Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 7, 1 Iulai 1990 — Kau wela o ke kau: The season of the summer solstice [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kau wela o ke kau: The season of the summer solstice

llakakii

oy Rocky Ka'iouliokahihikolo 'Ehu Jensen ©

We are very aware of the Makahiki, the season of the winter solstice, perhaps because our year carries the same name. Unfortunately, the summer solstice did not fare as well. The season ruled by Kunuiakea has been almost obliterated from our conscious memory. Recently, I have found that there isa movement afoot frighteningly assuming the dimensions of a full-blown cult. The Lono Cult to be exact. I don't know, maybe to some he is the perfect substitute for Christ, but in that case, it would be an aberration of our true ancient beliefs.

Our akua were venerated, eaeh in their own space, time and day. Lono was winter and Ku was summer and within Ho'ilo and Kau we venerated the gods Kanaloa and Kane and the myriad 'aumakua. Never one without the other! On July 19, we are presenting our first summer solstice exhibit. The sponsor is the Maui Pnnee Hotel and the presentation will be for six weeks. One might ask, what happened during the summer solstice?

The winter solstice, heralded by the rising of the Fleiades, was a very physical celebration. We repaired our major highways, our houses, our tools and utensils, we gathered for the tax and participated in all joyful rituals dealing with the Makahiki celebration, reveling in "new life" and since it eame at the end of the harvest, we waited for that new life to take root as we waited for the rain to cease and the storms to blow away.

The rituals of the summer solstice were more metaphysical. This time it was the heiau that were repaired, the 'aumakua were refurbished to receive the spirit of the kupuna and the statues of the temples were replaced with freshly carved ones. This season was a very busy one for the kahuna haku 'ohi'a, kahuna kalai ki'i and the kalai ki'i throughout the island state. This was the season of the awesome 'ahaka'i ritual, whieh culminated with the magnificent procession called puku'i o ke akua, whieh gave birth to the misinterpreted "procession of the spirits" called huaka'i po. Somewhere in our ancient past, time was measured, the seasons divided and the days num-

bered and named. Eaeh civilization had its particular way of commemorating these awesome e vents. Monuments still exist that reveal to us that the solstices and the equinoxes were the governing motivators of those ancient societies: Stonehenge in English, the Hitching Post of the Sun at Maeehu Pieehu, Haleakala on Maui, the stones of Kumukahi on the Big Island, and so many other sites throughout the world. The universe movesin a rhythm that was primary to us. that rhythm was acknowledged and understood and melded with the beat of our hearts.

This year, kau wela summer starts on June 21st. We no ionger repair our heiau; it seems that they are hushed forever. We no longer create our akua ki'i; we hope that art is not hushed forever. We no longer refurbish the god images, barely giving credence to their existence. The paltry few that have survived, the many years since they made, go unclothed and unfed. The statues of our Kunuiakea are used as decoration, gracing the fronts of shops, hotels, mugs, ashtrays, liquor bottles, etc.; the philosophy behind his existence misunderstood, his imagery ridiculed.

Although it is the time of the "coming of ancestors," we truly have no plaee to greet them. The 'ahaka'i, that powerful prayer of creative visualization is a thing of the past.

Being that we commemorate in part, the Makahiki or "Makahi O Ke Kau," we should do likewise for Kau Wela, if only in spirit. Let us repair the heiau in our hearts, perhaps dust off the imagery of our 'aumakua and create our own 'ahaka'i visualizing a new future for our people. And, if you should visit the Bishop Museum, take a longer look at Ku, one of only three surviving in the whole world, for that Ku is displayed in proper lighting and deserves our respect and understandinq.

I would like to extend an invitation to all of you who will be on the island of Maui on July 26 to Sept. 1. You are invited to attend the exhibit of Kau Wela O Ke Kau at the Maui Pnnee Hotel. This, 1 hope, will set the precedent for similarcelebrations. Mai ka po mai 'oia'i'o — truth sometimes appears as a very infinitesimal light at the end of our tunnel; never actually disappearing, somehow always there. We must bring it forward!