In Hawaii, islands with obviously finite resources, care of the land is crucial. The islands were divided in a pie shape by territory--not with some being mountain people and others water people, but each division, "a'hapua'a," getting a slice of the mountainous interior, going down through the various ecosystems, and a spread of the shoreline. The ancestral lands Hawaiians are permitted to keep in their family if they have 60% of the bloodline (which could be it's own debate) are not refered to as "land claims," but as "Kuleana lands" -- Kuleana means "responsibility," not indicating, "This ground is what I get," but, "I have a responsibility to these lands." Almost like, the land has a claim on me, it inherited me, instead of the other way around. The kind of responsibility meant, could be summed up in a comment to me by a Hawaiian friend who described the way you can tell a true Hawaiian's property and one who is not really living the values. She said, if you see a yard that is nice and taken care of--the plants are healthy, things are orderly, you can tell there is care put into it, this is what Hawaiians are taught to be like. Yards full of junk, with shoes everywhere and things overgrown and sloppy, this is not really a Hawaiian.
She also told me more about the idea of "ownership"--in our culture, she said, something is not "yours" because you bought it, it becomes "yours" when you take care of it. It is your Kuleana. This means you can't say a plant is yours, unless you water it, trim it, you know it, you care for it. During my college years in Hawaii, I took a series of Hawaiian culture classes--one of which was called, "Malama 'aina (Care of the Land)." For this class we met mostly at "Kahuaola"--a garden of Hawaiian plant species (so much of the islands are now overrun with invasive species) run by the Hawaiian Studies Department behind our campus. In the garden, backed by an ancient "he'iau" or temple, we worked hard in the sun--watering the ti plants, pulling thorny hili hili grass--with roots so deep--out of the ground, cutting down, pulling out and burning hundreds of invasive haole koa trees, and working in the lo'i (taro patches) weeding and harvesting. This place became an intimate part of us. We cultivated the land, and the land cultivated us. The value was lived; and I began to see what beauty exists in this relationship with the land. This concept is probably known to most "farm kids," but I had never experienced this paritcular type of symbiotic interaction with the land in my non-agrarian climate.
I began to see how this principal related to so many "environmental" issues and wars. I believe it can applied to almost all. Let's take, for example, the forestry industry. My grandpa was a Forester in Juneau, Alaska. His eyes still light up when he describes to us the different ways the species of trees react to forces and grow, giving examples from trees out the window, or explainaing how the forest was managed, then, by nurturing concepts that, with the help of humans, yeilded the healthiest and most productive forests. It was a fine art. I can tell when my grandpa talks that they knew the trees, cared about them, cared for them. It was their Kuleana. The thinking changed; forestry has all but gone by the wayside as people in Urban centers, with the power, believe that touching the natural world at all is a sin.
I strongly believe that humans are not on the Earth by accident. We are not a blight to it -- we have the power to be if we don't care for it, malama 'aina -- but we are MEANT to touch it, to be in it, to know it. We should use the resources around us -- they are meant to sustain us, just like any other form of life on the planet. Should we be allowed to cut down trees? YES, in moderation. Hunt seals? That's a sensitive one... YES, in moderation. Go into the wild parts of the world without having to ask permission? YES. Those who hunt deer, or ducks, seals, or foxes, in the right attitude and for the right reasons are the ones who will know them best and care about them the most. Not the city-dweller who saw a special on National Geographic or read an article about them, and then petitions to bar every soul from interacting with the species again or entering their domain, and they will never know what they don't know. We have the ability to destroy -- some would say this means we should put up walls around the wild and protect it from ourselves. But we also have the ability to make it even more fruitful. Deep familiarity with and dependance on the natural world makes life beautiful, it cultivates us. And it is our Kuleana, our responsibility, to cultivate and beautify the Earth. And not by removing ourselves from it.
I say, Go! Build your rock cairns along the hilltops to guide yourself back home, leave your footprints in the forest! Get to intimately know this glorious world! That means being prepared to shoot a bear if you have to and recognize its part of the natural cycle! Do things for the Earth and let it do things for you -- it's a sacred relationship. This is malama 'aina. Or you can close off the natural world, make it jungle to you, untouchable, while you banish youselves to the cities to live out your pitiful days in concrete and synthetics and in guilt of your very existance. And there, go to the park to see trees, take your kids to the zoo to see the caged vestiges of the once-known savage world, while I take mine to visit the last trapper allowed and see more clearly that world, reflected in his eyes, the only one really shaped by it.
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| 2007 - Kahuaola -- Working hard to clear an overrun lo'i kalo (Taro patch) |
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| 2008 - Kahuaola -- Same lo'i kalo, now fruitful |
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