He mele kanikau no ke kini i kāʻili lima koko ʻia

By Viviane Sassen — Cloud lining @ sunset: January, Puako, HI © 2012 D Smith

He aloha, he kanikau, he kūmākena
No nā pua ʻako kiokio ʻia
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Philando Castile,
ke kāne hoʻopūnana keiki
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Alton Sterling,
ke kāne kū makuakāne
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Goddess Diamond,
ka wahine alakaʻi waipahē
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Sandra Bland,
ka wahine puʻuwai haokila
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Michael Brown,
ke kāne ʻimi naʻauao
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Freddie Gray,
ke kāne kūlia ʻāʻumeʻume
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Rekia Boyd,
ka wahine o ka ʻohana kū haʻaheo
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Tamir Rice,
ke keiki ʻālapa mākaukau
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
Nou e Eric Garner,
ke kāne hoʻoulu pua i hanu kākou
He ʻuhane, he aloha nou
Kanikau lā, he aloha
No ʻoukou pākahi a pau,
E ō mau ko ʻoukou mau inoa
He ʻuhane, he aloha no ʻoukou
Ua pulu ʻelo nō nā pua i ka ua ʻAwa
He ua ʻawa kinakinai mao ʻole
Ka pā ʻawaʻawahia o ʻAmelika
ʻO Maleka ka i hoʻokae i kou ʻili
ʻO Maleka ka i hoʻokuapaʻa i kou ʻili
Pāhihi ka paka ua kīhene waimaka
Pehia kākou a hoʻopē hala ʻole
Hala ʻole ka pā o ko ia ala lima koko
Kōkoʻolua o kāna pū ʻimi ʻino
ʻO ʻoe kā ka wahine, ʻo ʻoe kā ke kāne
ʻO ʻoe kā ka makua, ʻo ʻoe kā ke keiki
ʻO ʻoe kā ke kuaʻana, ʻo ʻoe kā ke kaina
ʻAʻohe ou palekana i ka lau o kou kino
Hoʻāla ʻia ke kiko a kani mai ka ʻuhū
Hūhewa ka makani pāhili
Kanikau wale a hahanopilo ka leo
Lū mai nā pōkā me he loku o ka ua lā
A ua hele lilo hewa ē kou malu
ʻAʻohe wahi palekana i ka lau o kou kino
Hulihia hoʻi kēlā manaʻo kuʻuna
Huli aʻe ka lima i luna, make
Huli iho ka lima i lalo, make
Auē, ʻo ka make wale nō
ʻAlo ʻū ia pua i ia ua nanahu
Naʻū akula i ia ua ʻawaʻawa
Momoea i mua i ka ehuehu ʻoehu
Haʻulili ua pua lā i ka lī anu haʻukeke
Kekē ke kākala i ka paio paio mau
Hoʻoaʻa naʻe ka mole kumulau
Laua iho la i lalo lilo lā
I ka houpo hohonu o ka ʻuiki i laila
Hōʻuiki lā i māʻamaʻama
I ʻā mālamalama iā kākou
Nou nō kēia, e ka pua laukani
Lauaki kākou i mua a hanu i ke ea
ʻO kou ola, ua ʻikea

♦ ♦ ♦

Though I am a translator, I have not translated this kanikau. There is so much possibility in our pilina that English would constrain the mana of the words. With only the Hawaiian text here, I hope that maybe some will try to put their breath into these words. Our vowels are pronounced somewhat like they would be in Italian; the macron over a vowel (āēīōū) means that you sound the vowel a little longer, and the ʻokina (ʻ) is a glottal stop to interrupt your flow of air. Even if you do not pronounce the words exactly as they should be, your air and spirit will suffuse the words and release them with your breath.

And for us, breath is one of the most important things we have. Our word for breath is ea; ea is also life, sovereignty, rising. Both the black community and our Hawaiian community are struggling for ea. On January 17, 1893, Queen Liliʻuokalani, the lawful head of the Hawaiian kingdom, a multi-ethnic and internationally recognized member of the Family of Nations, was overthrown by a group of mainly American businessmen, with the support of the US minister to Hawaiʻi and the backing of US troops. Hawaiians have been fighting for the ea of our lāhui, our nation, for over a century. Our breath stopped that day, January 17, 1893, and after we were taught to eat stones. We have not filled our lungs to their capacity in years. Our struggle for ea imagines a nation not founded on slavery and stolen indigenous land. A country that is not structured on a colonial hierarchy and oppression. A country that does not stop breath.

For many Hawaiians, working for ea comes through practicing our cultural traditions. Those who know kanikau will find that I have broken convention while still trying to adhere to traditional aesthetics. The entire mele is dedicated to “ke kini i kāʻili lima koko ʻia,” or something akin to “the multitudes who were snatched by the bloody hand.” We Hawaiians need to broaden the scope of what we consider Hawaiian issues. Anti-blackness is a problem for and in our community, and we need to engage with this as an issue for our lāhui. We have yet to build the pilina we need between our communities. Not just because black liberation liberates us all, but because we know what it means to be pono. We know mourning. Estimates of the Hawaiian population in 1778 when Captain Cook stumbled upon our islands vary widely from a high of one million, down to a low of two hundred fifty thousand. But the US Census from 1900 is very clear. There were just under forty thousand Hawaiians left that year. We know what it feels like when we can’t breathe.

In the mele I refer to those we mourn as pua, a culturally powerful word for things that issue forth: sometimes translated as flower, but also as students, speech, progeny, shining. Pua tie us to the future, to beauty, to connection, and we in our community need to bear witness any time another pua is killed, feel the loss of their fragrance in the forest, the rupture of their genealogy, the absence of their words around us, the break in the knowledge they would have passed down. When we see the black community as pua, we recognize our collective strength, understand the struggles—for sovereignty, for existence, for safety, to be seen as fully human—it has taken to get here. Learn that we are the breath that has issued forth from our ancestors.

For us, to kanikau means to mourn. Grieving could also include tattooing, knocking out teeth, shearing hair, but kanikau are about giving ea to these words of remembrance and recognizing pilina. It is the sound that tears from our lungs. A song of lamentation and praise that recalls the connection between composer and deceased, where they would go together, the names of the rains and winds that they would walk through. The last line reads: Your life, it has been seen, witnessed, understood, known, felt, recognized. Let us all move together until we can breathe the ea, feel our breath, rise in our sovereignty.

Let us share our breath until this is true. I will not withhold my breath from your struggle. This is how we build pilina when only our oppressors gain from the space between us.

He mele kanikau no ke kini i kāʻili lima koko ʻia

For Filipina/x Americans Who See Themselves Thru Anthony Bourdain

from the Koreana Cycle

On or about July 10, 2015¹