MELE FOR KAILUA
Hundreds of mele have been composed for Kailua, Koʻolaupoko, Oʻahu-a-Lua. Mele for our moʻo guardians, mele for aliʻi, mele for husbands, wives, and children who have passed away, mele for the moʻolelo of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, Mākālei, and Kamaakamahiʻai, mele for arriving canoes and passing steamships. And always, mele for the beloved ʻāina itself.
Some of these, "'O Paumakua" for example, are as old as that 11th-century voyaging chief. Others are as new as "Hiehie Olomana," written in 2012 for that old-man mountain and his kiaʻi companions. These mele speak of the deep and lasting significance of our land. They argue for old values and relationships. They inspire resistance. They trigger the telling of stories that must not be forgotten.
Here are twenty such mele – each with words, translation, and discussion. More will follow. We give humble thanks to HTA – the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority – for funding this project through its Aloha ʻĀina program. We see it not as a way to bring more tourists to Kailua but as a way to help render all of us less the tourist and more the steward.
Some of these, "'O Paumakua" for example, are as old as that 11th-century voyaging chief. Others are as new as "Hiehie Olomana," written in 2012 for that old-man mountain and his kiaʻi companions. These mele speak of the deep and lasting significance of our land. They argue for old values and relationships. They inspire resistance. They trigger the telling of stories that must not be forgotten.
Here are twenty such mele – each with words, translation, and discussion. More will follow. We give humble thanks to HTA – the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority – for funding this project through its Aloha ʻĀina program. We see it not as a way to bring more tourists to Kailua but as a way to help render all of us less the tourist and more the steward.
Aia i Waimānalo Kō Nu‘a Hulu
Some mele become victims of their own accessibility. We take them for granted. We assume that all that can be said about them has already been said. We fail to examine them anew because they have been delivered to us by such venerable hands that a re-investigation of texts and contexts – even after decades, even with all the tools now available to us – seems redundant and almost disrespectful.
Read the entire essay >>
‘Alo‘alo Ehuehu Pōkā
S. K. Kaloa is listed as a “carpenter, residence Alakea and King” in Polk’s 1893 Directory and Handbook of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He would later become an O‘ahu representative of the Hawaiian Patriotic League, a minister, a member of Hui Kuokoa, and a loyal supporter of Jonah Kuhiō Kalaniana‘ole in the prince’s party-switching run for congress.
Read the entire essay >>
Aloha Waiʻauia
Waiʻauia is the wedge of undeveloped land at the entrance to Kailua town. The mākāhā of Kawainui was once located here. Like Waiʻauia, this mele serves as a wedge of remember in the doorway of forget; it allows a bit of our past to ʻaʻe kū, to step defiantly into the present.
Read the entire essay >>
Alo Makani Pōlua o ke Koʻolau
We have an old, illustrated copy of Thomas Thrum’s More Hawaiian Folk Tales. We page through it regularly, but it takes an eagle-eyed Cristina Bacchillega to direct our attention to shocking implications of his photographs. Two photos will suffice: the first is of a Hawaiian family gathered outside its hale pili. The second is of three women sitting with their ʻumeke inside that same hale pili. Thrum’s captions for the two pictures are: “Hawaiian Grass House, Exterior View” and “Hawaiian Grass House, Interior View.” No mention is made of the Hawaiian people in the foreground of either picture; Thrum’s captions ...
Read the entire essay>>
A Lulu ka ‘Iako Pala ‘Ehu ke Oho
This chant is recorded by Samuel Keko‘owai in an early installment of his mo‘olelo of Haumea’s fish-attracting Mākālei: Nī‘ula is a luahine descendant of Haumea. She lives with her grandson Kahinihini‘ula in Makawao, Kailua – a small valley at the back of Maunawili. She is old but feisty. When the boy returns empty-handed after three days of helping to clear limu from Kawainui Pond (fish are the appropriate reward for work of this kind), she decides to teach the konohiki a lesson.
