Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 4, 1 April 1990 — He Mau Ninau Ola [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

He Mau Ninau Ola

* -.v " by Kekuni BIaisdell, M.D.

Ka ho'ona'auao le'a i ka wa kahiko: Mokuna 'Elua (Sex education in old Hawai'i: Part II)

Ninau. My 15-year-old mo'opuna must leave school because she is hāpai (pregnant). Young people these days know so little about sex and taking care of themselves. Yet, I remember my tutu told me that

Ka ahumanu was only 13 when she was given to Kamehameha as a wife and at that time most girls began having babies at that age. How did 'opio leam about sex in those days? Pane. 1 kēlā mahina aku nei, we learned how nā 'ōpio i ka wā kahiko passively absorbed ho'ona'auao le'a by merely observing what was a highly sexual cosmos. They heard from mele and the chatting of elders that their cosmos began and continued forever withthe ho'oipoipo (mating) of Wākea, our sky father, with Papa, our earth mother, from whieh everything in the cosmos arose as living, conscious, communicating and reproducing beings. Everything included what Westerners eall inanimate such as the wind, clouds, sun, oeean, rain, streams, rocks, birds and trees. Tutu Kawena Pukui wrote that childish curiosity about sex was satisfied with neither guilt nor shame instilled. Boys entered the hale mua, restricted to males, at about age six. There they donned malo about their ma'i (genitalia) and leamed male roles including sex expectations, from older boys and men. They also learned special pule (prayers) and mōhai (offerings) to their 'aumākua and tasks, such as kanu kalo (taro cultivation), lawai'a (fishing) and ho'omo'a (preparing meals) for all of the 'ohana. When did the kama (boy) first have ai (coitus)? According to the 'ōlelo no'eau (saying): "Nui e mo'a 'ai ka pulehu" when old enough to broil food. Similarly, the kamahine (girl) learned of sex expectations just as she learned other daily tasks from kua'ana (older girls), mākuahine (mother and aunts) and kūpuna wahine (grandmothers). Kokopuna (spring blood, menarche, the onset of menses) was the signal that she was ready to mate and be a mother. This is when she first retreated to the hale pe'a, the special hale for menstruating women, a house of isolation lest they defile or contaminate others with their flowing koko (b!ood). Thus, at the young, but usual age of 13, did Ka'ahumanu become the mate of Kamehameha who was about age 27 at that time. The great warrior was said to have had his first practical instruction in ai at the age of 14. His teacher and mate in this experience was the high ehiefess Kanekapolei, eompanion of Kamehameha's unele, Kalaniōpu'u, ruling chief of moku Hawai'i. From this union of the young chief Kamehameha and the older Kanekapolei, then about age 35, was born Pauli Ka'ōleiokū, whom Kamehameha later identified as the "son of my beardless youth." And it is from this statement that Pauahi, founder of the Kamehameha Schools, claimed herself to be the great grand-daughter of the conqueror. The term le'a expresses the pleasure of sexuality whieh is free of guilt. A related word is huahua'i whieh refers to the climax of orgasm. Tutu Kawena explains the litera! meaning of huahua'i as "to gush forth ," but also connoting hua as the woman's ovum and the man's sperm. Huahua'i recalls the onee popular, but mistranslated "Hawaiian War Chant" of the bygone Hollywood movie era of the 1930s. This non-war romantic ballad was composed by Leleiōhōkū, talented younger brother of King Kalākaua and Queen Lili'uokalani:

Kaua i ka huahua'i E 'uhene la'i pili ko'olua Pukuku'i aku i ke ko'eko'e Anu Iipo o ka palai. You and I gush forth Laughing close two and two Hugging in the eool Dark cold of the palai fern. For the ali'i mating carried the obligation of breeding to produce offspring of high rank, and therefore great mana. Thus brother-sister mating, i.e., incest, was promoted. A notable example was that of Kamehameha's children, Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and his half-sister-wife Kamāmalu, both of whom died of measles in London in 1824. Tutu Kawena also cites mythical sky father Wākea who mated with his daughter Ho'ohōkūlani, who gave birth first to Hāloa I, the taro plant, and then to Hāloa II, the first kanaka maoli, ancestor of all Hawaiians. Also notable was the supreme state akua Kū, who mated with his sister Hina. This is the same Kū whom Samue! Kamakau described as taking the kinolau (many-bodied) form of kumu lā'au niu (the coconut tree): "His head was buried in the ground and his ule (penis) and hua (testes) above." This powerful metaphor survives today in the delightful mele by Bina Mossman titled "Niu Haohao" (Young Coconuts): Nā wai, nā wai nō 'oe a'e pakele aku I ka wai, i ka wai o ka niu 0 ka niu haohao He ma'ū, ma'ū, ma'ū 1 ka pu'u ke moni Kaomi, kaomi malie a'e i ke kileo E pakika, e pahe'e

E pakika i kahi wai o ka 'āina nui. Who, who will save you? The water, the water of the coconut, of the young coconut. Wet, wet, wet the throat and swallow Press, press, gently past the uvula Slither, slide Slide liquor from the big land. The song tells of the enjoyable swallowingof the slippery haohao of Ku's testes. Akā, heaha ka 'āina nui (but what is the "big land"?)

Fig. 1. Ho'oipoipo (love-making) by honi (nose-pressing). Honi is a pre-Western Polynesian way of greeting and exchanging ha (life-breath). It persists as a formal ritual in Aotearoa (New Zealand), but has been lost in Hawai'i where it should be revived (Drawing by Herb Kawainui Kane).