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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, March 13, 2005

'Land Is Life'

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

It's not exactly the history of the world in one act, but Edgy Lee's latest prime-time special, "The Hawaiians: Reflecting Spirit," certainly isn't lacking in ambition.

Completed in just four months with major financing provided by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, "The Hawaiians" is a one-hour primer on the spiritual, historical and cultural bonds between Hawaiians and their native lands. It's also a rallying cry for protection and preservation of Hawaiian cultural practices.

Filmmaker Edgy Lee says she hopes her film will help advance the cause of federal recognition for Native Hawaiians.

Photo courtesy Edgy Lee


"The Hawaiians: Reflecting Spirit"

• 9 p.m. Tuesday

• KHON 2

The film airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. on KHON. An early cut was shown last September at the opening of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

"Hawaiians" draws a line from the creation tale of the coupling of Papa and La'akea, through the Great Mahele (land division) of 1848 and on to the physical and spiritual displacement of thousands of modern Hawaiians. Lee's documentary tells a story of Hawaiians' gradual, forced estrangement, and launches a discussion on the need to recognize Hawaiian ties to the land.

"It's a crash course," Lee said.

Lee, whose two documentaries on Hawai'i's crystal methamphetamine problems were simulcast on 11 local TV stations, said her latest project was spurred by a sense of urgency.

"This is a story that has not been told to the general American public," Lee said. "And unless it's shared soon, I'm fearful that federal mandates will come down, and then it'll be too late. I think this film is already 30 years late."

Without naming the measure specifically, Lee said she hopes her film will educate lawmakers about the need for federal recognition of Native Hawaiians, as called for in the controversial Akaka bill.

"I hope it reaches those congressional delegates who do not support federal recognition," Lee said. "It's time for people to understand who we are. If the American public could have seen "Dances with Wolves" back in the 19th century, would they have better understood how cataclysmic their actions were for Native Americans? Would they have been able to better understand their neighbors? On a tiny scale, that's what we're trying to do with this."

For such understanding to take root, Lee said, it's important to first clear the soil of more than a hundred years of misrepresen-tation.

"The Hawaiians," shot in high-definition, is narrated by Winona Rubin and includes interviews with Hawaiian leaders and cultural practitioners such as navigator Nainoa Thompson, kumu hula Keali'i Reichel, ethno-botanist Isabella Abbott, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, farmer John Kaina, traditional healer Alapai Kahuena, salt-maker Wilma Holi, Hawaiian language expert Puakea Nogelmeier and Ni'ihau elders Annie and Kahala Kanahele, as well as American Indian law expert Charles Wilkinson.

Lee said the people assembled for her film illustrate the diversity of contemporary Hawaiian kupuna.

"They're definitely not the only ones out there, but they are a great representation of an entire culture that is still alive," Lee said.

"Whoever came to us turned out to be the right person at the right time."

That was the case with Holi, the salt-maker from Kaua'i.

Holi wasn't initially on the filmmaker's interview list, but when a friend urged Holi to check out a filming session in the neighborhood, she obliged. When Lee met Holi, she decided Holi's story was just what the film needed.

Holi wasn't sure at first what Lee was intending to do with her film, but a pair of owls circling nearby provided affirmation.

"That's how I knew," Holi said. "I knew that, good or bad, I had to go and play a part in all of this."

Sure enough, Holi's personal account of the difficulties she and her family have faced in trying to preserve a 300-year legacy against government obstacles and private business incursions is an emotional high point in the film.

"For my family, it is our kuleana, our responsibility, to continue to protect, to perpetuate our salt-making tradition," Holi says in the film. "Likewise, there are other cultural, traditional practitioners throughout Hawai'i that have taken on the kuleana to protect and perpetuate their art."

