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| The voyaging canoe Hokule'a prepares to sail out of Maunalua Bay for the blessing at sea.
Deborah • The Honolulu Advertiser |
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A Tribute to the Missing
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By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer
Keoni Ku‘oha and Sam Gon III leaned out over the bow of the Polynesian Voyaging Society canoe Hokule‘a and chanted to the four winds. Then, one by one, they began dropping fragrant, brightly colored lei into the rough waters where the Ehime Maru lies.
"Now the birds are flying," Gon said in Hawaiian, letting maile wrapped with ilima fall from his fingers and ride the cresting waves nine miles off Diamond Head.
A hundred yards away, family members of the nine people lost in the collision of the Japanese high school fisheries training vessel and the Navy submarine, USS Greeneville, lined the bow of the Hawaiian Rainbow and watched the lei bob in the waves between the two vessels.
One mother covered her face with a handkerchief to smother the tears, much as she had done three hours earlier during the traditional Hawaiian ceremony of blessing under a tent in the beach park next to Maunalua Bay.
Earlier yesterday, more than 500 people gathered to hear Jake Shimabukuro play a haunting ukulele song he had written for the Ehime Maru and to watch a dozen solemn family members sit in silence amid an outpouring of aloha.
"We are calling upon the guardian forces of the sea to bring peace to those lost until they are united with their families," said P¯ka Laenui, master of ceremonies.
"This ceremony symbolizes the unified expression of aloha from the people of Hawai‘i, an affirmation of humanity, and a reminder of how tentative life is."
Chanting was led by John Lake as he made a ceremonial entrance bearing ho‘okupu to be cast on the ocean along with dozens of lei brought by well-wishers. A table was covered with roses and pua‘kenikeni, folded paper cranes, plumeria, and a haze of other brightly colored garlands. The blossoms had been placed by members of the public before and during the ceremony.
Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris and Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono brought offerings folded in green ti leaves from the city and state.
Nawaa Lalani Kahuna o Pu‘u o Koola spoke of the coming together of the people of Japan and Hawai‘i and prayed for "forgiveness, healing, and for our men at risk in the ocean and our men of the Greeneville and all the families in Japan."
But perhaps the most emotional moment came when songwriter Shimabukuro took the stage. As the sweet and haunting sound of the ukulele went over the crowd, one of the two mothers of the students from Japan bent her head and covered her face. Her thin shoulders shook with quiet sobs.
Mayor Hirohisa Ishibashi of Uwajima City, home of the fishing school, pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief to blot his eyes.
As the ceremony neared its end, Kumu Lake led a procession of chanters, followed by family members, to the edge of the bay to board the tourist vessel Hawaiian Princess for the blessing at sea. The lei, in turn, were taken aboard Hokule‘a and borne by the replica of an ancient Polynesian voyaging canoe through the waves to the place where the submarine rammed the Ehime Maru.
As the lei were put aboard Hokule‘a, a prayer was said, and then star navigators Nainoa Thompson and Bruce Blankenfeld took the steering sweep to guide the canoe away from land and into rough open ocean, leading a flotilla of a dozen vessels.
The use of the Hokule‘a was a symbolic gesture of love from the community and from the depth of the Hawai‘ian culture, said Thompson.
"It is a day of honoring the healing. They’ve lost their children in our waters and we are giving our aloha and this canoe carries that expression."
Poha Sonoda-Burgess, the 18-year-old son of Laenui, took his place on the bow and he, too, let lei slip into the sea. His presence was symbolic of the four students — just about his age — who are among the missing.
Head bowed, he leaned and watched the lei float together for a few minutes between the ring of vessels, and then, he too, stepped back.
Blankenfeld, who spoke of the meaning of the ceremony, was solemn. "Today we’re paying deep respect to people who lost their lives at sea. On this canoe, we’re all too familiar with that. We lost one crewman many years ago, and we recognize how important safety is.
"Hopefully, within this community there will be an ability to lay this at rest. But that’s a very hard thing."
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