A master plan for Hawaiian sovereignty exists. It is entitled “Hookupu a Ka Lahui Hawaii,” and I just installed it on http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com/. It was first published in 1995, 15 years ago. If you are interested in the manao (ideas) of Native Hawaiians concerning their homeland, do take a look. Mahalo!
Master plan for Hawaiian sovereignty
1 02 2010Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Hawaii, Hawaiian, Hawaiian sovereignty, indigenous people, Ka Lahui Hawaii
Categories : Hawaiian
Noni for good measure
29 01 2010Morinda citrifolia is the scientific name for noni. I’m interested in Hawaiian laau lapaau (healing medicine). I’m remembering this as I work/play at regaining my health.
A few years back when stocking Hale Kuai Cooperative, a store with Native Hawaiian products, we made sure we had a full line of Hawaiian herbal medicine on our shelves. We did this, knowing that the kahuna lapaau (master practitioners of Hawaiian healing) did not always agree on how to use certain plants.
Noni is one of those plants. I heard differing opinions on whether to use it externally and/or internally. I heard and read claims that noni will cure whatever ails you. That the large dark green leaves could heal broken bones. That one could rid head lice by smashing the ripe fruit on the scalp.
Noni (Morinda citrifolia) in three stages, bottom to top: flowering, green, almost ripe. Try the tiny white flowers for breakfast or as a garnish on salads.
There is very much to learn about noni. The literature is extensive, and the information is very interesting. I list some resources for lay readers at the end of this post. Today I just want to explain what I do with noni now, following a suggestion by the medical intuitive Camille Copeland who lives on Kauai.
For a time I gathered my own noni juice the traditional Hawaiian way by setting the ripe fruit in a clean and covered glass jar in the sun for a period of time until a dark liquid was extracted; then drank it as a morning tonic. This didn’t last long with me.
Listening to Camille on the radio one Sunday, she advised a caller to take noni fresh, not fermented, as a guard against inflammation. Did she have a tree? I thought, hey, I have a tree. I’ll give it a try.
Every day I check my noni tree for a fruit that is opaque with white skin. If there is one that is nearly white, like pale yellow, that’s okay too, I can pick it. Like a tomato, it will continue to ripen after picked.
I pick noni when it looks like this on the tree
I put the noni in a glass bowl. After one or two days it turns translucent.
Translucent noni
Then it’s time to press it through a sieve.
I use a wooden spoon to press the ripe noni through a metal sieve into a glass container, separating all of those seeds from the pulp
The fresh foamy noni pulp tastes slightly tangy. It doesn’t have an objectionable aroma to me. (The smell is likened to strong cheese.) I eat about a heaping tablespoon in the morning on an empty stomach, about 10-15 minutes before breakfast. I store any surplus in a tightly lidded jar, properly labeled, in the refrigerator.
I think this is working for me. I thank my noni tree each time it gifts me with its wondrous fruit.
Resources:
A good recent article about noni is found on this blog: http://drreese.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/the-pain-killer-plant/
Our Hawaiian co-op carried David Marcus’s Hawaiian Herbal Blessings of Maui. David has supplied noni products for many years, including to Hale Kuai Cooperative.
Noni: Aspirin of the Ancients by Diana Fairechild is a wonderful testimony about the wonders of this plant. Check amazon.com for the small paperback.
Copyright 2010 Rebekah Luke
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Tags: Hawaiian healing herb, Hawaiian medicine, healing, laau lapaau, Morinda citrifolia, noni
Categories : About me, Hawaiian
A Native Hawaiian initiative
5 12 2009Some of my friends may know that I am a citizen of Ka Lahui Hawaii. I attended a working group meeting today to give a progress report on the new website http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com/ that I manage. It is even newer than Rebekah’s Studio.
For weeks we’ve been figuring how best to install certain documents for the public, and from the response of citizens at today’s meeting we uploaded the “Constitution of Ka Lahui Hawaii.” I am so happy! And there will be more information to come.
Looking back, quite a lot of nation building occurred in the 1990s. The citizens and honorary citizens were very active on all islands and on Moku Honu (North America). I remember attending legislative sessions throughout the islands: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaii. There was an extensive sovereignty education program and citizens took stands on issues often.
Many of our kupuna (Hawaiian elders) who guided the nation in the early years have passed over. Remembering the legacy they left us, we are now continuing to pick up the pieces and press onward.
I think people who are unaware or, and I say this kindly, ignorant of the Native Hawaiian situation—whether they are sympathetic to Native initiatives or not—will be surprised at how much work Ka Lahui Hawaii accomplished:
The Constitution, Master Plan, resolutions, work at the United Nations level, treaties with other nations, educational and economic programs, research—all done at a grassroots level. We met in churches, in parking lots, in parks, at community centers, at each others’ homes.
