I stay.”33 His mother, Nadine Woodward, agrees that when she smells the particular scent of the ocean at Kalihikai, she knows she is home. While today we often think of in- formational, abstract, and even remotely sensed knowledge of a place, these accounts describe intimate, experiential, and firsthand knowing. Though Nadine Woodward, her husband, Blondie, and all three of their Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. children grew up in Kalihikai, none of them now has access to their family lands there. However, they return to Kalihikai beach county park for all their family gatherings. The couple speaks in one voice of their love for this area. BW: “It was the ambiance of the place.” NW: “The atmosphere.” BW: “The people, even though they weren’t family—was family.” NW: “It was like a safe place.” BW: “Safe haven.” These quotes evidence ‘āina, sustaining area ‘ohana abundantly, not only physically, through the bounty of its coasts, but emotionally and spiritu- ally as well. Specific places shape people and feed their sense of who they Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Hō‘ihi: Reciprocity and Respect 25 Nadine Woodward and Blondie Woodward, with their daughter, Kanoe, at a community sharing of re- search about their home area, Kalihikai (Photo by author, Kalihikai, Kaua‘i, 2015) are. People consider themselves not only from but of a place to which their families have in-depth connections. And the community that makes up any given place consists not just of people but of elements of the natural world, which are also considered family. This concept is described, in the context of other Indigenous communities, as “resource kinship.”34 Successful har- vests from the ocean depend not just on knowledge or skill, but also on cultivating reciprocal relationships within families, including with natural resources. Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Mo‘olelo: Minamina (To Grieve for Something Lost, Wasted) It is July of 2004. I am running Hanalei Bay after a hot day working with the summer program kids at Waipā. Some of those kids are at canoe pad- dling practice now, warming up. They run by me in the opposite direction, veering from their line of footprints in the sand to give me high fives. I love teaching at Waipā because I see the children everywhere all year long. Where the ocean is still sparkling with gold flecks from the evening sun, quickly sinking over Lulu‘upali Ridge, I see a rowboat. Two people inside crouch silhouetted against the dusk. Slowly pulling in their net, they offer a silent reminder that people still feed their families from this bay, named America’s top beach in 2009.1 Locally, Hanalei is known for hukilau (surround net fishing), the kilo waiting on the hill at Pu‘upoā, watching the black ball of ‘ōpelu (mackerel scad) or the silver shimmer of akule (bigeye scad) moving in. Well into the 1970s, rowboats were loaded with coils of rope hung with la‘i (ti leaves) dragged over the surface of the water, to herd the fish. Hands pa‘ipa‘i (slapped) the water, rattling the rope and leaves, scaring the fish closer with their shadows. Not until the school was near shore was a smaller net dropped silkily into the sea, to surround the school. Then the kāhea (call): “Huki [pull] quickly!” Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. The net was pulled in, hand over hand, its wet weight eased by passing to the next hand. Once the net reached shore, more hands would join to deftly extract the flapping ‘ōpelu or akule, nimbly disentangling their gills. “‘Eleu ‘eleu [hurry], no can leave ’em in the net too long.” Quickly, surely, never a rush, helpers would toss the bigger fish on the sand for the kids to pick up, and let the small ones go. Lawa, enough for everybody. Forty years ago, surround net hukilau happened all summer long, bringing the whole community together to help. However, these days, hukilau are less common, carried out a few times a summer in only some of the bays where they used to occur, and hardly ever in busy Hanalei. Participants are fewer, mainly families who regularly fish together, using monofilament nets in place of nylon or olonā (a native fiber). Schools are smaller, catches more variable. 