Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 2, 1 Pepeluali 2017 — Aloha Kekahi I Kekahi [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Aloha Kekahi I Kekahi

Pepeluali (February) is the month of love, known for its romantic eelebrations of Valentine's Day. While the holiday

I is a Western tradition, it commemorates a value well known to the ancient Hawaiians. Our mo'olelo and mele are filled with wonderful stories of the love between couples, such as the story of Manono, wife of Keaoua Kekuaokalani. In the 1819 Battle of Kuamo'o, the valiant Manono followed her husband onto the field of warfare and served his needs as his constant eompanion. When he fell at her side and took his hnal breath, she picked up his spear and fought bravely until she

too teli and entered etermty with her Iover. Like the ancient Greeks who understood many kinds of love, Hawaiians embraced the ideas of love of partner, family, eommunity, comrades, andpeople group. Then, according to George Kanahele in his classic work"Kū Kanaka," Hawaiians encountered a new understanding of love with the arrival of the Christian Bible. This was agape love, meaning universal love from God for all people, even for one's enemies. Translators searched the Hawaiian language for a word that would embody this Greek New Testament concept of agape and chose the word aloha, with its highest expression aloha ke Akua. Aloha was thus transformed from a localized concept of love based on romance, family, friends, and nation, to a universal concept, touching all humanity.

So fully did Hawaiians embrace this capacity for universal love that inclusiveness of all people became a nahonal value. In the words of the

1840 Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, "God hath made of one blood (koko) all nations of men to dwell on the earth in unity and blessedness." In retrospect, agape love was not foreign to Hawaiians, but deeply situated within the Aloha Spirit, ready to be given greater voice through Bible teachings such as Aloha kekahi i kekahi - Let us love one another. As testament to the Hawaiian Aloha Spirit, Martin Luther King and his fellow marchers

wore iei during the tamous civii nghts march in Selma. Dr. King had visited our islands in 1959 and addressed both houses of our newly formed state legislature, telling them: "As I think of the struggle that we are engaged in in the South land, we look to you [Hawai'i] for inspiration and as a noble example, where you have already accomplished in the area of racial harmony andracialjustice, what we are struggling to accomplish in other sections of the eountry." May we, as your servant Trustees, model the high standard of aloha as we work together for the sake of 0HA's beneficiaries and all people of Hawai'i - Aloha kekahi i kekahi. ■ Contact me at TrusteeAkina@oha.org.

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Keli'i Akina, Ph.D. TrustEE, At-largE