Kanikau for Kanīʻaupiʻo and Keliʻikuewa
I am Turning, Turning, Searching for You
In my many years of reading Hawaiian language newspapers, I’ve collected over 30 kanikau (chants of mourning) composed in love, in grief, and in aloha ʻāina for Kailua’s people by their Kailua families.
These kanikau are important to me because they speak with such knowledge and intimacy of our land and people, of every place, of every remembered activity, of every relationship that ties us to each other and to that which sustains us. As my kīpuka-to-kīpuka friends Kaleo Wong and Noʻeau Peralto like to say: the cycle to which we should always to be bound is the cycle of iwi, ʻōiwi, and kulāiwi, of ancestors, descendants, and ancestral lands.[i] For me, kanikau embody this cycle.
I have excerpts from two of them that I’d like to share with you.
No J. W. Kanīʻaupiʻo
“E Kailuaiki, e Kailuanui, e Kailua i ka hapapa, e Kailua i ka halokoloko-wai, e Kailua i na puu kinikini, e Kailua aina pali hulilua; huli e huli la, ke huli nei au ia oe e kuu kupuna aloha ma na kakai pali o Maunawili; hoea hookahi akula au i ia wai kaulana a kaua i hele ai o Waihi, aole oe; mahea ihola hoʻi oe i nalowale aku ai mai aʻu aku? Aloha no ia mau kahawai o Ohuauli, Ainoni, Mooakua, kahi au e hii hele ai iau mai ka uka a ke kai....Aia ma luna o ko‘u kupunakane ka pulama ahonui ana iau e auamo hele ana iau mai kela kaika a keia kaika o Kailua i kuu mau la bebe wale…”[ii]
Little Kailua, Big Kailua, Kailua of the reefs, Kailua of the flowing fresh water, Kailua in the multitude of hills, Kailua of the cliffs that face each other. I am turning, turning, searching for you, my beloved grandfather, in the procession of cliffs at Maunawili. But I arrive alone at the famed waters of Waihī that we once frequented. You are not here. Where have you disappeared to, vanished from my presence? Beloved are these streams – ʻOhuauli, ʻAinoni, and Mo‘oakua – places where you carried me, carried me everywhere from the uplands to the sea. There I was on the shoulders of my patiently caring grandfather as he carried me along the banks of every taro patch in Kailua in those, my baby days.
Beloved is our peaceful home at Manulele, the last home at which my departed grandfather and I were together; beloved is the water of Hāuliwai, the water where my beloved grandfather bathed me; beloved is the hot, sticky ascent to Halekahi where we rested in the betel tree shade of Ke Ala i ka Mālamalama…
Beloved are the fish who touch the skins of kānaka at Kawainui, water that is famous to those who visit. Beloved is the water of Wai‘auia spread out before us; beloved is the Mākālei, that famous fish-attracting branch. These are the waters that were held close, that were cherished by my departed grandfather and I.
“Ua Hala Kuʻu Kupunakane Aloha o J. W. Kaniaupio” was composed by Mr. Kaniʻaupiʻo’s granddaughter Hiʻilei Johnson in 1915.
No Keliʻikuewa
My second excerpt is from “He Kanikau no Keliikuewa” composed by a woman who called herself Ka-maʻi-wela and Ka-ma’i-anu in reference to the sickness (maʻi) of fever (wela) and chills (anu) that took her infant son from her in an August 1863 epidemic.
Aia i Wailea ka uhane
I ka lai o Pomaikai
Akahi ka haha i ka moe
I ka ike i ke kino wailua
Elua hana i na makua
O ka u kanikau i ke aloha
He aloha na hoa o ka pali
O ka waiau o Kawainui
Ake aku ka manao e hui
E ike i ke aka o ke kino
Ua puni ko kino i ka wela
O ka maʻi laha o Hawaii
Your spirit is there at Wailea
In the serenity of Pōmaikaʻi
I have just reached out (for you) in sleep
Upon seeing your spirit body
Twice troubled (are we) the parents
Who sigh in grief, in love
Beloved are the companions of the cliff
Of the swirling, diverted waters of Waiʻau[ia] at Kawainui
The mind yearns to meet with,
To see your spirit body
Your body that was consumed by fever
In the epidemic of Hawaii…[iii]
These kanikau give us the names of places that we know quite well, of places that we barely know, and of places that we don’t know at all.[iv] The first kanikau takes us from the uplands of Maunawili to the waters of Waiʻauia at the entrance to what is now Kailua town. The second takes us from Wailea point at the far- eastern end of our ahupuaʻa to the same present-day Kailua Town waters of Waiʻauia. Together they span our ahupuaʻa, define it as ʻāina kūpuna and as ʻāina momona; together they insist that we continue to know and define Kailua in that same way. And then they do something a little bit spooky; they put a hand on your shoulder and speak right in your ear.
We’ve cited these kanikau for years, but it is only recently that we realized — through research, talk story, and pure luck – that the two kanikau are more than just mele kūpuna in a figurative sense. As it turns out, William J. Kanīʻaupiʻo is the great grandfather of Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie, our life-long Kailua-born-and-raised friend and kumu hula colleague who is, among other things, a founding director of the Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law at UH Mānoa.
And, as it turns out, Kamaʻiwela / Kamaʻianu is my own great-great grandmother, Loika Kamaʻilohi, the wife of my great-great-grandfather Moanauli Keliʻikuewa.
Tūtū Kanīʻaupiʻo and Tūtū Kamaʻilohi came and found us. I don’t doubt that your kūpuna will come and find you, too — if they haven’t done so already. That’s why we’re all here; why we are all in this together – iwi, ʻōiwi, and kūlāiwi.
[i] A kīpuka is an oasis, a circle of land around which lava has flowed, leaving intact all that lies within. Noʻeau Peralto and Hailey Kaʻiliehu are the leaders of huiMAU, a care-for-the-kīpuka effort in Hāmākua, Hawaiʻi. Kaleo Wong and Maya Saffery do the same with Kauluakalana in Kailua, Oʻahu. “Kīpuka to kīpuka” is their phrase for connected and growing these places of resilience. “ʻIwi, ʻōiwi, kūlāiwi” is their mantra of belonging: iwi are bones, ʻōiwi are those who belong to the bones, and kūlāiwi are the bone lands. The words embrace the dead, the living, and the ʻāina to which both belong. When all three are intact – or restored – then our lives are whole.
[ii] The language of this opening section of Mrs. Johnson’s kanikau for her grandfather moved me so much that I used it as the opening section of my own kanikau for another beloved and venerated kūpuna of Kailua nei: “Grampa” Oz Stender (“He Kanikau He Uē Aloha no Ahuwela Stender,” Ka Wai Ola, April 2022).
[iii] My translation.
[iv] Known: Maunawili, ʻOhuanui, ʻAinoni, Manulele, Wailea, Waiʻauia, Kawainui. Barely known: Waihī, Mālamalama. Unknown: Moʻoakua, Hāuliwai, Halekahi, Pōmaikaʻi.