26 Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Minamina (To Grieve for Something Lost) 27 As I reach the east end of the bay, I see Uncle Ah Meng Fu’s truck on the river side of the pier. He parks there each morning before the sun arrives and each evening as it sets. Kūpuna I have interviewed tell me he’s the one I should talk to about fishing. He’s the one who held the bag and scaled fish for Kaho‘ohanohano Pa and the other old-timers when they went holoholo down Nā Pali. But times like this, when I do have a chance to talk with him, we mostly sit in silence. Either I’m too shy to ask questions loud enough for him to hear, or he prefers not to answer. Instead of stories, he feeds me cold pickled mango from his cooler. He speaks the recipe, his own, in great detail, the correct amounts to pickle in a mayonnaise jar versus a Foremost ice cream container, steeped to the perfect tangy flavor. I eat “just one more piece” for an hour until the sun begins to set. It is cold. I still have to run back the length of the beach to my car. Uncle says, “Getting dark,” he’d better let me go, and gives me a bag of pickled mango to take home. In the 1960s, visitors riding Kaho‘ohanohano Pa’s boat to Nā Pali Coast sometimes asked the legendary fisherman if they could record him. Uncle Ah Meng, who drove the boat, told me he cautioned Old Man Kaho‘ohanohano to be careful, lest these people take his knowledge for nothing. As I run to my car, I wonder if Uncle Ah Meng ever wishes he had a recording of his teacher. It is too late to ask. I hold Uncle’s gift, cool on my palm through the Ziploc. As the sky darkens, I notice the lights of a fifty-foot sampan that has been floating in the bay day and night for a week, with its fish-finder depth sonar beeping. This big commercial operation, run by Hawaiians from another part of Kaua‘i, has come to Hanalei to surround fish. The sampan’s crew never steps foot ashore. A crane angles off the back of the boat to lower the nets, which reach down to the sea floor so that no fish can escape. Whereas Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. local fishing families could hukilau three times, feed the whole community, and still leave half a school of akule in the bay, these commercial nets sur- round the entire school. Community members pole fishing off the pier ask one another, “When they goin’ bring ’em in?” The akule have been sitting in the net for four days while calls are made up and down the West Coast of the mainland seek- ing the best price. This evening only half the fish are pulled onto the boat, straight on to ice. The rest of the school is finally released. That night, akule begin to wash in to shore, one at a time. They spin in the shorebreak and are strewn along the beach. First one, then a few, then many. Soon, there are fish at every footprint in the damp cool sand. By dawn, the beach smells like rot between trade winds. Locals stay out of the water, Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  28 Mo‘olelo Hukilau in Hanalei, Kaua‘i, early 1960s. Back row, left to right: Kalehua Ham-Young, Loke Dorian, Howard Kanei, Ah Meng Fu, Ben Ortiz, Henry Tai-Hook, Lady Haumea, and Unknown. Front row: Rick Ham Young, Kehau Haumea, and Shaine Ham Young. (Photo courtesy of Billy Kinney) knowing there will be sharks. The sides of the akule belly begin to suck in, their skin flaking slowly off in the sun. The sampan is long gone. The next morning’s sunrise glints off the windshield of Uncle Ah Meng’s truck. When Uncle Ah Meng, whom no one has seen go farther than the pier in years, sets watery eyes on the silver akule flecking the beach in the morning sun, he takes a shovel from the back of his truck. He begins to bury the fish one at a time. Uncle Ah Meng raises his wrinkled face only to sight Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. the next akule, then steps, digs, and stoops to cradle each fish in both hands before placing it in its grave. He reaches the end of the bay at sunset, feeling that on this day, he has lived too long. With a sigh of “Minamina” (waste), he turns and trudges, between the burials, the mile and a half back to his truck. Note 1 Associated Press. “Hanalei Bay Named America’s Top Beach,” US and Canada Travel on NBC News.com, May 22, 2009 (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30874693/ns/travel-destination _travel/t/hanalei-bay-named-americas-top-beach/.WTuG8IVEyec). Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Mo‘olelo: Kai Palaoa (Whale Sea) One glance at Hanalei Bay on the morning of July 4, 2004, would tell you it was summer. The water stretched calm, glassy, and sparkling out to sea. Last night’s still clouds hovered over the mountains and the trade winds were just beginning to rise from the northeast. Tourists were already plentiful at the beach, with their brightly colored towels, hats, suits, and sun-burnt skin, like wedding flower petals flung the length of the bay, landing in clumps at “Pine Trees” and “The Pavilion.” The sailboats were another sure sign of the season. Twenty or so make their home here each summer, anchored inshore, toward the right side of the bay. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one come or leave. They are just suddenly there. Then one day in the fall—gone. Like the humpback whales that calve in Hawai‘i each winter and head back to Alaska in spring, these boats seem to be their own migratory species, pulled by Earth’s ticking of seasons and tides. We rarely see people on board, and the occasional man rowing a din- ghy to shore for groceries seems to be doing his boat’s bidding, like a tiny barnacle temporarily dispatched, a mere appendage along for the ride. I wonder what it’s like to live on a boat drifting in and out of communities, an island unto yourself? Toward the left side of the boats, the water appeared strange, shifting, glittering with flashes of black. When my friends and I first took notice we thought it was spinner dolphins, the largest pod we’d ever seen. Upon closer look, we could see that nothing leapt from the sea. The cascading black backs Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. of these animals did not flow in one direction, but drifted listlessly flopping from side to side. These were melon-headed whales, palaoa,1 a deepwater species rarely spotted nearshore in Hawai‘i except before stranding.2 That evening we watched the sun set over their backs, both dreading and hoping they’d be gone in the morning. One scientist quoted in the newspaper said that this species, with their torpedo-shaped bodies and blunt heads, would not be able to find food in the still waters of the bay. He figured the pod of 100–150 animals had not eaten since they’d arrived and would die if they didn’t leave soon. Another expert claimed melon-heads came into still bays like Hanalei to calve. Still another related their appearance to recent offshore naval exercises testing use of sonar. No one really seemed to know. 29 Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  30 Mo‘olelo I knew the air was different with their presence. All of Hanalei felt charged with something so out of the ordinary that it must be trying to shake us out of our regular routines, to make us understand... something. Why had the palaoa chosen to visit? They must be bearing a message, whether blessing or warning, I wasn’t sure. So, quietly, almost secretly, I would send prayers to the whales, chant to honor these ancestors. I sent the words across the waters of the bay, waiting each day for their answer. Setting out on our morning run, my two friends and I noticed that the whales seemed to be getting less active. They drifted near the boats, then down toward the middle of the bay, now back alongside the boats. Onlookers speculated that the whales would soon beach. The area in front of The Pavilion, directly inshore from the whales, buzzed with activity. A trailer backed up on the sand, unloading six plastic scupper kayaks to join a flotilla of pink, orange, and lime-green ones already lined up. Members of the Hanalei Canoe Club, including a large group of kids, were arriving in their bright yellow and green jerseys, carrying paddles. Three canoes were gliding over from the river mouth. More and more people gathered, milling about like the whales. As we ran, dodging our way through the throng, one friend exclaimed, “It looks like they’re going to try to paddle out there!” It certainly did. I shuddered at the thought of all those plastic scuppers careening into the pod, paddles hacking. “I wish people would just leave the whales alone,” said my other friend, as we neared the end of the sand and entered the water to swim back. Whatever was about to happen, neither of my friends wanted to see it, and they swam quickly ahead of me toward home. I swam slowly, tangled in my own worries. Was that crowd about to descend on the whales? Should Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. we stop them? What if the melon-headed whales did need help? What were they trying to tell us? What were we supposed to do? I couldn’t just leave and go home. Suddenly, I heard a loud metallic sound. A lifeguard on the beach was yelling through a megaphone, “You. Get out of the water. There is no swim- ming in this area. Yeah, I mean you two. Out.” His megaphone was aimed at my friends who’d swum back to the area in front of the crowd. The crowd stopped moving and turned to stare. “We have closed this area,” repeated the lifeguard. “Get out of the water. Now.” I could see yellow streamers stretched perpendicular to the ocean on either side of the Pavilion, closing the ocean inshore of the pod. I watched from the water as my friends got out of the ocean, the crowd of eyes still on them, one clutching the saggy fabric of her favorite old bikini bottoms. They walked around the yellow tape to where they could reenter the ocean and swim home. Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Kai Palaoa (Whale Sea) 31 I was going to get yelled at too if I tried to swim any farther along the shore. Ducking my face under the water to clear my head, I heard a high- pitched sound, almost like a whinny, followed by another and some clicking. The whales were talking. I turned toward the sea and began to swim to the nearest boat. I huddled next to its hull where the lifeguards wouldn’t see me, slid slowly around its edge, and then dove underwater. The whale sounds grew louder, as I reached the bottom of the next boat. This boat had people on it, eating breakfast at a table. I waved, then swam to the next vessel, before they could get curious about what I was doing. I didn’t know what I was doing, only that all those people were about to try to save these whales, and I had to understand if the whales thought they needed saving or not. The whales were ancestors. I couldn’t know how I felt about anything people might do without tuning into them first. I ducked around the stern of one more boat and looked out to the open bay, all the way across to Waikoko. The water here was deep, deep blue. If I swam down to touch the bottom, I wouldn’t have enough air to come back up. About forty whales were straight in front of me, less than twenty-five yards away. I pushed back thoughts that came bubbling up. Did melon-headed whales have teeth like killer whales? Might sharks be gathering near the pod? I clung tight to the boat and stuck my face underwater to listen. Now, I was in the heart of the sounds, and they reverberated around me. High-pitched vocalizations were interspersed with fast clicking. In such deep ocean, the sounds echoed eerily close. I yanked my head out of the water. From this vantage point, I could see the whales nudging against one another. Each whale faced a different direction, like pick-up sticks bobbing on the current. They rolled through the water, not splashing their flippers. Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. They occasionally opened their blowholes to emit a sound of breath and mist so faint it vanished by the time the holes closed up again. Their fins flopped over in cartoon curlicues, hanging limp. Meanwhile, the crowd on the beach had stopped milling around and gained focus. Some people spread out along the vegetation line. They were pulling long streams of pōhuehue (beach morning glory) vine and weaving them together. Others were pulling the kayaks farther up the sand. Another group was gathered closely together, facing a speaker who was waving his hands authoritatively. As I watched, the groups of people formed a circle holding hands. They stood still and silent, heads bowed, then lifted their faces to the sea. A sound rose across the water, the first notes of “E Ho Mai,” an oli asking for wisdom and guidance from above, for understanding. I felt the whales move, and when I turned to look, they were turning too. Each whale swung to face the Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  32 Mo‘olelo chanters until all their heads pointed toward shore, tails to the ocean, row after row, dorsal fins straight up in the air, listening. When the chant ended, the group on the beach broke their circle, and the whales too returned to milling about. But I felt they knew something was about to happen and they were ready. Four canoes began to paddle out toward the whales, a long rope of pōhuehue vine stretched between them like the old-timers used in place of rope to herd schools of fish in hukilau. Each canoe advanced slowly, still far from the whales. The two canoes on the outside paddled ahead of the others so that the vines stretched out in a crescent. The paddlers were all ages, mostly kids. Their canoe club coach, Hanalei Hermosura, my age and named after this bay, stood in a rowboat. He moved back and forth between the canoes, giving instructions: “Paddle up, slowly, slowly. There, stop. Red canoe, paddle back. No hurry. Judy, steer your canoe a little more toward me. OK. Steady, steady.” No one else spoke, just listened for his instructions. All sat poised, ready to paddle up, freeze, back paddle, hold, and ease the vine rope gently, little by little, around the pod. No boat ever got closer than twenty feet from the whales. No one jumped in to swim with the whales. No paddles reached out to touch them or even splashed. Each boat moved as a unit, slowly, haltingly, parallel parking the vine into place. Soon, the vine encircled the pod, with an opening toward the sea. Gingerly, the canoes began to paddle toward the