Ululani
Heavenly Inspiration and Growth, Raised to Prominence, A Royal Collection
Featured Selections of Immediate Interest and Import

The high-chiefess Ululani was then staying at Hilo at a place now called Pi‘opi‘o, a place of residence of chiefs from ancient times…When Ululani heard of the arrival of the young chief she emerged from her house and when she saw him ascending, she wailed a chant of remembrance and hospitality, beckoning with her hands to Kamehameha:
Auwē, he mai ho‘i, Auwē,
‘O ‘oe kā ia e Kalaninuimehameha ē
E hea aku ana i ka ‘iwa kïlou moku lā…
[Stephen L. Desha, Kamehameha and His Warrior Kekühaupi‘o, 76-77.]

According to Stephen L. Desha, Kamehameha visited Hilo in about 1780 for the purposes of lifting the Naha Stone and forging an alliance with Keaweokahikona, the son of Keawema‘uhili and Ululani. As described above, Ululani greets Kamehameha with “‘O ‘Oe Ia e Kalaninuimehameha,” the still-remembered oli komo in which the visiting Kamehameha is given the epithet Ka‘iwakīloumoku and offered the hospitality of “a people who love their ali‘i.” Ululani’s epithet for Kamehameha now serves as the name of our Cultural Center and kahua pūnaewele. We further acknowledge our ties to Ululani by giving her name to the opening section of this website – to the section that welcomes you, our chiefly visitors, with a selection of the best and most current of the features we house.

Of the many possible interpretations of the name Ululani, three strike us as especially pertinent to our present effort. Ululani can mean “heavenly inspiration and growth”; it can mean “raised to prominence”; and it can mean “a royal assemblage or collection.” We aim, in this section named Ululani, to raise to prominence a collection of items worthy of chiefly attention, items that will engender inspiration and growth. As the chiefess Ululani offered the hospitality of light, loyalty, refreshment, and spiritual sustenance to Kamehameha, so do we offer our Ululani to you.

‘A‘ahoaka
One Who Keeps Watch
Feature Stories

No ‘A‘ahoaka / ‘O ua wahine Ko‘olau lāā / E kia‘i nei i Malamaiki ,
I ka luna o ‘A‘ahoaka / I ke po‘o o Wai‘ale‘ale
Ua ho‘‘oh_h_ m_lie Puna

For ‘A‘ahoaka / That Ko‘olau woman / Who watches over Mālamaiki
Over the heights of ‘A‘ahoaka / And the summit of Wai‘ale‘ale
That brings clear weather to Puna

Lines 19-22 of “Hikikau‘elia ka Malama,” Kekūhaupi‘o’s prophetic mele for Kamehameha I, describe the activity of ‘A‘ahoaka, the guardian woman of the Ko‘olau districts of Kaua‘i who keeps watch over Mālamalamaiki Peak, over the ‘A‘ahoaka kīpuka that bears her name, and over the summit of Wai‘ale‘ale itself. As a result of this vigilance, her frequently rainy homeland enjoys the benefits – Ko‘olau weather or not – of unhampered vision and understanding.

We give the name ‘A‘ahoaka to the home of the bi-monthly feature stories written by our website editor and staff as a means of informing our readers about people and events of Hawaiian interest, stories that are usually given short shrift (or none at all) by the established media; stories that are, nevertheless, important to our understanding of all that contributes to and challenges our identity as members of a vibrant Hawaiian society. Through the eyes of ‘A‘ahoaka, we ho‘ohāhā mālie (touch gently but firmly) on that which passes across the landscape before us, on that which enters our plane of view, on that which constitutes the nūhou of our day.

