james and i cut the grass at the burial mound today. we invited robert (more about him later) to meet us at the palace to offer his oli to the kupuna still in the mound. he helped us cut the grass--very helpful! certainly the place looked and felt much better when we were pau.
after that we went to ranch 99 for lunch and met ruth hsu there. good talking. we decided all three of us (james, robert, me) would be guests on ruth's 'tuff talk' show. her topic: what does it mean to be a hawaiian today? it was an hour show. the time flew by, literally, as we were so engaged in the discussion. one of the issues we touched on was what it means to take responsibility for the well being of the family, the group, the lahui. i was moved by some of the things that both james and robert shared. i think we actually out-talked ruth, effectively using up all the time!
just a bit about robert (see photo above)--he saw james and me talking on one of the half hour shows on hawaiian spirituality. my number is listed in the end credits, and he called me last tuesday and shared his story on the phone. robert's mother was a cousin of kawena pukui. robert shared an incident that happened to him when he was a student in kau. his teacher found out that he was related to mrs. pukui and suggested he write his genealogy. so he decided to meet her and went with his sister to her house on oahu. when he and his sister arrived, there was another person there, an 81 year old man named william meinecke. mr. meinecke shared that he had just flown in from kau because he had been having these recurring dreams about coming to oahu to visit with mrs. pukui. in his dream, he was given information and an oli to be given to "the boy". he had no idea who "the boy" was, but got on the plane and came over anyway. in the dream he was given one part of an oli. mrs. pukui was supposed to have the other part. and together they would provide to "the boy" the two parts of the oli.
so robert and his sister, armed with tape recorder, sat with the two kupuna and taped the discussion, including the two parts of the oli. they sat for several hours. robert taped the whole talk. a week or two later, robert mailed the tapes to pahala, to the school, and asked that a transcript of the tapes be made for him. then he forgot about it. some time later, he called again to check on the progress of the transcription and found out that pahala school had burned down. the woman who answered the phone said that the tapes had been lost. this was in 1974. so for the last 34 years, he hadn't thought about it at all. last week he called the school again and asked, this time, about his former teacher. he was told that she had retired, but was living in the area. so he called the operator and got her number and called her. he introduced himself. during the talk, he asked if she remembered about the tapes. she said yes, and that she had the tapes! she had been holding them for him all this time, even though others had inquired. she did not pass them on to anyone. they will soon be in his possession again.
robert went on to share that ever since he met the two kupuna and was given the oli, his life has changed. i guess you could say he has regular visitations. when he came to the burial mound today, he offered his oli to the kupuna there, in asking permission to enter. it was his hookupu.
i'm not really sure what any of this stuff means, but i'm certain it means something. it's too soon to tell. but our talk on ruth's show touched on some aspects related to this story. it has to do with cumulative impacts--actions/activities that have to occur before the next thing can occur. if you believe there are no accidents, then everything that happens happens for a reason. and the next thing can't happen until the first thing happens (if you get my reasoning). everything happens in order.
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