Biography Hawaiʻi; Maiki Aiu Lake; Interview with Puakea Nogelmeier 12/7/01 #1

Like, of course, enrolled in the public who are classed. Those are Kalena questions. Yes. Yes. Yes. But some of the early ones, you know, and how valuable that is as a word and isn't it sort of a collective foundation, and that any kind of innovation, oh, yeah, so you can't see his paper, right? No, oh, yeah. Can you put it down? Because you don't want to hear the rest of it just going to be on the side. All right. Oh, actually, I should be responding to what you're talking about anyway, not to what I'm doing. Don't be running off on a mind thing on the side. No, well, sometimes, you know, when you run off on things on the side, then it's really interesting.

It depends on where it goes, yeah. But you can stop me anywhere. Okay. But we'll just start in the beginning, you know, and like, you know, I just arrange these questions to kind of get a basis for the start of a script. So I mean, we might want to come back to you later on to, you know, change things around a little bit, let's just start by asking you how you would define traditional hula. Traditional hula is hard to define, only because there has to be an acceptance of what is tradition, of some shared belief in that. And if tradition is sort of a collective foundation, a collective background, then of course always changes. Then traditional hula is going to be something that reflects or mirrors that traditional background, whether it's an exact reproduction of it or an innovation that's drawn from it. No.

This next question is for the culturally impaired, it's our main line of events. What styles of hula are dance today? You know, by their terms and by their specific differences, Kalena would address that better at the musicologist, and that's been, his interest is keeping those, you know, sort of separated, and I might not be a good one to answer that, because I don't want to give you a conflicting terminology, because most of what I know of them is more oral tradition than academic. He would have, and I'm sure he did address that, that's called a deeper. Well, actually, you know, the main line audience is they don't know the difference between how one is styled and how one is styled and how one is styled and how one is styled.

Well, you know, there's an overlap in terminology, even when, you know, I deal more with only with poetic presentations, and even there there's such an overlapping terminology, you end up with vocal techniques being used to describe certain poetic content styles, and you know, it's a, it's pretty specific, and yet it's not universally agreed upon. So, in the Hula, there's so many different sets within the Hula Kahiko, but basically you've got Kahiko and Awana traditional and more modern, or Hula Kuhi is another term that he'll probably have described, the idea of incorporation of modern music, modern steps, new innovations within the Hula genre. It's at least by the end of Lula Lilo's reign, the beginning of Kakawa, it starts showing

up in the newspapers, and I know I just recently picked up a Hula Kuhi for someone written in probably 1888, so it puts it back into the monarchy period definitely that it was a widely known term, so it's been utilized today to describe a whole genre of poetry. I think it's more applicable to poetry that's written particularly for the Hula, so it maybe gets overly utilized today, but Hula Kuhi meaning, you know, Kuhi is to add onto, so Hula that's been appended in a sense. That was like a lot of orders, I mean it's an interesting, you know, to talk about that. You know in the early 20th century, could you describe the state of the Hawaiian community

and Hawaiian culture at the beginning of the 20th century and how language and further cultural practices we've found? The beginning of the 20th century is just a massive time of change. There's a great deal of change that happens right after contact, but then there's a whole century of monarchy that stabilizes a lot of the social patterns, but the change of American control, it's a territory, there's a real nipotence of English, and there's a very mixed feeling with that. Hawaiians were almost universally against annexation, and at the same time the political strategy, which was a century old, was to wait for the wrong to be righted, and by the 20s it's not being righted. So you still have people who are very strongly monarchist, they're very Hawaiian culturally grounded and trying to perpetuate and push for that.

There's a lot of newspaper material where the core group, the different cultural core groups are complaining that the young people aren't learning the language, they're not learning the traditions, they don't know the arts. So that's happening in that period, the 20s. But what it reflects is that a whole big piece of the population has lost patience with waiting, and they're embracing change, and there's a great drive towards, you know, English fluency and success in this new system, in this new territorial existence. So economic drive, educational drive, with an American vein. So you get a divided community, a little bit analogous to where you might see things today, and some people that are pushing for perpetuation of tradition and the importance thereof, and other ones that are saying, get with it, you know, grab the world as it is, don't hope for or wish for something else.