Makali‘i, Kā‘elo, Nana
Finely-Woven, Saturated, and Life-Bringing
A Compendium of This-and-That, All Worthy of Interest and Attention

The opening lines of “Hikikau‘elia ka Malama,” Kekūhaupi‘o’s prophetic mele for Kamehameha I, provide a catalog of stars and months – Hikikau‘elia (possibly the star Sirius, the summer month also known as Ikiiki), Makali‘i (the Pleiades; the six summer months collectively), Kā‘elo (possibly the star Betelgeuse; a wet month associated with the fattening of plovers), and Nana (Nana Mua and Hope, Castor and Pollux, twin stars of the Pleiades; possibly the rainy month also known as ‘E‘elekū) – whose presence in the darkness that precedes dawn quietly signals the coming of Ka‘iwakīloumoku, the uniter-of-islands, as he soars into a new day.

Kekūhaupi‘o’s catalog of names suggests to us a garnering, in Makali‘i’s fine-meshed net, of kēlā mea kēia mea, of a seeming miscellany of this-and-that whose value we often overlook and whose place in a larger pattern of meaning we often fail to consider. Makali‘i, Kā‘elo, Nana, then, is the name we give to our online abstracts of rising stars, hot stuff, rain squalls, and fat kōlea – all interesting in themselves and all perhaps heralds of a dawn yet to come.

Ka Ua Hā‘ao
The Hā‘ao Rain
A Calendar of Hawaiian Cultural Events

The Hā‘ao rains of Wai‘ōhinu, Hawai‘i, and Nu‘uanu, O‘ahu, are known to fall in sequence, one shower after another, like the divisions of a chiefly procession to which the word hā‘ao also refers. We give the name Ka Ua Hā'ao to the home of our Hawaiian cultural events calendar – to events that follow in succession, one after the next, in cultural procession.

For the time being, Ka Ua Hā‘ao will serve as an online calendar for events sponsored by the Hawaiian Cultural Center Project. Beginning in 2004, however, Ka Ua Hā‘ao will dedicate itself to providing an accurate, comprehensive listing of Hawaiian cultural events worldwide and will be open to anyone who wishes to post an event that meets our criteria of cultural appropriateness – in brief: that which promotes the examination, understanding, and celebration of our Hawaiian identity.

‘O Ka Ho‘ā Kēia
This is the Lighting of Torches
Burning Issues for Hawaiian of Today

‘A‘ole i wehewehena, ‘a‘ole i waihona kona pō / ‘O ka ho‘ā kēīā ē
Dawn has not yet begun to break, night has not departed / Torches still burn

“Darkness,” says the Hilo chiefess Ululani in her welcoming chant to Kamehameha, “has yet to be undone; it has not been put away.” Although her reference is most obviously to the turning of pō and ao, of night and day, it requires little interpretive effort to see her language as expressive of na‘aupō and na‘auao, of ignorance and enlightenment. To offset the darkness of night, Ululani sets her torches to blazing and thereby defines a pu‘uhonua in which examination and understanding can prevail.

We give the name ‘O Ka Ho‘ā Kēia to our presentation of issues that impact Hawaiians today – issues of burning importance, issues that require illumination, study, and understanding. We will not presume to think for you, nor will we advocate any particular position. Our purpose here is to present, in a single well-lighted place, a variety of Hawaiian points of view with regard to several carefully selected issues. We intend to collect and illuminate; we hope that you, in turn, will examine, unravel, and arrive at an informed opinion. Penei kākou e ho‘ā pū ai i ka lama kū o ka no‘eau; thus will we light together the standing torch of wisdom.

Kaleinamanu
The Leaping Place of Birds
A Showcase for Hawaiian Literature, Analysis, and Opinion

Akāka le‘a ka leina a ka manu / He ‘iwa kīlou moku ka lani
Clearly visible is the leaping place of the bird / The royal one is an ‘iwa who hooks the islands together

The warrior Kekūhaupi‘o was as accomplished a wielder of metaphors as he was of spears. "Ka leina a ka manu" is his trope for the world in which Kamehameha Pai‘ea was to test himself, soar, and ultimately prevail. The master warrior’s prophetic chant “Hikikau‘elia ka Malama” describes his student, the young Kamehameha, as a cliff-leaping, island-hooking ‘iwa whose character and future were akāka le‘a, readily apparent, to those involved in bringing him to manhood.

