Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 1987 — Inmate Touched by Reading Ku Kanaka [ARTICLE]

Inmate Touched by Reading Ku Kanaka

"I just got through reading George Kanahele's recently released Ku Kanaka: Stand Tall, A Search for Hauuaiian Values and found it stimulating, rewarding and very inspirational. Its an important work that needs to be readby all Hawaiians and Hawaiians'at heart, if not to revitalize an altogether lost pride in our culture and our past, then to enhanee the one we already individually possess." So writes Hawaiian inmate Kaleihau Kamau'u of Halawa High Security in a letter to Ka Wai Ola O OHA. "Ku Kanaka has touched me in more ways than one and has offered me a whole new outlook, not only of my kupuna but a!so of myself. It is pretty eommon knowledge that the Hawaiians of old were pretty in tune with nature but very seldom do we hear or read how very technologically, scientifically and economically inclined they actuaily were. Mr. Kanahele, in his magnum opus, does this beautifully. He erases the prevailing misconception of our past with world wide information and documentation, leaving in its plaee how the people of old really were. Then he goes on to convey that these same qualities that they exhibited ean be equally applied successfully today to gain the things or make the changes that we desire. Kamau'u, who is studying Hawaiian language through correspondence with Department of Education Hawaiian Studies Specialist Robert Lokomaika'iokalani Snakenberg, goes on to say that "of course, this is just a small portion of its whole. I don't think it is possible to fully express my true mana'o in words here. The chapter on leadership and destiny was excellent. The agenda included demands, to say the least, consideration. Mr. Kanahele has truly done a beautiful job. Congratulations are in order."