Family Matters
Bathing always a big part of Hawaiian culture

You can call me obsessive.

My husband does.

"What? You’re taking ANOTHER shower?"

It doesn’t bother him when my boys "forget" to take their baths at night.

And that usually occurs when I’m not at home.

"Hey, honey, why are the boys asleep and still wearing the same clothes that they were wearing today?" I ask.

"Oops," he says.

This is how anal I can be about taking a shower: When my daughter was just 3 years old, we had gone to a party, arriving home shortly after 10 p.m.

She was exhausted and had fallen asleep in the car. I hoisted her up onto my shoulder and carried her to the bathroom, where I drew a warm bath.

"Please, mommy, I’m tired," she whimpered.

"I know you are, sweetie, but this will make you feel better and you will sleep well tonight," I said, trying to soothe her.

Even when I was a kid, my mom said that I used to always bathe before going to sleep. It didn’t matter if I had a bad head cold, I was determined to take a shower before crawling into bed.

In the 1780s, a sailor aboard the ship Neptune wrote in his journal: "They (Hawaiians) are certainly the most cleanly people that I have ever seen. They bathe a number of times every day. They do nothing scarcely without bathing after it: they bathe immediately after every repast."

So you see my compulsion for cleanliness has everything to do with who I am.

Mary Kawena Pukui, noted Hawaiian scholar, wrote of her days growing up on the Big Island, "Bathing was so important that when they could not get fresh water, Hawaiians washed and shampooed in salt water. And in Ka‘Â, when drought made water baths impossible, my people rubbed themselves clean with green (‘ilima) leaves."

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to visit Australia and a place referred to by the aboriginal people as Uluru (Ayers Rock).

Uluru - sacred to them - sits smack-dab in the middle of Australia surrounded by sparse vegetation and miles of flat, desert land.

At the base of the Rock are pools of water collected from the few inches of rainfall they receive each year.

While visiting, we met an aboriginal woman who took us on a mini-tour of Uluru.

That particular day, it was hot and muggy. The jeans and T-shirt I wore fit like plastic wrap. There were no tradewinds, just the persistent buzz of flies swarming around my head.

All I wanted to do was to rip off my clothes and dive into one of the pools.

Displaying my ignorance to our guide, the little voice inside me asked aloud, "So, what? Can I take a dip in the water?"

Our guide looked at me as if I were an idiot.

"Actually, the water you see at the bottom of Uluru is used strictly for drinking purposes," she said with a forced smile. "We rarely bathe - let alone swim in these pools - due to the scarcity of water."

Boy, did I feel like a fool.

But what I did learn from this experience was to respect the customs and practices of the people and ‘aina (land) I visit.

I believe the same principle should hold true for those visiting our island paradise as we attempt to raise our children in the traditions of our kÂpuna (ancestors).

For most of us in the Islands, bathing is second nature.

But for some in my family it isn’t.

"Hey, honey, did you ‘au‘au (bathe) tonight?" I ask my husband.

"Oops."

Oh, well, some need a little training more than others.

Two Hawai‘i parents, Lynne Wikoff and Ka‘ohua Lucas, take turns writing the Family Matters column.

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