Posted on: Saturday, August 24, 2002
Portuguese heritage lives in poetry from Punchbowl
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
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| Jeanne Kahanaoi of Wai'anae holds a copy of her grandparents' marriage certificate and wedding portrait. Her grandfather was Manuel Jesus Coito, the poet of Punchbowl; her grandmother, Maria Augusta Coito.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser |
| Learn more of Manuel Coito
• Who: The Hawai'i Heritage Center |
Manuel Jesus Coito was just 11 when he arrived here from Madeira, Portugal, in 1886 to work on the sugar plantations.
In 1906, he married his cousin, Maria Augusta, and moved to Lusitana Street on the slopes of Punchbowl, a predominantly Portuguese neighborhood. He opened a mom-and-pop store and raised his family.
But Coito had the soul of a writer and, in flowing longhand script, he wrote page after page of poems based on the urban scenes of his day — the arrival of ships from foreign lands, gambling in Chinatown, the death of another cousin from leprosy.
Between 1895 and 1920 he wrote more than 100 poems in his native language, and today the work of the man once known as the Poet of Punchbowl is being hailed as a historic treasure.
"What you get is an account of what is happening in the late 1800s and early 1900s from an immigrant's perspective," said Karen Motosue, vice president of the Hawai'i Heritage Center. "In that sense his body of poetry is very valuable historically. This is a primary source."
The poems also give Portuguese descendants a firsthand account of what their ancestors experienced and shed light on an ethnic group that is not as publicly celebrated or as well known as some others in Hawai'i.
This excerpt for a 1903 poem called "Fiesta of the Mount, Kalihi," showed his love for his adopted home.
Kalihi is delightful,
But for nearly two decades after Coito's death, his poetry was packed away and largely forgotten.
"When I was a little girl I would stay weekends with my grandparents," said Coito's granddaughter Jeanne Kahanaoi, 66. "He wrote a lot of letters to his friends and family back in Portugal. He was always writing."
Manuel Jesus Coito wrote this in 1910 in memory of Manuel Joaquim de Coito, who died on Moloka'i on Jan. 7 of that year. The life, light, which goes out immediately He rests, still a young man not enjoying life, But behold, though the pain is over May you be happy in eternity, friend, How painful was your existence You left life behind you, you fled from the world, May God permit that in your future life Be happy, martyr, in the heavenly sphere ... Coito was 81 when he died in 1957. His children packed away his possessions.
"My mom didn't find the poems until unpacking those boxes in the '70s," Kahanaoi said. "We were looking through and found some old photos and I asked my mom, 'What is this?' She said it is the poems your grandfather wrote."
The Hawai'i Heritage Center will hold a free public forum at 10 a.m. today at Honolulu Community College to discuss the preservation of Coito's poetry and the Portuguese contribution to the development of Hawai'i.
Doris Naumu, president of the Portuguese Genealogical Society of Hawai'i, said there are an estimated 200,000 people of Portuguese ancestry in Hawai'i today. Portuguese immigrants made contributions in food, music, agriculture and ranching, but no major culture centers exist in Hawai'i to commemorate their experience.
"I think it is because they stopped coming in 1913," Naumu said. "That is when the immigration stopped. The other groups were still coming, and naturally they keep up with their heritage."
The principal immigration of Portuguese to Hawai'i came as contract laborers from 1878 to 1913, according to University of Hawai'i history professor Pauline King.
Many came from the Azore and Madeira islands in the Atlantic, where farmers were suffering from a blight that decimated their vineyards and the wine industry.
In 1882 a treaty of immigration and friendship was signed between Portugal and the Hawaiian Kingdom. Between 1878 and 1899 approximately 11,937 Portuguese immigrants landed in Hawai'i, and by the mid-1920s some 27,000 Portuguese lived here.
King said the immigration came to an end in 1913 when Brazil began offering Portuguese free farmland to move there.
"Why come to Hawai'i when land was free in Brazil?" King said.
Once the family rediscovered Coito's poetry, they asked Edgar Knowlton Jr., professor emeritus of European languages at UH, to translate the poems into English, and he worked during his spare time over the past 20 years completing the job.
Knowlton said Coito wrote in many styles, often following the classic narrative epic poetry style of Portugal, Spain and Italy. His poems were frequently published in the Portuguese-language newspapers of the day.
"The Portuguese have prized poets in their heritage," Knowlton said. "They respect poets more than we do. Those who were not literate would appreciate listening to it as the newspapers were read aloud to other people and on the plantation."
Knowlton said although the rhyme and meter are lost in the translation, the message remains.
"He has some humor and is quite good at the important moments
of life like love," said Knowlton, who is also being honored today with the Larry and Beatrice Ching Keeper of the Past Award for more than 30 years of volunteer work researching and writing about the Portuguese and Puerto Ricans of Hawai'i.
"He also speaks out against things he dislikes like gambling and folk medicine, quackery."
The translated poems will be published as a book by the Hawai'i Heritage Center.
"Some people looking for their roots now wish they knew more about their ancestors and how life was for them," Knowlton said. "If you find out what interested them creatively, this will give them further dimension."
Though Coito loved Hawai'i, he never forgot his original home. This excerpt from the poem, "Madeira, adored fatherland," was written around 1910:
Madeira, adored fatherland,
In your meadows I was reared,
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.
Its earth is carpeted
with a tapestry of green
beneath a blue sky.
Farewell to young martyr (1910)
At the breaking of dawn, of dark existence,
Of a sad mourning, heart without fire,
Without air, with grief, sharp bitterness.
Separated, far from his beloved ones,
The incurable wound finally is over.
He ended in pains, in sighs, and in groans.
The bitter longing is not over in the same way
For parents and fellow children, the overpowering grief
For the dead one still with years ahead of him.
Since on earth you had long suffering,
Your guiding star, oh, martyr, up to the grave
Was a sad exile ... without a home in your land.
In the ungrateful world that gave you being?
Far from your family, patience only
Could you have as the best relief.
So alone, an exile, unhappy mortal,
Earth denied to you fruitful pleasure,
It gave you solitude, and only tears.
You have release from your past sufferings,
The reward for a bitter and harsh fate
During the time in which you were alive.
In endless space, with invisible skies,
Forget the world for a better spring,
And fly to the heights ... farewell, farewell.
loved by Madeirans,
I was born in your bosom,
cradled in your arms.
Your mantle covered me,
my chest sighs for you,
Madeira, adored fatherland.
