HAWAIIAN STYLE
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Fran McFarland would be the first to warn that while it's always fun to shake the family genealogical tree, don't be surprised if a few nuts fall out.
Furthermore, it ain't your father's genealogy that everyone's hyped up about nowadays. "It's now called 'Family History,' " said McFarland, a noted genealogist who is offering her talents in a series of
'Iolani Palace summer classes. "People are more ma'a to the word 'family.' "
Not only is genealogy enjoying renewed popularity nationwide, in Hawai'i the allure often is in establishing blood quantum for Hawaiian entitlement programs, McFarland said.
McFarland, who is part Hawaiian, said the whole thing, Hawaiian-style, is seemingly "backward" from the typical Western method of tracing family lineages. "Neither way is right — or wrong," she said. They're just different.
In the Western mindset, you start with yourself. And track down to two parents. Then, downward to four grandparents. Before you know it, you've got a whole gaggle of descendants.
In the Hawaiian mindset, it begins at the very beginning, from the first, perhaps sometimes mythical, ancestor, then tracks upward to just one family member in the next generation. Then, coming closer to the present, one more. One-on-one-on-one.
In the old days, said McFarland, "presenting your genealogy upon meeting was a matter of protocol. You would kahea (call out), 'We are from the family of ... May we come in? Only then did you get the 'hele mai.' " Chanting long, involved geneologies was common.
The modern Islander does something similar, without really knowing it: "Eh, I Auntie Tita-Girl's cousin from Maui. My muddah was one Andrade. I wen' marry Uncle Tootie's boy from Nanakuli, William."
"You're establishing your 'place,' " said McFarland. Your genealogy.
Even before its modern renaissance, Island kids learned genealogy at their mother's knees. "I taught my kids from age 3," said McFarland. "We sat on the shore, and with every (arriving) wave, I'd kahea a (family member's) name."
With the next wave, she'd call the father's name, then so on up — remember, this is Hawaiian style — until the present. "At 3, you can do that!" she said.
Living in Utah for a while, "there were no waves," McFarland said, "but there were mountain peaks."
By 4, her granddaughter knew up to her fourth generation. Others have used stems of orchids to teach the branchings of the family. After all, the word "pua" (flower) is often used to symbolize children.
And no matter what the culture, four generations seems to be the "normal" extent of most genealogical memory. "That's tradition. You go back into the Bible and that's how they did it," said McFarland.
One interesting development, said McFarland, was the tendency of some Hawaiian families with long names — "The missionary families were having trouble with the long ones," she joked — to divide up the name, each son taking one part.
She relates the case of young people, last-named, for example, Mahi, Helelima, Pai and Hulani, who were tracing their family history. Only when they sat in chairs, just coincidently, in the exact order of the original family name — Mahi-helelima-pai-hulani — did the light go off for McFarland. They were all related. Even they didn't suspect.
"That's when this all gets chickenskin," McFarland said.
Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha O Ka Roselani No'eau hula halau. He writes on Island life.
