Huliau - The Return Voyage

For the first time ever, ‘Iokepa Hanalei ‘Imaikalani walked into a United States courtroom in Hawai’i.

He was just another, “Traffic offender” among  dozens:  Violators of the mandated speed limits, folks who’d innocently let their car registration lapse, those who simply could not afford to pay car insurance premiums, and drunk drivers.

When his turn came:  ‘Iokepa walked through the gate that separated spectator from accused.  He stood with his back to the seats behind;  his shoulders squared;  his waist-length silver hair shining under the fluorescent lights; his light brown eyes riveted on the judge.  He articulated his full name clearly– because even in Hawai’i (especially in Hawai’i) Hawaiian names are most often mispronounced.

‘Iokepa said:  “I am not guilty of all charges,” and he asked for a jury trial.  He was denied one.  Instead, he will be tried on February 11, 2010, at ten in the morning, before this judge.  He will be permitted to, “Offer witnesses–and present evidence.”

Witnesses to what?  To his identity as a Native Hawaiian who carries his ancestors’ DNA in his blood, who embraces and lives his culture daily.

Evidence of what?  That for 13 years he has relinquished all claims to American identity, and every imaginable perk that goes with that, to fully live the authentic culture of his ancestors.

Let me step back a moment here, and set the stage

For 150 years–until 1972:  At the behest of the Calvinist missionaries and their sugar cane baron offspring, American-imposed law forbade the practice of the  13,000  year old aboriginal culture on any of these eight inhabited Hawaiian Islands.

For 150 years–until 1972:  Native Hawaiians were forbidden by Hawaiian territorial and state law from  naming their child a Hawaiian first name; it had to be Christian.  This wasn’t as purposeless as it seems:  Within Hawaiian culture, the child’s name (given by the ancestors, often in dreams) identified his or her destiny.

For 150 years–until 1972:  Native Hawaiians were forbidden by law from dancing the kahiko–the original hula.  Hula was prayer (never entertainment)–and if you were blessed, when the dancer transcended, she took the community with her.

For 150 years–until 1972:  Native Hawaiians were forbidden by law from using their traditional plants and herbs for healing.  Only in recent years, has the western world acknowledged the powers of the Hawaiian Noni plant, the Kalo plant, the Kawa root .

For 150 years–until 1972:  Native Hawaiians were forbidden by law from practicing their ancient way of life because it conflicted with the European missionary ideal of imposed Christianity, and because the assumption (solidified into a brutal legal system) assumed that the Hawaiian people, who lived their connection to every thread and breathe of Creation, were inferior.

For 150 years–until 1972:  Native Hawaiians were shamed and punished for speaking their own poetic, metaphoric language in public.

Since 1972, when these punitive, culturally genocidal laws were lifted, these sorely oppressed people have struggled to find their way home.   Return Voyage is the work of that return.  It is impossible for ‘Iokepa’s people to forget that which had been surgically removed by law.

‘Iokepa’s grandmothers insisted thirteen years ago that in order to fully claim the life that his ancestors bequeathed him, on the land that was his inheritance, he must never again carry identification that speaks to allegiance to any land other than his own.  Dutiful mo’opuna (grandchild) that he is, he has complied.

He enters court, less to challenge American law, than to defend his people’s right to their cultural and spiritual identity.  He enters court to try to press past that fence that separates spectator and accused, to speak of a culture that, “Welcomed every guest here with open arms, open hands, and open heart.”  He enters court less to oppose, than to embrace.

“Justice and law are two different things,” ‘Iokepa said.

“American law is this wide.”  (He holds his hands inches apart.) ” It takes care of a few.  My culture is  larger than that; it takes responsibility for every soul, and every part of Creation.

“There remain laws that require that I carry identification with a nation that is not my own, that ask me to obey laws that remove me from my cultural practices and my identity.  I cannot.”

He enters court:  The living embodiment of God’s plan for the kanaka maoli–the Native Hawaiians.  He enters court asking nothing for himself, and everything for his people.