"Movies and music turned Hawaiian culture into a caricature carrying images of Hawaiians as simple, brown-skinned people playing 'ukuleles and dancing the hula-hula. No one mentioned the wisdom and sophistication of a people who knew nature intimately, a culture that had hundreds of words to describe different kinds of rain, and an ancient creation chant that embodied Darwin's concept of evolution."

— From "The Hawaiians: Reflecting Spirit"

Holi said she hopes that lawmakers will listen to and understand her appeal to let Hawaiians continue their cultural stewardship of their native lands, but she's not counting on it.

"I don't know if the message will be understood by everybody," she said. "But my message is for my people. Those involved in land struggles will see this and understand."

The film uses an impressive mix of images and testimonials as it seeks to dispel stereotypes held by outsiders and locals alike.

In one scene, Kahuena walks through a forest, explaining not just the medicinal application of various plants but the protocols (expressing gratitude, asking permission, and stating intent) for picking them.

The film captures Thompson speaking eloquently of the quiet rage that fueled the Hawaiian renaissance of the 1960s and '70s.

In another scene, the Kanaheles talk about their ties to isolated Ni'ihau as a camera captures the faces and voices of the Waimea Hawaiian Church congregation in song.

Abbott, the ethnobotanist, said she agreed to help with the film only after she was convinced of Lee's "strong desire to do the right thing."

For Abbott, a University of Hawai'i professor and the first Native Hawaiian woman to earn a Ph.D, the challenges Hawaiians face in sustaining their relationship with the land, a relationship that is intrinsic to their very identity, are impossible to ignore.

"It is always in my mind," Abbot said. "It makes me sick to see developers doing their best to get around laws meant to preserve agricultural lands. It makes me sick when money makes everybody's eyes turn larger.

"Where is the Hawaiian who believes malama 'aina and aloha 'aina?" she asked. "They haven't got a chance. They aren't worth anything (to speculators)."

And while she wishes Lee had the resources to devote a mini-

series to the subject, Abbott said she's more than pleased with what the filmmaker was able to accomplish with "The Hawaiians."

"As a Hawaiian, I'm very proud of what (Lee) has done," Abbott said. "When it comes down to it, this is the real Hawai'i, not the tourist stuff."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2461.

• • •

Excerpts from Edgy Lee's 'The Hawaiians: Reflecting Spirit'

"How I look at the world, as a composer, as a Hawaiian man, as a contemporary tapping into the ancient — hopefully — is a unique one. To tell my story and our people's story in this day and age is a wonderful thing ... It's never a question of whether I can make my Hawaiian-ness fit into my career. It's making my career and whatever else I do in my life fit into my Hawaiian-ness. It's not something we think about, it's just something that is."

— Keali'i Reichel | Artist and kumu hula



"The Hawaiians should be looked at as endemic peoples because they are the ones who have it in their na'au, in their being, in their soul, as people who aloha 'aina. ... It means you love the land. I would fight to my last breath to keep as many Hawaiians in Hawai'i as possible because they — plus the landscape, plus the plants and animals, plus the natural beauty of the place — they are part of it."

— Isabella Abbott | UH professor of botany



"What is mankind going to feel like when the last native plant, animal or species is gone? What is it going to feel like when we crush or extinguish the last native culture? Where is humankind at that point where diversity — the strength and beauty of diversity — is no longer here on the planet?"

— Nainoa Thompson | Celestial navigator



"Land is life to the Hawaiians. That's why so much problems today, because they don't have the land that they used to. It's important to let the children of the future know what we did and what the kupuna before me did. If we local people don't keep up our traditions and working the land, we're going to find the majority of our land filled with concrete. We're headed towards hard times, and pretty soon each of us have to go back to the land."

— John Kaina | Farmer



"I feel bad that my parents never had homestead land, and I am thankful that I have this land. Thank you God for the charity and hope that was given to me by living on this land. Before the land was fruitful. Even though we couldn't plant the poi and the rice, we still had meats and other staples. So I cannot forget my love for the land."

— Kahala Kanahele | Ni'ihau resident