If you have an interest, please visit
Through the power of the internet, the Ka Lahui Hawaii working group is recording the nation’s efforts in cyberspace for current and future generations.
Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke
Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: Hawaiian sovereignty, indigenous people, Ka Lahui Hawaii, maoli, Native Hawaiian
Categories : About me, Hawaiian
Let it snow!
2 12 2009Where does a Hawaiian island girl go on vacation? To places where it is cold and snowy. To places where I can wear clothes! In a few days I’ll be on my way to central Europe to visit the Christmas markets where I know it will be very cold. I am wishing for snow.
Somewhere along the river cruise route from Germany to Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary there might be some of that falling white fluffy stuff. Maybe in Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava, or Budapest? I’ve got my snow boots packed! In the meantime, our WordPress host is accommodating by snowing on Rebekah’s Studio. Cool, huh? (pun intended)
Here’s a picture of a picture of my very first snowman the year I declared, as an adult, that I wanted a winter vacation. It was the first time I deliberately traveled to a cold place. My visit to Anchorage, Alaska, coincided with the Fur Rendezvous festival in Anchorage.
Heather and Sean showed me how to build a snowman in Alaska
A couple of seasons before that, it snowed in the mountains on the San Francisco peninsula in California during the coldest winter since such-and-such year. I was working for Sunset magazine at the time. That winter I remember the first snowball thrown at me at Yosemite National Park where the waterfalls were frozen and the scenery was gorgeous-crisp and quiet.
Throughout our 25 years of marriage, DH and I often visited his parents, brother’s and sister’s families in Pennsylvania during the winter holiday, so often that my friends would ask if I ever went anywhere else besides Pennsylvania.
The last December we went to the East Coast, before this one, was to see his parents at their funerals within two weeks of each other. We huddled under the falling snow and placed orchid lei on the ground in the church’s memorial garden where we buried their ashes.
One weekend we took the train from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. We stayed at the Pen Arts building that is the headquarters for the National League of American Pen Women, the members’ clubhouse. The staff went home for the weekend, and the mansion was ours. To trek around in the snow the next morning, though, we first had to get out of the front door. Thank goodness DH remembered how to shovel the steps and to say, “Yes, thank you!” when a man came by to ask if he should salt the sidewalk.
If you have to live in wintry weather all the time, I’m sure it could be more tiresome than romantic. But if you are born and reared in Hawaii as I was, it’s a novelty.
When I was in Osaka, Japan, one February for the opening of the Oceania exhibit at Minpaku (the National Museum of Ethnology) at Senri Park, Professor Shimizu regretted to tell me, when I asked, that it probably would not snow. A few minutes into lunch, he was really surprised to see the white flakes falling outside the dining room window. But I wasn’t.
Here is the link to Minpaku. The photo you see is an exact replica of Hale Kuai Cooperative store with authentic Native Hawaiian made products in Hauula, Oahu, that I co-founded with Ka Lahui Hawaii. How it got there as the Hawaiian part of the permanent Oceania exhibit at the museum is an amazing story, a real memoir that I’ll share with you someday.
I say it’s fitting that WordPress bless this blog with snow. Please enjoy it warmly in front of your computer! I’m planning to send holiday posts while abroad.
Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke
Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: December, Fur Rendezvous, Hawaiian, Ka Lahui Hawaii, Memoir, Minpaku, snow, snowman, Travel, winter, winter vacation, WordPress
Categories : About me, Friends & Family, Hawaiian, Memoir, Travel
View of the Koolau Range and the sea
23 11 2009
Another view of the gorgeous mountains of the Koolau Range on Oahu is off my easel and waiting for its protective varnish coat and frame. I’m so thrilled that it’s finished, I want to show it to you.
On Sunday we found some time to relax. Here’s a familiar scene of repose at the beach: DH and Alice Brown by the sea.
Sunday at the Beach
Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke
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Tags: beach, Fine Art, Hawaiian, Koolau Mountains, Koolau Range, Oahu, oil painting, seaside
Categories : About me, Fine Art, Friends & Family, Hawaiian
Makahiki, yule and gift giving
9 11 2009With the winter holiday season upon us, most families are starting to get into the spirit. The signs include that real or imagined cold snap on Halloween night, slick merchandising catalogs overflowing from our mailboxes, store mark downs everywhere, and the lure of local craft fairs and festive events.
Conversations now include, “What are you doing for (fill in the holiday)?” and newspaper features carry tips on how to remain stress free. We want to remember family and friends and hope no one is left alone. As families extend generationally, geographically, and by marriage, there can be many decisions to make.
