Native Hawaiians aim to bring cultural sensitivity to Maui wildfire cleanup

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Mehana Hind stands within the heart of a lodge convention room with a large, welcoming grin.

“Aloha,” she says to members of the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers, newly arrived from the mainland to work on the cleanup of the lethal wildfires that swept Maui final summer time. The fires destroyed Lahaina, the one-time capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

“My identify is Mehana,” she tells the group. “It is a Hawaiian identify, means heat.”

Hind is a cultural liaison with the Council for Native Hawaiian Development. She’s right here to equip federal cleanup groups to acknowledge and have interaction with Lahaina’s distinctive cultural heritage.

“This coaching goes to have a number of Hawaiian phrases,” she says. “Allow them to circulate over you.”

Hind says the workshop was envisioned a few week after the fires as a result of native leaders acknowledged that many individuals can be rotating out and in of Maui to assist in the varied levels of restoration.

Hind desires the trainees to get snug with the native language, with landmarks, and even with staple meals and vegetation – she exhibits footage of them on a big display screen behind her.

She encourages them to be aware of how one can pronounce names as an indication of respect to a individuals who have endured quite a bit, each via what they’ve misplaced within the wildfires, and traditionally via colonization and historic Hawaiians’ first contact with Europeans.

“We all know from our historical past with contact and with tourism particularly, that one of many greatest issues that may hurt a group that is already been traumatized is cultural variations,” Hinds says. “Easy misunderstandings, simply because we do not perceive one another but.”

Together with this cultural liaison work, a number of indigenous teams are offering cultural screens to work alongside the cleanup crews via an $18.7 million contract with the Corps, an effort native residents advocated for after the fires.

“Stroll frivolously,” Hind says. “Know that you’re strolling in areas which have created the footprint for some essential issues in Hawaii’s historical past.”

Important historical past lies just under the floor of the ash, she says, getting emotional as she searches for the suitable strategy to articulate how sacred Lahaina is to Native Hawaiians: “It is laborious to precise with another phrases than how vital this specific 5 mile stretch of land is to what Hawaii was, is and could be sooner or later.”

Defending what lies beneath the rubble

The historic, archeological, and cultural issues have led to a deliberate and sophisticated restoration effort, one with no blueprint.

“That is essentially the most complicated catastrophe that EPA and FEMA has ever handled,” says Maui Mayor Richard Bissen. “This isn’t what they usually do.

“In another particles cleanup state of affairs outdoors of Hawaii, they might simply bulldoze every part from one finish of the property to the opposite, put it in a truck and haul it away.”

However on this cleanup, screens consider every particular person property for vital artifacts earlier than the location could be cleared of particles.

“They’re being very deliberate and delicate with what they’re doing,” Bissen says.

Persistence is carrying skinny for some, now seven months after the catastrophe. Up to now, about 200 properties have been cleared, out of 1000’s.

“Transferring rapidly, transferring quickly is just not essentially one of the simplest ways to do that work,” says Col. Jess Curry, commander of the U.S. Military Corps of Engineer’s Restoration Area Workplace on Maui. He estimates will probably be subsequent January earlier than the particles cleanup is full.

Curry says the cultural issues right here add new layers of complexity to the catastrophe response — one which’s difficult by Native Hawaiians’ historic relationship with the federal authorities.

“As we dig into properties, as we handle eradicating this particles, we’re going to handle issues which might be essential and sacred to this group,” Curry says. “And they will be proper alongside us as we do it, holding us accountable and serving to us perceive.”

A possibility to seek out historic and cultural artifacts

It is about defending a lifestyle, says Keeaumoku Kapu, the curator of Na ‘Aikane o Maui Cultural Middle that burned down in Lahaina.

“There’s a session that must be completed to guarantee that the individuals of the land and the historical past of the land principally is not erased,” Kapu says.

He’s additionally a member of the Maui County Cultural Assets Fee and serves as coordinator of the cultural screens. Kapu, 60, says 27 generations of his ancestors have lived right here.

Kapu nonetheless lives on the Kuleana lands that had been awarded to his household throughout the time of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Kuleana means duty or privilege in Hawaiian language.

“Lahaina was the Venice of the Pacific throughout that point,” he says with satisfaction. “A number of websites have been acknowledged on a nationwide historic registry.”

Kapu says about 45 screens are working within the burn zone together with archeologists, and a few dozen others are on standby ought to they be wanted. They’re native Hawaiian individuals, lineal Lahaina descendants steeped within the historical past and the tradition of the place.

“Now that the city is gone, it offers us a possibility to start out recording and documenting a number of issues that we by no means noticed earlier than,” Kapu says.

For example, the cleanup has revealed unique boundaries of properties and ancestral burial grounds. They’ve already found household heirlooms together with instruments used within the time of pre-contact and poi pounders, stone pestles used to course of conventional crops like taro and breadfruit.

Kapu says the cultural groups have been a reassuring presence for individuals now watching heavy tools plow via what’s left of their properties, treasured household relics, and for some, the stays of family members.

“Once they see us, it is sort of an indication of aid,” he says as a result of they’re well-known locally. “We all know auntie, we all know everyone.”

There is a ritual the cultural groups observe every day earlier than work begins, beginning with a sequence of prayers with a rhythmic clap and repeat sample. Contractors and federal cleanup crews are additionally invited to take part.

“With a view to clear the world, we have to get everyone in sync spiritually, bodily and mentally,” Kapu says.

They unfurl conventional woven mats that symbolize the layers of emotion concerned on this work and, he says, the secrets and techniques hidden throughout the consecrated floor.

On the finish of the day, they collect once more in prayer circles. The mats are folded again collectively to hold the burden of the day.

“We name it kaumaha – weight that we endured all through the day.”

Kapu says it is about grounding themselves for this grueling and haunting work.