Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 6, 1 June 1989 — Makaku [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Makaku

By Rocky Ka'iouliokahihikolo 'Ehu Jensen ©

The Real Ku

Do you know what is frustrating in dealing with scientific matters versus the cultural? Scientific thought is peppered with "perhapses," "I assumes," and "maybes . . unless the data is clearly written in stone . . . in whieh case, the stone is questioned. I guess there is a valid reason for all of this. We can't have anthropology "crack-pots" deducing a given culture by feeling and opinion alone. Heaven only knows where we'd be. It gripes me when something is known and still the academia scoffs at the knowledge. Anyone who has delved into Hawai'i kahiko in any form ean testify to have had, at least onee, confronted such an issue — be it with the Bishop Museum, the University, or those thousands of Hawaiian experts who site on secret committees condemning or accepting someone's work — incognito. A few years ago, when Hawaiian Hall was being refurbished at the Museum . . . the resident sculptor had to re-do Waha'ula heiau. He was in the process of creating the kukalepa — that divine semi-circle denoting the many mystical factions of our elemental ancestor Ku. When I eame in one day to work on the installment of the "Hawai'i: The Royal Isles" exhibit, I saw that he had carved 11 statues from all islands, from all sculpting eras. I asked, "Who told you to carve those designs?" The artist answered, "Well, they told me to go look in the book and piek the designs that I liked." Auwe! I, of course, went in to see them and explained that eaeh island had its own style of carving and that you could not put a Big Island Ku with a Kaua'i Ku on a heiau whieh is situated on the Big Island. It just never happened in the past. Can you guess what their next question was? "How do you know whieh one is Ku, and how ean you tell whieh island the statues eome from?"

Yes, yes, yes. I guess, unless there is a pieee of paper attached to the artifacts, the knowledge of them will be iffy to them. I explained to them our knowledge of symbolism. 1 really don't know if anyone was listening. But, if you go into Bishop Museum's Hawaiian Hall...you will see 11 Ku statues carved in the basic Big Island design . . . on that miniature temple. And — another eoup — I convinced them to do away with those awful

ehieken bones depicting "human sacrifices." Chicken bones, indeed! Now if only the docents could stop talking about the human sacrifices, perhaps we ean again get people culturally on the right track. Have you heard those stories lately? Another auwe! It seems to me that either too mueh or nothing at all is said and done. For instance, because the loeal museums have no understanding of our ancient symbolism they either put anything on — a prime example is Hale O Keawe at the Pu'uhonua at Honaunau — or nothing at all. In the rebuilding of many of the small heiau around the state, Ku'ilioloa, Pihana, Pu'u Kohola, and so on. If you should visit the new Maritime Museum you will see Keaiwa heiau in miniature without anything to explain its particular magic. Of course, the archaeologists will tell you that in order to maintain the site's integrity, they must leave it the way they found it. Just stabilizing the plaee is their main duty. Another auwe! It's like there's a big gap in our cultural memory . . . as if we were taken away suddenly in 1819 and plopped down again in 1989. Very little we say about our own culture is trusted! Why do we tolerate this partial display of our culture? Why are we so eomplacent towards others handling our history and our symbolism? Do you know what my dream is? To see a major heiau re-established in all of its former glory...like the Temple of the Sun in Mexico City or the countless other sites in South America. I mean fully restored, with statues, hale and pennants flying. Can you imagine the beauty . . . ean you imagine the power? Ah, there is the rub! Power! Perhaps, after almost 200 years the fear is still there. Mai ka po mai ka 'o'ia'i'o! Before we created the world . . . we were!

"Pohaku O Kane" by Frank Jensen/Shadow Graphs