horizon together, pulling the vine forward—its motion through the wa- ter sent ripples to the depths, whispering the way. The pod began to still its restless seething and shift slowly toward sea. The canoes paddled softly, slowly navigating the whales away from the beach. Nudging one another, the whales began to raise their dorsal fins and turn toward the horizon. All facing the same direction once again, the pod started to swim steadily out Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. of the bay. Still clinging to the molding on the side of the boat, I watched the whales until they were too far away to see from water level, then hoisted myself out of the water for a better view. The canoes followed only a little farther, then stopped, people straining from their seats to see as the pod swam stronger and stronger, gaining rhythm toward the open ocean. Suddenly, one whale jumped, soaring out of the sea, all of us witnessing the torpedo-shaped body for the first time. Two children shouted, their voices joining its land- ing splash. Then another whale jumped and another, until everyone in the canoes was encouragingly whooping, laughing, crying, waving good-bye. The next afternoon, I took the ten children at our Waipā community after- school program walking along the bay to tell them about the whales. Two of the ten-year-old girls ran ahead. They started shouting and waving their Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.  Kai Palaoa (Whale Sea) 33 arms just before they reached the Waikoko rocks, at the spot called Ke Ahu (the altar), which marks the ahupua‘a boundary between Waikoko and Waipā. “Aunty! Aunty come!” one called. A baby melon-headed whale the size of a fire extinguisher lay on the sand where the children stood. I was struck that something so young could look so old. When they saw it, each child in turn went from chattering away to instantly silent. Three stooped to lift it back into the water, cradling its body, urging it to swim. When they realized it would not, they backed out of the ocean and sat on the sand, holding the whale in their laps. The younger children drew close, kneeled to touch its leathery face, traced scars from a net and two cuts on its side. “Aunty, what should we do?” They wanted to chant. One of the older girls suggested the chant, “Aloha e nā kūpuna” (Love for our ancestors). “Because it is our ancestor,” she said, “Even though it is only a baby.” After they chanted, I called NOAA’s marine mammal response team, who sent a female marine biologist to collect the specimen. The kids wanted to bury the whale, pray, sing, plant its body under a tree where we could come back and visit. The biologist explained that if she took the baby, she could study it, look into its brain to see what made it beach itself and maybe keep this from happening again.3 Reluctantly, the children handed her the whale, watching in silence as she wrapped its body in a beach towel. They crowded around her as she loaded it into the back seat of her Toyota. As the car pulled out of the driveway, they followed, dragging their feet on the asphalt, like when a loved one passes away and you trail along behind as they leave the house for the last time, not wanting their body to go on alone. N otes Copyright © 2018. Oregon State University Press. All rights reserved. 1 Mahalo to cultural practitioners Kealoha Pisciotta and Roxanne Stewart for the title of this vignette, Kai Palaoa, a sea of whales. They use the word palaoa to refer to all species of whales. Their work honors the significant role of whales in Hawaiian creation within the Kumulipo, as manifestations of the ocean God, Kanaloa, and as ancestors. The appearance of a school of whales, kai palaoa, a sea teaming with whales, is an extraordinary event. 2 The first historical sighting of melon-headed whales in Hawai‘i was in Hilo Bay in 1841 (Brownell et al. 2009). Mainly these whales stay in deeper waters, and they have only occa- sionally been sighted near shore in the Pacific, sometimes before mass stranding events. 3 Studies later attributed the stranding to navy use of mid-range sonar in waters surrounding Kaua‘i (Brownell et al. 2009). On October 13, 2017, a school of pilot whales was spotted near Kalapaki Bay on the south shore of Kaua‘i. Although some of the whales that swam close to shore were shepherded back into deeper water, others stranded themselves on the beach and the rocks of the breakwater. At least five palaoa died (Buley 2017). Vaughan, Mehana Blaich. Kaiaulu : Gathering Tides, Oregon State University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhm/detail.action?docID=5517401. Created from uhm on 2024-12-31 23:47:27.