Read the entire essay >>
‘Auhea Wale ‘Oe e Kahalakea
This mele was inspired by my reading of “Ka Moolelo no Kamaakamahiai,” the story of a Maui-born kupua child who, after putting the rule of his own island to rights, journeys to Ka’ōhao, Kailua, where he helps Olopana to regain control of O‘ahu, marries Olopana’s daughter Keoholupalupa, returns to Maui to quell the rebellion of his own brother Mana‘o, helps the ali‘i of Hawai‘i (Nālualele) and Kaua‘i (Manōuli, his grandfather) to regain control of their islands, and – now an old man – gives the nod of approval to his great-grandson Olopana II whose turn has come to take up the legacy of bringing order to the land.
Read the entire essay >>
E Ho‘i ka Nani i Nu‘uanu / Maika‘i ka Ua i Nu‘uanu
Some of the most beautiful mele composed for the widowed Queen Emma are place-based vignettes of twelve lines or less. Each offers an evocative description of a scene that is dear to the queen and her people, and each conveys a brief but sweetly expressed wish for Emma’s own tranquility. Like old-fashioned portraits that emerge from softly blurred borders, these mele direct our attention to the beauty of each singled-out scene and sentiment, and the very absence of background serves to ...
Read the entire essay >>
E ō e Kaumakaokāne
“E ō e Kaumakaokāne,” is the second part of “He Inoa no Kaumakaokāne, two-part name chant for High Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papaleaiaina Keauiaole Cummins (1812 -1849) of Waimānalo. The chant was published in its entirety in 1864, fifteen years after her death but only two years after the birth of her granddaughter Matilda Kaumakaokane Papaleaiaina Cummins to John Adams Kuakini Cummins and High Chiefess Rebecca Kahalewai. Although we have found nothing to corroborate a connection between Matilda’s birth and the chant’s publication, it is possible that the Cummins family released ...
Read the entire essay >>
Hanohano Wailea
I composed “Hanohano Wailea” in 1984 after a walk to the beach. I went there to cool off after a day of yard work, but I came home quickly, far from cooled-off, with a mele stewing in my head. I’ve said elsewhere that I was inspired by the beauty of what I saw, but I was, in fact, aggravated by the palaualelo of what I’d heard. I wrote “Hanohano Wailea” in response to a self-styled keiki o ka ‘āina who had been giving his house guests a quick lesson in Lanikai landmarks. “That over there,” he said, “is Smith’s Point. Behind us is Pillbox Hill and to the north is Mid-Pac Knoll. And those twin islands out there ..."
Read the entire essay >>
He Ua lā he Ua
Emerson classifies “He Ua lā he Ua” as a hula kōlani: “a hula of gentle, gracious action, acted and sung [without instrumental accompaniment], while the performers kept a sitting position. Our tradition defines the kōlani as a hula kuhi whose specific purpose is that of honoring a chief. Edith McKenzie introduced the mele to us in 1980 at Kalōpā, Hawai‘i, in a three-day hula workshop sponsored by Keahi Allen and the State Council on Hawaiian Heritage. Aunty Edith cited Emerson, provided us with his text ...
Read the entire essay >>
Hiehie Olomana
Although this mele wahi pana for Kailua, O‘ahu, was composed in March 2011, its language, landscape, and sentiments are those of the chants and mo‘olelo recorded a century and more ago by Keko‘owai, Kapihenui, Poepoe, and Ulumāhiehie in their nūpepa retellings of the legends of the Mākālei branch and of Hi‘iakaikapoliopele’s passage through Kailua.
Read the entire essay >>
Ho‘opuka e ka Lā i Kai o Mālei
This has become the mele hula ka‘i of Hālau Mōhala ‘Ilima. We have certainly tried more than once, over our 40-year history, to compose something on the order of the traditional ho‘opuka of “Unulau” and “Kahikina,” but nothing stuck until our own Kahikina put pen to moleskine for our 2012 hula kahiko entry in the Merrie Monarch Festival. Her ka‘i rings with the names of our cherished places and guardians, with a procession of uhu, pu‘u, breeze, and birds, and with a call to the kini of Kailua to rise, remember, and reclaim. Most of all, her ka‘i honors the words of Mary Kawena Pukui, our teacher’s teacher ...