So I think you would have gotten a divided population by the 20s. You also have most of those who were raised under the monarchy, setting are older already. The young generation is moving in a different direction. So you do have a divided setting. There are people who are very strongly cultural, and whole families. I think you get, you know, clusters, partly as geographic, there are certain areas that are so highly Hawaiian language communities, and yet some of those, it's limited to certain families that have decided to maintain what they consider valuable traditions. It's in those pockets, I think, that the Hula stays very strong and gets handed down generation to generation. There's not a widespread practice of teaching the community. Like we see today, it's more a family or a small community tradition, where a student or a teacher's students will be drawn from his or her own nieces, nephews, children,

and children, or perhaps neighbors and friends, that were interested as personal ties that bring you into the training. And it's probably a very limited part of the population that's actively involved. Do you think that that division in the Hawaiian community in the early 20th century, do you think that it had to do, I mean that the division came in generation side between these older people and younger people, and maybe there was more pressure on the younger people to not be like the older people for the better, you know, pressure from that side. I think that's where the dividing... Well, when you ask if the division is between generations, that's usually where divisions occur. And the generations are experiencing very different things. The band that went on to Hawaiian language, Hawaiian language was banned in the education

system, the territorial schools. And so the parent generation had never been faced with that. But in the 20s, you've got kids who are being punished in school for speaking Hawaiian. So there's not any real supports in place for them. There's a lot of encouragement to be doing English. So it's pretty easy for some of them to see that this is the path of least resistance. This is the way to go. Depending is not just generational because part of its geographic, there are communities that are much stronger or less urbanized, less affected by the territorial status. So that in some places, I think it was easier to maintain their Hawaiian cultural background and still participate in the new systems that were imposed. But the new systems weren't quite as universal. They were happening only at school. So we have a lot of anecdotal information about families who, the school in enforced, I need to speak English, but the parent said, but not at home, not in this house.

And that's why the people that are native speakers today were raised speaking Hawaiian. It's because the family was insistent that, yes, that is the new law, it's the new rule, that's fine. But in this house, you speak Hawaiian. Have you found any evidence that economics played any role in places that preserve cultural traditions or didn't? Economics played a heavy role in this two ways. Because the beginning of the 20th century, you have the Great Depression. And the whole cash economy is just floundering and Hawaii was hit very hard. So on the one hand, subsistence communities functioned very well. That was actually a one survival technique. And those are the places where a lot of traditional practice would be maintained.

But the other side of that economic crash would be that a drive for any kind, if you're not involved in a subsistence community, really the only other option is go to the urban center, find paid employment, try and function in that way. And that would undermine it. So you've got actually that cash crash is going to have a dual effect, but it's on different parts of the population. Well, we've covered like the first four questions. Yeah, we only had 72 left. I wanted to ask you some questions about Khanai, because as you know, I don't know if you know that about Mikey's being Khanai to her maternal background, and she said, I don't know if you know that. I knew that she was somehow Khanai within the family, and I didn't know for certain years, so just to give you just a really quick background, because she was a baby.

She was a duck. She was Khanai by her maternal grandad, and this man, Mr. Kelohan, he was very wealthy, and then lived in Phalola. I do know this thing. Well, the woman died pretty early, but he was her. She was abruptly sent back to her mother, who she didn't know. And who was also not very well off? Yeah, so a big change there. So what I wanted to ask you was, in the context of childlearing, what does that word Khanai mean, and how is it different from Western adoption? Well, to make a comparison between Khanai or Hawaiian fostering or adoption, and the Western sense of adoption, there's really three levels of adoption in Hawaiian, and there, Khanai is to take to foster by choice, to really ask for the child. And then there's another one called Luhi, which is to foster a child, because the child

needs someone, not because you chose, and then another one that gets tangled in there is Haukama, when you're not actually doing the early years, but it's to establish a family tied by choice later on. And so if she was taken by the great aunt as a choice, and apparently fostered well, happy in her household and well-supplied, that's the first kind, the Khanai by choice. It's taken on as almost a gift to the child, it's a bonus, and a choice parenting. The change between that and then being moved to both a less economically sound background with her mother, who she didn't know, the link to her mother, and I wouldn't be the natural adoptive and fostering arrangement, it would almost be like the Luhi, well, of course, I'll take you because I have to take you. No one else is there to take care.

