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I hear Honolua How words mattah By Sage Takehiro
According to Pukui's Place Names, Honolua is one land section; village landing; bay; winter surfing area; stream; mountain of 2,677 ft; quadrangle, Lahaina district, Maui. Its literal translation means two harbors (Hono=bay, Lua=two).
Upon pounding mochi wit my family dis year, our family friends' daughter, Tamara, stocked me with "Save Honolua" brochures and stickers. She is one lifeguard in Maui and is one major ocean kine person who is down with the Save Honolua Coalition. Sound Familiar? Too familiar maybe? I dunno man, all these "Save Someplace" movements is broken records already. Even though I think "saving" the 'aina is totally worth, and in need of, activism, da language we use to articulate dat activism victimizes the 'aina instead of empowering it.
You ever watch dat one quantum physics film where da Japanee guy talks to da water underneath his microscope and when he talk nice den da water molecules crystallize look all pretty, but den when he talks mean to da water den da molecules come all hamajang and ugly? Kay, well since biological matter is mostly made up of water den da energy we instill into those matters determines its state of health.
So first ting is first, we gotta stop talking like da land is a damsel in distress and start speaking the mana 'aina into existence by being consciously aware of da way in which we articulate matters of the land. I love you Tamara, and Dad, and all my uncles and aunties who activate da ku'e. But we need to come up with some new sayings dat empower rather than victimize, so I'm gonna go ahead and start.
How about "Humble Honolua"? A humble place isn't pimped out with majestic commercial developments. A humble place knows its role in this world. This particular humble place just happened to be bought by one old school plantation company long time ago. They cropped pineapples before leasing it out for build one golf course. Everybody knows dat back in the day the plantations on Maui diverted stream waters to irrigate their cash crops, monopolized Maui's water resources, and left a lot of Hawaiian farmers ass out on the H2O. No sound too humble, eh?
Neither does building a Beverly Hills on top of conservation lands, and having the runoff from that construction drown the fishies in sediments and toxic waste -- which already had happen wit da pollutions from cropping pineapples. And while da "Save Honolua" brochure thingy says that Honolua is "West Maui's most popular snorkeling and diving destination," let us not brain fart the fact that Honolua actually use to sustain choken communities of Maui natives before commercialism hit da fan.
Da proverb dat Pukui documented about Honolua is "Honolua pohi la'e," which literally translates to Honolua of the weighted brow, which was "said of the fisherman of Honolua, Maui who never raised their heads lest they be expected to share their catch of fish." So in other words, if da fishermans of Honolua bragged about their catch and made all high makamaka like da guys who pose wit dea Kayak-sized sword fish on da front of fishing magazines, they'd be expected feed everybody cuz dey get da skillz. The "weighted brows" of Honolua never boasted or bragged. They caught what dey was going eat and dey went home.
Honolua wants to go home. The dirt that runs off into the ocean wants to go home. It needs forestation in order to have a home. The waves want to go home. They need reef in order to break there. If "Developers" stopped destroying the '-ina's ability to develop a sustainable and caring relationship with people then the spirit of Honolua can be at home. OR, we can keep mistreating Honolua and have it wash off into the decaying reef and be sucked out to other parts of the world just like the large number of Hawaiians who were displaced from their homelands for the sake of commercial development. But that wouldn't be a very humble thing to do, would it?