Read the entire essay >>
Kailua i ke Oho o ka Malanai
We’ve been chanting this mele and retelling its moʻolelo for so long – almost forty years – that we’ve forgotten some of the story’s details, added others that aren’t exactly in the originals, and generally gone fuzzy on the differences between the three nūpepa accounts of the story that are the source of our retelling. This is an effort, in late September 2017, to revisit Kapihenui (1862), Hoʻoulumāhiehie (1906), and Poepoe (1909). It is an effort to re-align what we say with what they’ve told us.
Read the entire essay >>
Ka Uʻi o Maunawili
“Nani Koʻolau” describes an on-again, off-again, young man’s fling: a cold night of hot pinches and crazy water, followed by locked doors and rejection, followed by a new proposal to resume the old, alcohol-fueled affair. In contrast, David Kaʻio’s “Ka Uʻi o Maunawili” describes the process by which a wiser man arrives at a genuine, long-term relationship with the woman he loves.
Read the entire essay >>
Lau Kapalili
I composed this mele in 1988, shortly after visiting the soon-to-be displaced farmers of Maunawili’s “Banana Patch” and testifying at the state capitol against the sale of almost 1,000 Maunawili acres to a Japanese corporation. I wrote it at the urging of my friend Kekuni Blaisdell who had read my testimony and asked for a mele to go with it – something to mark, in Hawaiian protest fashion, the loss of all those beloved lands and wahi pana to an exclusive country club and golf course. Although various community and conservation groups sought to prevent the Y.Y. Valley enterprise, the State had determined ...
Read the entire essay >>
Māpuna ka Hala o Kailua
The hala grove of Kekele, named for the handsome, sweet-tempered wife of Kailua’s 11th-century voyaging chief Kaulu-a-Kalana, once flourished at the Ko‘olau foot of Nu‘uanu Pali and is said to have been so fragrant that its perfume lingered long after the grove was destroyed. “Māpuna ka Hala o Kailua” follows the path of this beloved phantom fragrance as it is borne on the wind across the Kailua ahupua‘a from mountain to sea, from then to now.
Read the entire essay >>
Mekila e nā ‘Iwa e Kaka‘i Ana
Lokomaika‘i Snakenberg – friend, first Hawaiian language teacher, and namer of our hālau – composed this mele hula ho‘i for us in 1984 to use in that year’s Merrie Monarch Festival. His mele describes the gathering of ‘iwa at the Kalāheo School end of Kawainui pond, their drinking of water there, and their return “to the sea at full tide.” It is abundantly clear to us that the mele was written after careful study of the imagery, movement pattern, and meaning of the traditional “Ho‘opuka e ka Lā ma ka Hikina,” ...
Read the entire essay >>
Nānā aʻe Au aʻo Ahiki / Kiʻekiʻe i Luna ke Kū ʻo Ahiki
These are companion chants; they complement each other. Both were published in early installments of Samuel Kekoʻowai’s legend of the Mākālei, and both speak of the unparalleled beauty and prosperity of Kailua, Koʻolaupoko, Oʻahu. The world encompassed by both chants is framed by a mountain peak above and a fishpond below. The two, Ahiki and Kawainui, are male and female, and their intimate, life-producing relationship is expressed in the gentle caress of the Malanai breeze as it moves through the reeds of Mokulana, a “floating island” on the fringes of the fish-swollen pond. Both chants ...