That must have been a really jarring change for her. Do you think that what happened to Mikey, happened to her and must have been like in 30s, 37, 38? Would that have happened, is there a relationship traditionally between a child who is taken and loved by another relative and their real relatives or traditionally, or are they not? I'm sorry, I didn't really address how that ties to the Western system is that when a child goes out for Khanai, there's no break between the natural parents and the foster parents. There's always acknowledged where you fit into your blood genealogy, and if you've been Khanaied into a line that's not your bloodline, you also become part of that line, but the original line is never lost, and so the mother taking her back on would have been a natural

fallback if there wasn't another relative within the circle who asked, who, in fact, requested that. The mother would, of course, take her back. So is it unusual then that she didn't really know who her real mother was until she was 12 years old and the other ones died? It would be unusual if she didn't know who she was. She might not have known the mother. It might be very likely if they lived in different places that there wasn't any real interaction, but I would have thought that she would have been informed from early time who her natural parents were and where she fit in there, and as it turns out she was not, even aware that that was her mother? No, that's not terribly unusual, I mean in the ideal setting it would have been made more clear, but actually I know a number of families with the actual mother of the child was thought to be an aunt.

That was, you know, mom's sister mother passed away or mother something, something, and it was actually just to sort of shelter the mother for having been, you know, a teen bride, whatever the case had been. That's clear to me now, okay, that would be a reason there, yeah. Because I was thinking, you know, maybe that because things were changing so rapidly in the Hawaiian community at that time, that some of those traditional, more traditional things surrounding Hannai and getting sort of mixed up. I would be hard pressed to find that precedent at time when that began, but what that speaks to is sort of a conflict between Christian values and traditional Hawaiian values and the idea of sheltering the mother for having been perhaps a teen pregnancy, that kind of thing. That would not have been a problem under a traditional Hawaiian value system, but in

a more modern, more Christianized, more, perhaps urban setting to keep her good name or to sort of keep the family name from being solid, not to acknowledge that was her child. That makes sense. Yeah. You know, this question about who the couple and who the couple referred to in the 1930s in the 1940s, you know, at least in that, who was likely to see these terms list a lot. Do you know what they referred to? Well the distinction, the both terms are used when they talk about ancient Hula in that sense. But Hula Pahu is specifically the Hula that is done to the Pahu, the coconut drum usually made of coconut, can be made of Ulu, can be made of Milo.

And there's an overlap because Hula Kapu refers to Hula that happens under the system within a halau, a Kua who is built either Tulaka or in some traditions to Kapu, and it's done under the strictures of the Kapu. It can refer to the actual performance or the process of learning. But the Hula Pahu is those particular dances written and performed with the accompaniment of the Pahu because they were tied to the halau. The Pahu was used ceremonially on the temples. There's an overlap there. As many of them were also Kapu, they were only performed at sacred times and sacred settings. But the Hula Pahu today is still done outside of the Hula Kapu, outside of the strictures of Kapu. It seems from reading that book, and just from reading some other things that during the 30s and probably the 20s and the 30s, this kind of Hula was frowned on by certain

parts of the Hawaiian community. Do you know why? Well, that kind of Hula starts to be frowned on at about 1820, along with many of the other Hawaiian pastimes that were considered less than the Christian ideal. And so Hula especially got demonized because of its tide of the gods, a lot of the dances. Under the Hula Kapu were, of course, ceremonial. They were to honor the gods or the chiefs for their godly status. So that side of it particularly gets demonized. It goes in waves for the next 150 years, and Hawaiians have a very mixed feeling about the Hula. And we've had some good discussions about this lately. It is sort of by general consensus, it's disapproved of almost immediately upon the acceptance of Christianity.

The emergence, the arrival of Christianity doesn't match up with the acceptance. There's a five or eight-year lag before Hawaiians get terribly involved in it. But then once the chiefs embrace that, there's at least a spoken agreement. So it becomes a non-public thing. But Kawiki Oli had a great back and forth with the Hula and his group, the Hulu Mandu. That's what they did, that's what they enjoyed. Now there's, it also speaks to a distinction between ceremonial and religious Hula as a verse to Hula for pleasure and pastime, and they're obviously having a festive kind of Hula. That goes up and down mostly with at least widespread disapproval by statement, whether it's by actual practice or not, because it doesn't disappear. And when Kala Koa, who is credited with reviving the Hula, and his is actually the second public revival, because Kawiki Oli had done a pretty public revival.

