Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 1993 — Pat Bacon: Family is the root of culture [ARTICLE]

Pat Bacon: Family is the root of culture

Patience Namaka Bacon reflects on the traditions she leamed from her mother, Mary Kawena Pukui, and their roots in Puna and Ka'ū: "We knew what we knew. We didn't take from others because it didn't belong to us. We kept within family traditions and values." A longtime employee of Bishop Museum, and a known hula authority and frequent eompetition judge, Bacon is working on a project to index old Hawaiian manuscripts. These are full of beautiful, though very archaic language and poetical references, she says. She sees young Hawaiians trying to do things traditionally, but because they may not have been raised in traditional culture,

"Modern things do creep in." How ean families practice Hawaiian culture today? Bacon responds, "They must want to. You just get down and do it. The desire must eome from within." A good plaee to gain knowledge is by asking one's kūpuna, she says. "They're happy when younger members want to ask them." When asked whether customs and religious practices that some Hawaiians are reviving today are culturally correct, Bacon replies diplomatically that different communities did different things. "Pre-contact tradition was probably basically the same, but separate areas would do things differently. In our family we did not practice any special ceremony."

To her family, religion was not something to be done haphazardly, or in passing. "If this is something you're practicing, it's something you do constantly, such as feeding the spirits. ... If you practice you must be careful." She remembers the warning in her family that if one made a mistake, there would be repercussions. "Leave it alone," the elders said. Today, Bacon sees her Hawaiian identity as based on the knowledge learned as a child. She was taught to be humble and to be satisfied with what you have. "If you're grounded, you will cling to the values you learned as a youngster," she says.