Read the entire essay >>
Nane Pūniu
Samuel Kekoʻowai describes several disparate uses of gourd containers in his “Makalei Ka Laau Pii Ona a ka I-a,” a moʻolelo published serially in the nūpepa Kuokoa, 1922-24. In one episode, Pākuʻi disregards the instructions of his konohiki and attempts to catch the moʻo Hauwahine with a gourd of lūʻau and kukui bait. In another, Kahinihiniʻulu follows the instructions of his ancestress Haumea and uses a water gourd named Hinawaikoliʻi (which otherwise hangs in the shape of a feather ...
Read the entire essay >>
‘O ‘Oe nō Paha Ia e ka Lau o ke Aloha
This mele was first brought to our attention in 1980 by Muriel Seto, director and founding member of the Kawainui Heritage Foundation, past historical chair of the Congress of the Hawaiian People, and past cultural chair of Hawai‘i’s Thousand Friends. Muriel had been collecting oral histories of Kailua’s kūpuna since the 1960s, and some of these elders were not pleased after they had reviewed, at her request, Nathaniel Emerson’s discussion of “‘O ‘Oe nō Paha Ia,” a chant in which Kawainui fishpond of Kailua, O‘ahu, is the geographical focus.
Read the entire essay >>
‘O Paumakua / ‘O Kaulu / Kai Wawā ka Moku
Our competition mele is actually a three-chant presentation of “‘O Paumakua Ka Lani O Moenaimua,” “‘O Kaulu Nei Au,” and “Kai Wawā Ka Moku.” All three chants were published by Abraham Fornander in 1878 and are, in fact, fragments of longer, presumably-lost compositions. Together these fragments celebrate the accomplishments of Paumakua and Kaulu and offer a haunting picture of the waters on which the two must have sailed. These voyaging chiefs are especially important to us because they are both from our Kailua home and were among the ancestral guardians, eight centuries later, of our own ...
Read the entire essay >>
Ua Pihaku‘i Loko o ka ‘Oli‘oli
While living in Wailua, Kaua‘i, the aging hero Kamaakamahi‘ai learns that his great-grandson Olopana II (who is now the Kailua-based ruling chief of O‘ahu) must defend his home against the usurping chiefs of Oahu’s Kona district. Keakaokū (grandson of Kamaakamahi‘ai and father of Olopana II) has come to enlist Kamaakamai‘ai’s aid, but Kama is too weak to return to Kailua himself (“ua palupalu kona kino ua ano elemakule”), so Kama prays for his ‘aumakua to go there for him and assist the young ali‘i in combat. Back in Kailua on the morning of battle, Keakaokū observes the “ouli o ka lani” – signs that ...
Read the entire essay >>
Ulupō Nui
This is a mele composed for the founders, guardians, and caretakers of Ulupō Nui, the name given by Kailua’s current generation of poʻe aloha ‘āina to the newly restored lands that extend from Ulupō heiau to the banks of the once-and-future fishpond of Kawainui.
Read the entire essay >>
Some mele become victims of their own accessibility. We take them for granted. We assume that all that can be said about them has already been said. We fail to examine them anew because they have been delivered to us by such venerable hands that a re-investigation of texts and contexts – even after decades, even with all the tools now available to us – seems redundant and almost disrespectful.
Read the entire essay >>
‘Alo‘alo Ehuehu Pōkā
S. K. Kaloa is listed as a “carpenter, residence Alakea and King” in Polk’s 1893 Directory and Handbook of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He would later become an O‘ahu representative of the Hawaiian Patriotic League, a minister, a member of Hui Kuokoa, and a loyal supporter of Jonah Kuhiō Kalaniana‘ole in the prince’s party-switching run for congress.
Read the entire essay >>
Aloha Waiʻauia
Waiʻauia is the wedge of undeveloped land at the entrance to Kailua town. The mākāhā of Kawainui was once located here. Like Waiʻauia, this mele serves as a wedge of remember in the doorway of forget; it allows a bit of our past to ʻaʻe kū, to step defiantly into the present.