But when he declares that Hula is the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people and invites Halao, they exist. They are already there. Whether that's got widespread practice, a number of practitioners throughout the community or it's a pretty narrow bunch that has always sort of defied the public norm and participated. They are definitely functioning and they're happening and at his jubilee there's any number of Halao that come and participate. So there is still much public stated disapproval. It comes from different aspects though. There is for a time movement to ban it by law, ban the Hula. And by this time, this is the 1870s. It's less from a Christian Judeo kind of aspect than it is from economic. If people are having fun in doing the Hula, they're not working on the plantation. And so to keep them out of all the pleasurable pastimes and make them be available for plantation

work is actually the goal of that kind of legislation. But more and more of the Hula gets sort of public disapproval and yet continued participation. I think the participation you see in diminishing, it goes down and down, it becomes less public after Kallakawa. And after the territory, a different kind of Hula starts to emerge. A different kind of Hawaiian culture starts to be presented and embraced. So the people who are doing what we would call traditional Hula become a much smaller part of the population and it becomes a less public venue. So if that addresses part of that. Yeah. I just remember reading in that book that when Mikey and her friends, they're kind of enthralled with the Hula, this really young age and they learn about Mrs. Montgomery. They say, oh, you know, one of them comes home and says, oh, you know, we found this lady

who will teach us who will pop away, you know, let's go learn from her. But it's kind of a big secret from a little off in the family because they're afraid that some kind of disapproval family is a Catholic or a Baptist. Well, no. And I think it's good to bring me back to topic is that it's not just what was happening up to the turn of the century, but those 30s and 40s as Mikey's stepping in, definitely it's traditional Hula especially is an old practice already. And I think it's very much like I spoke to the small communities, family lines. It's become a sort of a private, not even an enterprise, a private practice in some ways. You know, handing things down within the family or within a circle of friends. So there's also a great disapproval. There's a big movement toward Americanizing, toward being modern and being, and these are links to an old fashioned, not even a, that it's anti-Christian or anything. It's just old fashioned, it's in bad taste.

There's also a lot of anecdotal stuff about the people that were involved in Hula, if it was considered Hula Kupu especially, that that was tinkering with old things that were potentially dangerous. And so we have, you know, some of the Kumu were pulled out of Hula Kupu. And again, you're going to get an overlap with Hula Kupu, Hula Pahu, but because their families felt that it was just, it was ominous, and that there was chances for problems. I don't know if you know Kulei Nani Korreya, she's one of the old Kumu up in California. We have a really good interview with her and going into Hula Kupu training. Now, that's probably, at about the same time, Maiki is training. And she's found, you know, her family has put her under the training of a Kumu, but they pull her out. Because there's an accident that goes on, there's, you know, a couple of family stories where they start to think, maybe the involvement with something old fashioned like that is just bad luck.

Maybe it's just not a good thing to be tied to. What do you think this idea that associates certain Hula practices, it's not just Hula, you know, it's like things to, with this danger, you know, this kind of evil danger. What is that? That ominous side of things, yeah. Because it's not, yeah, it's not linked just to the Hula, that's linked to a lot of old practice. And even, look at how the term Kahuna, which really just meant specialist in any field, became an ominous word that that was meaning an evil practitioner. So it really, you know, it addresses how many of the old practices were given that sort of an ominous, dark, potentially dangerous, uncertain kind of feel to them. And I'm sure a lot of that comes through just sort of the Christian tradition and the, the block that that sort of throws in the way of modernity, you know, of coming into the

modern age and things, all those old practices, there's a dark side to them, yeah. Some of it could come out of Hawaii in tradition because things of antiquity always are said to come from Paul, you know, they're from the darkness, they're from the old. So maybe there's some aspect of that that comes into it, but, yeah. Do you think it's, do you think that idea of things coming from Paul is a concept that we today just don't understand as well as? I think we interpreted differently. I don't think Paul had any negative connotation or it's hard to say what was the set of connotations 100, 200 years ago, but it doesn't generate that in the traditional poetry and the traditional legends that kind of thing.

It's always simply before awareness, before conscious sort of collaborative ownership of knowledge, but in the modern sense, old and dark and things, I think that it gets very much a different light thrown on it and a different interpretation comes in today. And I know this is still a little off the subject, but because it's so interesting, I have to ask you. Yeah. Do you think this interpretation of ominous things and danger also affects how stories have been retold to generations? I'm thinking in particular about, you know, these stories about the badness of having associations with, like, beings that aren't quite human with, like Kupua or like the folk that, oh, any kind of a link to the night marchers, all of the ties to, yeah, there's an

ominous sense of that and those stories become retold, turned into legend, turned into a lore, especially about places or certain families, certainly because there's a real attraction to that. But there's also, I don't know, there's an awful lot of parts to that particular question because there's practice and there's just stories and they sort of get blended together. The practice of maintaining a Makua or holding the hay and the sets of either bones or hair, artifacts of ancestors, things like that certainly took on a rather dark and undesirable sense. If you tangle with those things, yeah, and there's, again, anecdotal lots of people being told, whole pointer, whole pointer, cause it to be forgotten, let it be forgotten.