Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 3, 1 March 1987 — Maps are Valuable Cultural Source [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Maps are Valuable Cultural Source

By Muriel B. Seto, Executive Director Hawaii's Thousand Friends Languishing in musty files in government offices, museums and other archives are aging documents having unusual significance for native Hawaiians. Not often perceived as Hawaiian cultural documents, these old maps nonetheless hold a wealth of cultural information. Funded by a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) to Hawaii's Thousand Friends, native Hawaiian Ethel Kilaulani Ooplan has undertaken the task to catalogue these maps in a computerized database intended for public use. Ethel, as president of the Mokauea Fisherman's Association, learned in the 70s how important old maps ean be toward resolving land use dilemmas such as the one experienced by Mokauea residents. More recently she has co-authored an initial bibliographic inventory database (with Susan E. Miller), of Hawaiian cultural sites on the island of O'ahu on behalf of Alu Like, funded with a federal Library Services grant. In the process, it became apparent that resources other than standard literary publications also qualify as "primary" cultural resource documents.

If one wants to eheek the first spelling used by westerners for a Hawaiian site, or its location within an ahupua'a, an old map may prove to be a good resource. Also, if not documented on a map, a site's location may be identified through pictorial materials rendered by early artists or photographers. Sites of cultural interest to modern Hawaiians include fishponds, petroglyphs, quarries, saltworks, trails, heiau, pu'uhonua, etc. Interestingly, sites also include natural resources extolled in Hawaiian cultural traditions, such as waterfalls, certain landforms eommemorating ancient heroes (Olomana in Windward O'ahu comes to mind), certain areas containing plant species identified with culturally significant individuals (i.e., Pele's forests of lehua on the slopes of Mauna Loa or Kekela's hala groves at Lanihuli), et al. Indeed, some land divisions even now are known by the names of those to whom they are kapu. Due to the numbers of documents to be analyzed, Ethel will initially concentrate on O'ahu sites, with Hawai'i to follow, time permitting. On eomplehon of the project, printed copies of the database inventory will be available to native Hawaiians through OHA, the main Public Library, and at Hawaii's Thousand Friends.

Ethel Kilaulani Coplan, researcher at Hawaii's Thousand Friends, busy at computer in compiIing her map database— Bill Seto photo.