Read the entire essay >>
Alo Makani Pōlua o ke Koʻolau
We have an old, illustrated copy of Thomas Thrum’s More Hawaiian Folk Tales. We page through it regularly, but it takes an eagle-eyed Cristina Bacchillega to direct our attention to shocking implications of his photographs. Two photos will suffice: the first is of a Hawaiian family gathered outside its hale pili. The second is of three women sitting with their ʻumeke inside that same hale pili. Thrum’s captions for the two pictures are: “Hawaiian Grass House, Exterior View” and “Hawaiian Grass House, Interior View.” No mention is made of the Hawaiian people in the foreground of either picture; Thrum’s captions ...
Read the entire essay>>
A Lulu ka ‘Iako Pala ‘Ehu ke Oho
This chant is recorded by Samuel Keko‘owai in an early installment of his mo‘olelo of Haumea’s fish-attracting Mākālei: Nī‘ula is a luahine descendant of Haumea. She lives with her grandson Kahinihini‘ula in Makawao, Kailua – a small valley at the back of Maunawili. She is old but feisty. When the boy returns empty-handed after three days of helping to clear limu from Kawainui Pond (fish are the appropriate reward for work of this kind), she decides to teach the konohiki a lesson.
Read the entire essay >>
‘Auhea Wale ‘Oe e Kahalakea
This mele was inspired by my reading of “Ka Moolelo no Kamaakamahiai,” the story of a Maui-born kupua child who, after putting the rule of his own island to rights, journeys to Ka’ōhao, Kailua, where he helps Olopana to regain control of O‘ahu, marries Olopana’s daughter Keoholupalupa, returns to Maui to quell the rebellion of his own brother Mana‘o, helps the ali‘i of Hawai‘i (Nālualele) and Kaua‘i (Manōuli, his grandfather) to regain control of their islands, and – now an old man – gives the nod of approval to his great-grandson Olopana II whose turn has come to take up the legacy of bringing order to the land.
Read the entire essay >>
E Ho‘i ka Nani i Nu‘uanu / Maika‘i ka Ua i Nu‘uanu
Some of the most beautiful mele composed for the widowed Queen Emma are place-based vignettes of twelve lines or less. Each offers an evocative description of a scene that is dear to the queen and her people, and each conveys a brief but sweetly expressed wish for Emma’s own tranquility. Like old-fashioned portraits that emerge from softly blurred borders, these mele direct our attention to the beauty of each singled-out scene and sentiment, and the very absence of background serves to ...
Read the entire essay >>
E ō e Kaumakaokāne
“E ō e Kaumakaokāne,” is the second part of “He Inoa no Kaumakaokāne, two-part name chant for High Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papaleaiaina Keauiaole Cummins (1812 -1849) of Waimānalo. The chant was published in its entirety in 1864, fifteen years after her death but only two years after the birth of her granddaughter Matilda Kaumakaokane Papaleaiaina Cummins to John Adams Kuakini Cummins and High Chiefess Rebecca Kahalewai. Although we have found nothing to corroborate a connection between Matilda’s birth and the chant’s publication, it is possible that the Cummins family released ...
Read the entire essay >>
Hanohano Wailea
I composed “Hanohano Wailea” in 1984 after a walk to the beach. I went there to cool off after a day of yard work, but I came home quickly, far from cooled-off, with a mele stewing in my head. I’ve said elsewhere that I was inspired by the beauty of what I saw, but I was, in fact, aggravated by the palaualelo of what I’d heard. I wrote “Hanohano Wailea” in response to a self-styled keiki o ka ‘āina who had been giving his house guests a quick lesson in Lanikai landmarks. “That over there,” he said, “is Smith’s Point. Behind us is Pillbox Hill and to the north is Mid-Pac Knoll. And those twin islands out there ..."
