Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 1987 — Lyman: Hawaiians Should Write Own History [ARTICLE]

Lyman: Hawaiians Should Write Own History

Also Cites Some Pet Peeves

"This is the Year of the Hawaiian. 1 feel the mana in the air around me. I see and feel omens that I cannot explain. Forty-four years ago I knew a Captain Hipa who was a skipper on a small interisland boat that travelled between Molokai and Oahu. I tried to find out from him how he became a skipper and what did he have to leam to be a captain. His answer to me: 'I use four's.'I had no idea what he meant at that time. As I dream I ask myself was he saying something? 1758, comet; 1834, comet; 1910, comet; 1986, comet (fourth time since Kokoiki). What do you think?" This was the way that Richard Lyman, chairman of the Bishop Estate Board of Trustees, opened his brief address as keynote speaker at the 27th annual convention of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs in November on Kauai. Departing from a prepared address, Lyman then extemporaneously went into "some things I do not like." These rank among his pet peeves: • Those who use Kam for Kamehameha. "We have The Kamehameha Schools, not Kam Schools; and we have King Kamehameha not King Kam. Its Kamehameha Highway not Kam Highway." • People who say manapua instead of meaonopuaa. • People who insist on calling the island of Hawaii the Big Island. "I eome from Hawaii, not the Big Island." (Indeed Lyman originaIly hails from the Puna district of Hawaii). • Greeters who say Aloooha instead of Aloha. • Those who mispronounce the names of the other islands and some commonly used Hawaiian words and terms. Referring back to his prepared address, Lyman explained that unless you are a Hawaiian or a person who has lived and worked with Hawaiians and has inherited the empathy of the Hawaiian people, "you will never understand what it means to be Hawaiian." "I believe that in this year — the Year of the Hawai-

ian — we should take a good look at Hawaiian history through the eyes of the Hawaiian and not the eyes and ears of the kolea who most naturally will aggrandize his own ancestral connections." Lyman observed. "If we as representatives of Hawaiian culture do not do it now, it perhaps may never b'e done," he warned. "Let us make the Year of the Hawaiian as the year we will remember not as a renaissance but the rebirth of Hawaiian as a 'hana hoū' Hawaii; start talking and doing something that will make all Hawaiians proud to be Hawaiian and not a statistic on a chart; and practice by example the good things of Hawaii that ean be summarized in one word — Aloha — here, there and around the world. Let's do something about it!"Lyman eontinued. The Bishop Estate Trustee continued: "I am not a historian but I do not believe that the aboriginal people of Hawaii have been credited for things that they have done and history proves that we have never really searched for facts and that is one of the reasons that the Hawaiian people have never been given credit for what they have done or for what they knew. The histroy of Hawaii has never been written by Hawaiians. It has always ended up as an accomplishment of the visitor who has generally ignored certain 'statements and legends' of the early aboriginal who recalled their history orally and not in writing and when writings were made they were too often ignored. The first chronological table was perhaps written by Abraham Fornanderjustabout 100yearsagoin 1887. In his table he uses geneological records that date back 1,000 years. Interspersed are other records of events that happened during those periods. Now is the time to start talking about the progress made by Hawaiians in their 208 years of existence in the eyes of the western world and that is by writing the history of the Hawaiian people by the Hawaiians themselves."