We give the Kekūhaupi‘o-inspired name Kaleinamanu to the metaphorical cliff face from which we leap to test our wings of thought. This is a place for emulating ‘iwa. Here we accept the risks of sharing our creativity and exercising our intellect. Here we dare to soar, see, and connect.

Kaleinamanu is the home of E Kū i ka Hoe Uli, an online literary journal devoted to the publication of new Hawaiian writing. It is also the home of Ka Lale o Kaiona, a forum committed to the intelligent discussion of mele Hawai‘i and to a renewed understanding of the words to which our kūpuna gave sweet voice.

Pōnahakeone
A Sandy Circle, a Spring-Fed Pool
A Repository of Memory and Knowledge

‘Au‘au i ke ki‘owai kapu o Pōnahakeone
Bathe in the sacred pool of Pōnahakeone

As a common noun, pōnahakeone refers to the circle of sand surrounding a spring-fed pool. As a place name, it identifies specific fresh-water bathing pools in Hilo and Hōnaunau – kapu places reserved for the ablutions of the highest ali‘i of those districts. It is to Hilo's Pōnahakeone that the chiefess Ululani first invites Kamehameha: "Welcome," she says, "to the home of a people who love their chief / Bathe in the sacred pool of Pōnahakeone / And drink the ‘awa planted by Kāne in Hawai‘i." Mary Kawena Pūku‘i tells us that the location of this pool is lost to us, "probably because many such small springs and sea pools on major islands have been filled with town refuse, plantation trash, and other waste materials" (Echo of Our Song, 11). So, too, with the Pōnahakeone of Hōnaunau.

We give the name Pōnahakeone to the virtual, spring-fed pool that serves as our website’s repository of memory and knowledge, of treasures that refresh and sustain us, of that which must not be surrendered to the detritus of western progress. Pōnahakeone is the home of Ola Nā Iwi, our registry of kūpuna biographies, and Ka Lālā Ola, our video archive of programs sponsored by the HCCP Cultural Events Series, the Mele Hawai‘i Institute, and the Kamehameha Schools’ Office of Special Events.

About Our Makaloa Mat

Careful observers of Ka‘iwakīloumoku will identify the design element that runs along the upper border of every page as belonging to a moena makaloa, to a finely plaited mat of makaloa sedge. These soft, extraordinarily beautiful mats were made almost exclusively by the people of Ni‘ihau and represent a high point in the Hawaiian plaiting tradition, the techniques of which – until recent efforts initiated by master weaver Elizabeth Malu‘ihi Lee – have been lost to us for more than a century.

The moena to which our border of makaloa belongs is probably over 200 years old and holds special significance to us because it was owned by Kamehameha I – Ka‘iwakīloumoku himself. His moena is housed in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and was made available to our photographer, Michael Young, through the kōkua ‘olu‘olu a lokomaika‘i of collections’ manager Betty Lou Kam and her technicians Marques Marzan and Ann Iwashita.

Marzan, who is gaining recognition as one of the foremost young weavers of our day, notes that Kamehameha’s mat has a stem-per-inch count of about 40 – remarkably fine, even by makaloa mat standards. Marzan also notes that the consistent weave of the rectangular mat (the “short,” right edge that we were allowed to unroll and photograph is perhaps 10 feet long) suggests that it was made by a single person. Marzan refuses, however, to offer even a ball-park estimate of the hours that went into the mat’s creation; he simply rolls his eyes, holds his forehead, and staggers backward a step or two. Even on its long metal shelf in the stark corridors of the Museum, even after 200 years, the mat is possessed of an unmistakable voice that speaks of patience, love, and iron will.

Kamehameha’s mat is undecorated; it does not incorporate the geometric pāwehe motifs that are often characteristic of the upper surface of the moena makaloa. This, we humbly submit, is our website’s purpose: to place upon Kamehameha’s treasured mat our best designs, our most carefully chosen words, our ho‘okupu of memory and hope. The mat’s right edge appears at the top of every page to remind us of the foundation on which our efforts rest. It speaks, ever so eloquently, of the ethos by which long-lived treasures are made.