Last Updated on March 18, 2025
On a balmy Saturday morning in November 2013, I gathered with other members of Hui Mālama i ke Ala ʻŪlili near a popular local fishing spot that most people refer to today as “Paʻauilo Landing,” or just “the Landing.” It was our first day of work on a community garden project we had envisioned years prior. The idea to start a garden down near the Landing emerged out of several experiences and conversations we had shared that had moved us towards re-establishing an ʻohana-centered space to return our hands to the land, and to share the food and stories of this ʻāina with others in our community. Over the years, this century and a half old government ship landing had become overgrown with invasive weeds and littered with the waste of a careless few. With nothing more than the tools in our hands and the aloha in our naʻau, our hui worked together that morning to clear the ʻāina of invasive guinea grass, remove truck loads of trash, and plant a few of our native food plants. We are not the owners or the lessees of this ʻāina. We have no codified “rights” to it other than the kuleana embodied in our bones. We are simply the ʻŌiwi descendants of this ʻāina, following the instructions of those who came before us: if you mālama this ʻāina, it will mālama you.
When we took a break for lunch, I recall our kupunawahine, Aunty Millie Bailado saying, “We need to give this māla (garden) a name.” Naming imbues mana, spiritual power. “How about Mālama ʻĀina Koholālele?” she suggested. We all agreed on the name, which was immediately painted on a small sign and placed in the middle of the māla. Such a simple name would not pique the attention of many. “Mālama ʻĀina Koholālele”—Caring for the ʻĀina of Koholālele. It’s pretty straight forward. But considering that this ʻāina has been exploited as “property” for over a century and called by the name of the sugar plantation mill it serviced for just as long, an act as “everyday” as consciously calling a place by its proper ancestral name is profound. This everyday act of resurgence not only counters the erasure of the name, histories, and genealogies of Koholālele, it further reasserts our responsibilities as the descendants of this place to mālama ʻāina—to care for and protect the long-term well-being of that which sustains us physically and spiritually as a people.
In the days of our kūpuna, not many generations ago, the ahupuaʻa of Koholālele was dedicated by the ruling chiefs of this island as a puʻuhonua, a sacred place of refuge and healing. The cliffs of Koholālele were famous, known in moʻolelo as a place where the akua sisters of Maunakea—Poliahu, Lilinoe, and Kalauakolea—would frequent, waiting to entice unsuspecting passerbys to ascend the mountain with them. These high cliffs were also celebrated in mele, songs and chants, as favored places for Hāmākua’s skilled and courageous fishermen to descend to the sea by rope, to fish or gather ʻopihi. Not far from the site of our māla in Koholālele is a large heiau named Manini, which functioned as a kūʻula and was dedicated to the practice of hoʻoulu ʻai, the growth of food. The ritual practice of hoʻoulu ʻai ceremonies at Manini ensured the abundance of food resources in the sea and on the land in Hāmākua. ʻŌiwi scholar Hooulumahiehie wrote about Manini heiau in the Hawaiian language newspaper, Ka Naʻi Aupuni, in 1906, explaining:
O keia heiau “kuula” i hoikeia ae la, e kiei pono iho ana ia i ke awa pae-waa o Koholalele; a oia nohoi ka heiau “kuula” i lilo i piko e hoopaa ana i na pono lawaia konohiki kahiko o na ahupuaa o Koholalele ame Kukaiau. O ka heiau keia e hooulu ai ka iʻa o ua mau kai lawaia nei, ke panoanoa ka maaloalo ana a ka iʻa e ola ai na kupa oia mau kaiaulu…O keia ka olelo a na kamaaina o Hamakua. (“He Moolelo no Kamehameha I.” Ka Nai Aupuni, June 9, 1906)
This aformentioned heiau “kūʻula,” peers down directly upon the canoe landing place of Koholālele; and that is the heiau “kūʻula” that became a central place for the konohiki of old in Koholālele and Kūkaʻiau to become well-versed in the traditions of fishing. This was the heiau utilized to increase the bounty of fish in these fisheries whenever the fish were scarce, to insure the well-being of the natives of these communities…These are the words of the kamaʻāina of Hāmākua.