Read the entire essay >>
He Ua lā he Ua
Emerson classifies “He Ua lā he Ua” as a hula kōlani: “a hula of gentle, gracious action, acted and sung [without instrumental accompaniment], while the performers kept a sitting position. Our tradition defines the kōlani as a hula kuhi whose specific purpose is that of honoring a chief. Edith McKenzie introduced the mele to us in 1980 at Kalōpā, Hawai‘i, in a three-day hula workshop sponsored by Keahi Allen and the State Council on Hawaiian Heritage. Aunty Edith cited Emerson, provided us with his text ...
Read the entire essay >>
Hiehie Olomana
Although this mele wahi pana for Kailua, O‘ahu, was composed in March 2011, its language, landscape, and sentiments are those of the chants and mo‘olelo recorded a century and more ago by Keko‘owai, Kapihenui, Poepoe, and Ulumāhiehie in their nūpepa retellings of the legends of the Mākālei branch and of Hi‘iakaikapoliopele’s passage through Kailua.
Read the entire essay >>
Ho‘opuka e ka Lā i Kai o Mālei
This has become the mele hula ka‘i of Hālau Mōhala ‘Ilima. We have certainly tried more than once, over our 40-year history, to compose something on the order of the traditional ho‘opuka of “Unulau” and “Kahikina,” but nothing stuck until our own Kahikina put pen to moleskine for our 2012 hula kahiko entry in the Merrie Monarch Festival. Her ka‘i rings with the names of our cherished places and guardians, with a procession of uhu, pu‘u, breeze, and birds, and with a call to the kini of Kailua to rise, remember, and reclaim. Most of all, her ka‘i honors the words of Mary Kawena Pukui, our teacher’s teacher ...
Read the entire essay >>
Kailua i ke Oho o ka Malanai
We’ve been chanting this mele and retelling its moʻolelo for so long – almost forty years – that we’ve forgotten some of the story’s details, added others that aren’t exactly in the originals, and generally gone fuzzy on the differences between the three nūpepa accounts of the story that are the source of our retelling. This is an effort, in late September 2017, to revisit Kapihenui (1862), Hoʻoulumāhiehie (1906), and Poepoe (1909). It is an effort to re-align what we say with what they’ve told us.
Read the entire essay >>
Ka Uʻi o Maunawili
“Nani Koʻolau” describes an on-again, off-again, young man’s fling: a cold night of hot pinches and crazy water, followed by locked doors and rejection, followed by a new proposal to resume the old, alcohol-fueled affair. In contrast, David Kaʻio’s “Ka Uʻi o Maunawili” describes the process by which a wiser man arrives at a genuine, long-term relationship with the woman he loves.
Read the entire essay >>
Lau Kapalili
I composed this mele in 1988, shortly after visiting the soon-to-be displaced farmers of Maunawili’s “Banana Patch” and testifying at the state capitol against the sale of almost 1,000 Maunawili acres to a Japanese corporation. I wrote it at the urging of my friend Kekuni Blaisdell who had read my testimony and asked for a mele to go with it – something to mark, in Hawaiian protest fashion, the loss of all those beloved lands and wahi pana to an exclusive country club and golf course. Although various community and conservation groups sought to prevent the Y.Y. Valley enterprise, the State had determined ...
Read the entire essay >>
Māpuna ka Hala o Kailua
The hala grove of Kekele, named for the handsome, sweet-tempered wife of Kailua’s 11th-century voyaging chief Kaulu-a-Kalana, once flourished at the Ko‘olau foot of Nu‘uanu Pali and is said to have been so fragrant that its perfume lingered long after the grove was destroyed. “Māpuna ka Hala o Kailua” follows the path of this beloved phantom fragrance as it is borne on the wind across the Kailua ahupua‘a from mountain to sea, from then to now.
Read the entire essay >>
Mekila e nā ‘Iwa e Kaka‘i Ana
Lokomaika‘i Snakenberg – friend, first Hawaiian language teacher, and namer of our hālau – composed this mele hula ho‘i for us in 1984 to use in that year’s Merrie Monarch Festival. His mele describes the gathering of ‘iwa at the Kalāheo School end of Kawainui pond, their drinking of water there, and their return “to the sea at full tide.” It is abundantly clear to us that the mele was written after careful study of the imagery, movement pattern, and meaning of the traditional “Ho‘opuka e ka Lā ma ka Hikina,” ...
