Huliau - The Return Voyage

‘Iokepa and I have returned to our Islands of Hawai’i.

For eight months and 25,000 car miles, we drove the freeways of the  American continent. But we spoke out, always and only, on behalf of this place and these people.

We return now to swim in the ocean; eat our  ration of mango, papaya, bananas, and coconut.  We return to watch the sun set and the moon rise over the Pacific horizon;  star-gaze without intrusive city lights;  follow the ubiquitous rainbows–in sum, to drink from Source.  We  come home to be still, and to listen.

We return to listen, but the people of these Islands ask us to fill them (ears and hearts) with what transpired in our long absence.  They yearn  for accounts of how the aboriginal cultural message was received outside of Hawai’i.  They count on ‘Iokepa Hanalei ‘Imaikalani to be an instrument of change; they expect it.  It is a weighty expectation.  But it rests easily on ‘Iokepa’s shoulders; he hands it off to his ancestors.  He is simply, he knows, the conduit for their words and wishes.

Since 1972, when the 150 year old, culturally repressive laws were wiped off the books, Native Hawaiians have pleaded and fought for their freedom, have struggled, too,  for the resurrection of their battered land.  From the moment that they were ungagged, they have spoken:  Softly with hula hands, in their  mellifluous language, and in prayer; Loudly through the political Sovereignty Movement to the World Court, the United Nations, and the U.S. Congress.

Opponents of freedom for the Native Hawaiians  mock the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement as, “Hopelessly divided.”  Where ‘Iokepa sees:  “Passion,” they see “Rage.”  Where ‘Iokepa sees: “Excitement,” they see “Threat.”  Where ‘Iokepa enthuses:  “When it all comes together…!”  they labor to make sure that it never does.  Land developers, hotel magnates, and politicians have a lot vested in keeping the Native Hawaiians hopeless.

For 37 years, the strength of the political Sovereignty Movement, like the brilliant Hawaiian moon, has waxed and waned.   Tortured recurrently with dashed hopes, deferred dreams, and disillusionment–there has risen a tidal wave of despair.

Anger, ‘Iokepa reminds his people (and ours), is the antithesis of what his original culture is about–what it has to teach the world.  ‘Iokepa comes to the table with something else.  “We began Return Voyage, and we continue it, with the things we can agree on.  We can agree that love is stronger than fear, or hate.”

The existing Hawaiian sovereignty movement has failed, in any significant number, to win the hearts of  its people.  To a people, who’ve seen their homeland  stolen and trashed, their culture kidnapped and commercialized–the sovereignty groups ask that their people give something more–this time to a political cause:  Sign up,  attend meetings, trust us...

But, ‘Iokepa sees it through a different–apolitical lens–pure culture, pure spirit.  The change  that his people yearn for comes because he brings something to them. He gives them back what has been taken away:  Their self confidence, cultural validation, authentic  heritage–and the  absolute certainty that what they uniquely possess, the entire earth has been waiting to hear.

Accordingly, The Return Voyage website, our  Home Page, will change.  Now:

“For 12,300 years, the indigenous people of our Islands embraced a culture that refused the possibility of  war.

Return Voyage awakens that ancient wisdom–ritual and practices that dissipate anger, prevent violence, foster harmony–and shares its profound implications for the 21st century.

We invite all people to join the conversation.”

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Last month, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood, a New York Times editorial writer began:  “The 50th state turns 50 on Friday, and the strange thing is how wildly and jubilantly the islands aren’t celebrating.”  The writer  explained the lack of celebration:  “The reasons are sad but obvious…Tourism is in the tank.”

‘Iokepa and I read that editorial and sucked in our collective breath.  We were in awe that a New York Times editorial writer  could have so completely missed the mark.

The Return Voyage task of opening minds and hearts is something we take seriously; I respond.

Thousands of Native Hawaiians (both on the Islands and within the United States) grieve the fact of statehood.  Native Hawaiians were resoundingly outvoted by the malihini–guests–that they had welcomed to their homeland with open hands, open arms and open hearts.  Being born on the Hawaiian Islands does not make us kanaka maoli–aboriginal people–nor does dying there.  We remain guests of a people who celebrate their connection to every living being.  Decisions made about the past, present or future of their sovereign land belong to those who carry that ancestral lineage.

The history books aren’t vague on this point.  The independent nation of Hawai’i was annexed in 1898 (in direct violation of U.S. law).  In that year, the American government forcibly turned my husband’s independent nation into a U.S. Territory–and turned Queen Lili’uokalani into a prisoner and martyr for her people.  The last reigning monarch refused to spill her people’s blood defending a land that she believed:  Only her Creator owned.

The U.S. government acted at the behest of a dozen American pineapple and sugar cane tycoons–for the purpose of padding their bank accounts.  Hawaiian sovereignty was eradicated at gunpoint.  Fully 95% of all living kanaka maoli petitioned their opposition to Washington.  It fell on deaf ears.  The petitions remain still, in the U.S. National Archives.

My husband’s people have not changed their minds.  They have not benevolently acquiesced to the theft of their native homeland.

The New York Times editorial writer mentioned in passing:  “Underneath is the unresolved pain of the Native Hawaiians, unhappy over long unsettled land claims and economic disadvantage.”  ‘Iokepa and I take another deep breath.

It has been fully 185 years since the missionaries’ sons discovered wealth in sugar cane, and fenced the kanaka maoli off their own land.  That many years since the missionary-imposed laws forbade the native people to:  Practice Huna (their ancient religion), dance the  authentic hula (that was prayer, never entertainment), name their child a Hawaiian first name (it had to be Christian), utilize the indigenous plants for healing, or speak the native language in public (without punishment or shame).

All remained on the state’s law books–and enforced–until 1972.  The native people continue to suffer excruciating losses.  In all ways, they are an almost invisible minority–tucked away in marginal geographic and economic pockets of ill-health, acute poverty, and crime.

My husband, ‘Iokepa Hanalei ‘Imaikalani, says:  “God gave the stewardship of the Islands to the kanaka maoli. But there are people who believe they need to own it.  They destroy the land and the ocean; they level our sacred places–and then they go home.  But we have no other place to go–this is our home.”

These gifted and compassionate kanaka maoli have suffered every known indignity of oppression; it continues still.  Yet my husband says with passion:  “We have not been conquered–no more than Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. was conquered by his assassin.  And we have not forgotten.”

Perhaps the greatest violation was not the law that incarcerated and murdered the holders of the knowing, that closed down the ritual and prayer, that refused these people their own names.  The greatest violation, I believe, was silencing another people’s story.  The guests came, they shut down the native voices, and they wrote their own version of my husband’s family’s story.  We are all–everyone of us–the poorer for it.

Celebrate statehood?  You must be kidding.

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