It was this understanding of the spiritual foundations of aloha ʻāina and mālama ʻāina rooted in place that enabled and empowered our kūpuna to cultivate these ʻāina in ways that were not only extremely productive, but more importantly, pono. Every person who has eaten of the bounty of this ʻāina and its seas has been a beneficiary of these works of our kūpuna. Now the time has come for our generation to take on this kuleana to continue to hoʻoulu ʻai—grow food.
When a child is born, it is customary for an elder in the family to gift the child with a name. In some instances, ancestral names are given to imbue the child with the desirable characteristics and mana of its original forbearer. The ancestral name that Aunty Millie gifted to the māla we gave birth to that day alludes to many of the reasons why our ancestors of Koholālele, “the breaching humpback whale,” understood it to be so important. In the ocean, the koholā (humpback whale) migrates each year between the cold waters of the north and the warm waters of Hawaiʻi. Throughout this journey, the koholā releases sacs of mucus, called hūpē koholā, in which ʻōhua, baby fish, like that of the manini, live until they reach maturity. As these hūpē koholā float throughout the ocean, they act as seed banks, replenishing the sea with new generations of fish. In this way, the ʻāina of Koholālele also served the physical and spiritual function of ensuring the abundance of the ocean and its many resources. Koholālele, like the ocean dwelling ancestor for which it was named, is life-giving and sacred—from its most ma uka boundary at Puʻu o Kiha on the slopes of Maunakea, to the depths of its rugged seas—and it requires our care and protection.
For the majority of our people today, however, the name Koholālele exists solely in the footnotes of our history texts—texts that most of our youth will never be introduced to in the current public education system. Generations of plantation exploitation have reinscribed our landscape with names that were appropriated by sugar companies for their mills, relocation camps, and landings, like “Paʻauilo Landing.” There are no road signs, street names, or stores that bear Koholālele’s name today. Just the small, hand-painted sign in the middle of our māla. “Mālama ʻĀina Koholālele,” says it all. We have not forgotten the names of our ancestors. We have not forgotten our responsibilities to care for them. The ʻŌiwi caretakers of this ʻāina are here to stay. We are pulling the weeds of our dependence, recalling the roots of our resurgence, and replanting the seeds of our reemergence as the thriving descendants that our ancestors prayed for. And it all began with some seemigly “everyday” actions. Gather with your family. Clear a space. Make a garden. Gift it a name. And commit to it.
As we gathered at the end of that first tranformative workday, one of our hui leaders and organizers, Aunty Loke Alpiche expressed, “A garden represents growth, and the seed was planted today.” We cleared a space for growth together that day, planted “the seed,” and since then, much growth has come from that garden. In just little over a year, our Mālama ʻĀina Koholālele māla has doubled, tripled, and quadrupled in size. While at that first workday in 2013 just about 30 hands were (re)turned to the soil, over the past three years over 1500 hands have come together to mālama this ʻāina. And not only have we grown in size and number. The cultivation of this garden and the fulfillment of our shared kuleana together has grown our relationships with this land and with each other. Laulima. Many hands working together grow stronger together. They learn from each other. Feed each other. Protect each other. Care for each other. Heal each other. Our kūpuna teach us to “huli ka lima i lalo,” turn your hands down to the soil, “he ola ko laila,” for that is where life emerges from.
Hands covered in ʻāina and grasped firmly together, we stood in a circle together to offer a closing pule for the continued growth of our māla, breathing intention into our actions, telling the seeds we planted that day to bare fruits for as long as our descendants shall live on this ʻāina. When our pule was complete, the eldest in our circle, Aunty Millie, offered her gratitude for the work we had all come together to complete, and reaffirmed her commitment to the presence we had rebirthed in Koholālele that day. “Our garden here is small. I like it very much, and am happy here. This place is special, and I will always be here. No matter what, I will always be here.” The roots of our resurgence run deep in this ʻāina. And it is in our everyday actions to ensure that these roots “will always be here” that we renew our relationships and responsibilities to the source from which our well-being as a people emerges. E mau ke ea o ka ʻāina.
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