Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 3, 1 Malaki 2015 — Instilling a sense of place [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Instilling a sense of place

By Lisa Asato Author John Clark's latest book, North Shore Plaee Names: Kahuku to Ka'ena, begins on a bittersweet note. Under the

heading A'ākalā is a brief entry that is simultaneously a birth and death announcement: "Sept. 20, ma Aakala. Waialua, Oahu, hanau o kamaliikane, na Kahoiwai me L. Kaiaikawaha, a mahope make. "On Sept. 20 in 'A'ākala, Waialua, O'ahu, Kamali'ikāne was born to Kaho'iwai and L. Kai'aikawaha, and after-

ward died." The author's ninth book follows a trajectory started with his previous book, Hawaiian Surfing: Traditions from the Past, in that he relied solely on information he culled from the Hawaiian language newspapers, whieh ran from 1834 to 1948. A surfer for 60 years who wrote a series of books on oceans statewide, Clark had a solid enough knowledge of plaee names

on the North Shore to begin his research. Using the online newspaper resource through OHA's Papakilo Database, he punched in plaee names and was rewarded with birth announcements, obituaries, legal notices and letters to the editor datinu to the

1800s, and all previously untranslated. His favorite type of hit? The kanikau, or dirges and poetic chants, whieh lamented the passing of a loved one, often in the form of a journey through areas special to them. "The kanikau really speak to me and I think it's because there's so mueh information in them," said Clark, an editor for The

Hcrwaiian Journal of History. "They're almost like Hawaiian poetry and they're just replete with genealogical information and plaee name information. And it's not stuff that you would find in ordinary newspaper articles. The kanikau are different; they're being written by members of a family of someone who's passed away so they're very intimate. They're XI PLAGE NAMES ON PAGE 21

Book signing John Clark will discuss his book North Shore Plaee Names: Kahuku toKa'ena at a freetalk on Thursday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at Hale 'Ūhi'a (cafeteria) at Kapi'olani Community College. Books will be available for purchase.

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North Shore Plaee Names: Kahuku to Ka'ena By John R.K. Clark Translations by Keao NeSmith lllustrated. 308 pages. University of Hawai'i Press. $25.

Author John R.K. Clark. - Courtesy photo

PLACE NAME3 Continued from page 16 talking about very specific places that were important to the family and important to the person. ... The bits of information you get out of the kanikau you never find them anywhere else." Clark's book showcases the history and culture of Hawai'i through peoples' everyday activities, especially before the plantation era, whieh changed the landscape of the islands dramatically, including physically. Kahuku, for one, was "pandanus forest from mauka

to makai," he says, until they were cleared for sugar cultivation. "All of that disappeared when sugar eane was introduced on the North Shore," Clark said, adding, "in the 1800s, preplantation, there are all these references to the hala in Kahuku, it's amazing. So that's one thing I documented in the book." Some of Clark's findings also hit close to home. Entries under Lauhulu, in Waialua, feature multiple listings relating to a government property manager named William Carey Lane, an Irish sea captain who settled in the islands and in 1854 married a Hawaiian woman, Kūkeakalani Kaho'o'ilimoku. The

eouple moved to Lauhulu two years later, and Lane's experiences - from a condolence letter he signed to Queen Emma Lani on the death of her husband, Kamehameha IV, to a notice of stray animals such as "1 male mule with a W branded on the left foreleg" on government property - were recorded in newspapers. The texts were signed "W.C. Lane," a known ancestor of Clark's. (The author learned of Lane's ties to Lauhulu through researching this book.) Lane and his wife had 12 children, including a daughter who would go on to marry a Clark. More than a century later, Clark,

the author, found that marriage announcement, by accident, while searching the newspaper archive. "I was amazed and I was really pleased to find it," he said. "I couldn't believe it. I was looking at my great-grandmother's wedding announcement." OHA's online Papakilo Database proved to be an invaluable research tool, Clark says, and is now providing the source of his next book, on plaee names of Kalaupapa, the former leprosy settlement on Moloka'i. Clark says he would like everyone to see the value of Papakilo Database, established and main-

tained by OHA, whieh he calls "a huge repository of cultural knowledge." The only drawback at this point "is you have to be able to translate Hawaiian to make use of it," he says, "but other than that, it's just a wonderful archive of history, Hawai'i history and cultural history and we're just starting to tap intoitnow. ... One of the reasons I wrote this book is I wanted to show the value of that archive. This book, North Shore Plaee Names, is 100 percent from the Hawaiian language newspapers that are in the Papakilo Database." ■