Read the entire essay >>
Nānā aʻe Au aʻo Ahiki / Kiʻekiʻe i Luna ke Kū ʻo Ahiki
These are companion chants; they complement each other. Both were published in early installments of Samuel Kekoʻowai’s legend of the Mākālei, and both speak of the unparalleled beauty and prosperity of Kailua, Koʻolaupoko, Oʻahu. The world encompassed by both chants is framed by a mountain peak above and a fishpond below. The two, Ahiki and Kawainui, are male and female, and their intimate, life-producing relationship is expressed in the gentle caress of the Malanai breeze as it moves through the reeds of Mokulana, a “floating island” on the fringes of the fish-swollen pond. Both chants ...
Read the entire essay >>
Nane Pūniu
Samuel Kekoʻowai describes several disparate uses of gourd containers in his “Makalei Ka Laau Pii Ona a ka I-a,” a moʻolelo published serially in the nūpepa Kuokoa, 1922-24. In one episode, Pākuʻi disregards the instructions of his konohiki and attempts to catch the moʻo Hauwahine with a gourd of lūʻau and kukui bait. In another, Kahinihiniʻulu follows the instructions of his ancestress Haumea and uses a water gourd named Hinawaikoliʻi (which otherwise hangs in the shape of a feather ...
Read the entire essay >>
‘O ‘Oe nō Paha Ia e ka Lau o ke Aloha
This mele was first brought to our attention in 1980 by Muriel Seto, director and founding member of the Kawainui Heritage Foundation, past historical chair of the Congress of the Hawaiian People, and past cultural chair of Hawai‘i’s Thousand Friends. Muriel had been collecting oral histories of Kailua’s kūpuna since the 1960s, and some of these elders were not pleased after they had reviewed, at her request, Nathaniel Emerson’s discussion of “‘O ‘Oe nō Paha Ia,” a chant in which Kawainui fishpond of Kailua, O‘ahu, is the geographical focus.
Read the entire essay >>
‘O Paumakua / ‘O Kaulu / Kai Wawā ka Moku
Our competition mele is actually a three-chant presentation of “‘O Paumakua Ka Lani O Moenaimua,” “‘O Kaulu Nei Au,” and “Kai Wawā Ka Moku.” All three chants were published by Abraham Fornander in 1878 and are, in fact, fragments of longer, presumably-lost compositions. Together these fragments celebrate the accomplishments of Paumakua and Kaulu and offer a haunting picture of the waters on which the two must have sailed. These voyaging chiefs are especially important to us because they are both from our Kailua home and were among the ancestral guardians, eight centuries later, of our own ...
Read the entire essay >>
Ua Pihaku‘i Loko o ka ‘Oli‘oli
While living in Wailua, Kaua‘i, the aging hero Kamaakamahi‘ai learns that his great-grandson Olopana II (who is now the Kailua-based ruling chief of O‘ahu) must defend his home against the usurping chiefs of Oahu’s Kona district. Keakaokū (grandson of Kamaakamahi‘ai and father of Olopana II) has come to enlist Kamaakamai‘ai’s aid, but Kama is too weak to return to Kailua himself (“ua palupalu kona kino ua ano elemakule”), so Kama prays for his ‘aumakua to go there for him and assist the young ali‘i in combat. Back in Kailua on the morning of battle, Keakaokū observes the “ouli o ka lani” – signs that ...
Read the entire essay >>
Ulupō Nui
This is a mele composed for the founders, guardians, and caretakers of Ulupō Nui, the name given by Kailua’s current generation of poʻe aloha ‘āina to the newly restored lands that extend from Ulupō heiau to the banks of the once-and-future fishpond of Kawainui.
Read the entire essay >>