DH and I have a couple of philosophic ideas and old-fashioned traditions that give us a sense of peace. They link to our respective roots—Hawaiian Islands for me and Pennsylvania (Delaware County) for him.
One is to acknowledge and be mindful of the Hawaiian Makahiki season, roughly from mid-November through January (exact dates depend on the moon). The planting season is over, work is pau (finished), and warring ceases. It is the time of the god Lono.
The best of the harvest is dedicated to Lono in the form of ho‘okupu (offerings). The people give thanks, relax, socialize, play outdoor games, and generally enjoy themselves. No stress. It’s officially okay to play!
The other is adopted from Winterthur, Delaware, not far from DH’s birthplace. As tourists we visited Winterthur, a museum and the former country estate of Henry Francis du Pont. During his life H. F. du Pont collected whole room interiors of various periods, not to mention whole street fronts, and installed them in his mansion.
The museum decorates the rooms of this big house for Yuletide, and visitors can tour them around the same months of Makahiki in Hawaii. The holiday decor matches the period style of each different room. It’s educational and very festive.
When we visited, our favorite room showed how du Pont’s own family celebrated in the first half of the 20th century. The story was told that Yuletide, the time around the Winter solstice, was a time to visit and entertain friends, to rest and to celebrate a successful harvest. Children were seen but not heard.
Decorations consisted of a small table-top evergreen—adorned simply with cookies, candles and strands of popcorn and cranberries—that was set atop a pie crust table. Gifts were exchanged among immediate family members only and placed in a basket for each person. If the children behaved well, they could have the cookies!
We liked the idea so well that we brought home a furniture piece similar to a pie crust table for ourselves, in a nod to the East Coast style and DH’s regional heritage. Each year we hang on a small tree the wooden ornaments crafted by DH’s parents for their first granddaughter on her first Christmas.
At a lost for that special gift?
FOR YULE or any other special occasion such as a wedding, a big birthday, an anniversary, or a move to a new home, do consider giving a painting. Yes, a painting! An original oil painting is special and unique, so unexpected, so memorable. It is a one-of-a-kind piece of art, it’s durable, and it can provide years of long-lasting enjoyment. Support the Native Hawaiian artist! I can work with you now on a selection and a payment plan, if necessary. I will be traveling and away from the studio for a good part of December, so if you are at all interested, please contact me. Click on PAINTINGS in the menu bar to see the images. I’ll be installing additional pieces in the next few days too. Thank you!
Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke
References:
In years past I have participated in the Makahiki observance on Kahoolawe island. You may read about Makahiki on the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana website:
http://www.kahoolawe.org/home/?page_id=7
For more about Winterthur and the du Ponts, click on this link:
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Tags: art gift, Christmas, holiday, holiday tradition, Kahoolawe, Lono, Makahiki, special occasion, winter, winter solstice, Winterthur, yule
Categories : About me, Fine Art, Friends & Family, Hawaiian
Ho‘oilo, the Hawaiian wet season
3 11 2009It’s ho‘oilo, the wet season, and here comes the rain. It’s the time of year to consider painting rainy-day pictures.
This is a view from the studio and two more waterfalls I can see when I look straight back into Makaua Valley. When it’s not raining, the falls are dry.
In 2006, it rained continuously for 40 days and 40 nights, causing landslides, flooding in Kaaawa village, and extensive damage to Makaua stream, a stone’s throw away from the studio.
We are so very thankful that the stream has been restored to pre-storm conditions in several sections. The restoration was completed and blessed just last month.
Leaving the stream unrepaired was considered a risk to public health and safety.
One damaged section was ma uka (mountain side) of the bridge (see photos below). On Kamehameha Highway, the main artery between Kahaluu and Haleiwa on Oahu, this bridge was in jeopardy. Many thanks to the federal and state governments, the contractors, and the community—including the private land owners and tenants of the land next to the stream and the contractors—for making this $816,092.00 restoration project possible.
In this 2006 photo, roaring Makaua Stream had already washed out the embankment. In the background is a residential road and the fire station. Kamehameha Highway is just out of the picture on the left side.
Here you can see the reconstruction work. The debris and the huge boulders that washed down have been cleared away. The job took 200 days to complete.
The restoration project including the new embankment, jumbo drainage pipe, and fencing was completed and blessed in October, just in time for new rains.
The photos of 2006 were made by Peter Krape.
Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke
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Tags: Hawaii, Hawaiian weather, hooilo, Kaaawa, Makaua, Oahu, rainy season, stream restoration
Categories : Hawaiian, Travel
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