In this lei dedicated to the cooling ‘Ulu of Lele, the storied appellation for present-day Lahaina, one writer describes its many historical modes of shelter, built and defended by the region’s maka‘āinana.
Art by Aubrey Ke‘alohi Matsuura
As early as I can remember, summer trips to Maui meant spending time with my Tūtūhine Gertrude Lilian Mahi, a famed lei-maker from Molokaʻi. Tūtū made a living through selling mākila lei at craft fairs, making feathered-style ribbon lei for Kamehameha Schools’ song contest, and as a preschool teacher. Even though she lived in Kahului, where rain leaked into metal pots during the Makahiki winter months, we often found ourselves at Lahaina Cannery Mall for craft fairs. I would play Pokémon on my Gameboy and she would share family moʻolelo in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi about Lahaina. Tūtū sometimes mentioned her kāne, my great-grandfather, and plantation life in Lahaina. Once in a while we would run into my Nana, my great-grandmother on my Filipino side, Bentorada Domogma, who immigrated to Lahaina from the Philippines to work at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and at Baldwin Packers picking pineapple. Those moments together in Lahaina are a prized lei of memories which string together moʻolelo passed down by generations of makaʻāinana who have frequented this area.
In an article published in Ke Au Okoa on June 22, 1871, Puuhanau of Puakō provides an evocative description of the sights, people, and aesthetics of Lahaina. He recalls proverbs, place names, and stories of life in “ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele.”
He transports readers mauka, where the Hauola wind begins to hug the mountains, calmly rustling the leaves on groves of lehua, kou, ʻulu, wauke, kukui, niu, and tall maiʻa. Then, Puuhanau takes us to the surf at ʻUo that breaks with a cloak of rainbows from the Līhau rain. ʻUo, meaning a group of feathers for a lei or cloak, is the name of a famed surf break in Lahaina, just outside of Mākila. He notes the many waters of Auwaiawao tumble ocean-bound, enriching the many bays of Lahaina. Puuhanau mentions how ʻōpelu and kawakawa poke is so abundant they feed rumbling stomachs until the jaw unhinges. Mākila, the Maui-specific term for stringing lei, aptly describes the way Puuhanau also threads a lei of moʻolelo using the names of peaks, mountains, and rains; he does so in a way that recognizes Lahaina’s unique geography, ahupuaʻa system, and engineered waterways.
The rich landscape made it easy for kō ʻIhikapalaumaewa (the people of Maui) to recognize Lahaina as a central seat of power. The residences at Mokuola and Mokuhinia housed generations of akua, aliʻi, and makaʻāinana who shaped the region into a model for other lands across the archipelago. This persisted into the reigns of Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III, who recognized Lahaina as the capital of kō Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina, a site to incite their lāhui, their nationhood. Lahaina’s makaʻāinana also participated in governance, not hesitating to contest their aliʻi when necessary. For example, renowned scholar and historian Davida Malo contested Kamehameha III for encroaching on his home by sending the kingdom an invoice for cutting off some of his water and stepping on his plants to expand a new road. Likewise, ʻōlohe hula, ʻōlapa hula, and kumu hula of Lahaina often hosted performances and dedicated hula altars — a practice that endures to this day — despite a ban on public displays of hula as early as the 1830s.
In this current moment, Lahaina’s people maintain their love of their homeland, making clear they will fight against land and water theft, climate catastrophes, and uncivil government agents.
Lele became a foundation of education within the kingdom in the early nineteenth-century. In the 1820s, Lahaina’s makaʻāinana quickly established 51 schools, where wāhine scholars initially outnumbered kāne until the early missionaries recognized a need for an institution of higher education to privilege young men of piety. In 1831, Kuhina Nui Kaʻahumanu contributed to establishing Lahainaluna Seminary by offering a portion of land to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions at Puʻunau. The seminary began in hale pili, thatched houses, which eventually became the home of the earliest printing press. Lahainaluna scholars immediately began printing newspaper series which offered insights about life in Lele and beyond to readers across Hawaiʻi. The people of Lele had undergone the intimate rigor of subsistence living which appear in countless newspaper articles stringing extensive accounts of daily life embellished with site- and season-specific names for winds and rains like feathers bound to storied lei. Lahaina’s model for education galvanized other aliʻi to offer their lands for the purpose of educating makaʻāinana across kō Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina.
Even after the feathered cloaks departed Lele for Honolulu and new industries came to Lahaina, the makaʻāinana continued to be the mākila. The best sugar cane in all of Hawaiʻi came from Lahaina. Kānaka ʻŌiwi found early success in the crop but by the 1860s industrialized sugar planting and processing changed the demographics of the region. Pioneer Mill established itself as a sugar plantation company, and quickly incorporated Lahaina Sugar Company and the West Maui Sugar Company. But the plantation oligarchy of America did not take hold in Hawaiʻi until the later portion of the 19th century because Kānaka ʻŌiwi had ancestral ties to ʻāina that predated Western notions of property. Kānaka ʻŌiwi resisted working at sugar mills; instead, they owned grocery stores, farms, clothing stores, and liquor houses in the bustling town. Other Kānaka in Lahaina found themselves selling off portions of their loʻi and other ancestral lands to survive; some even became whalers or gold miners abroad. Pioneer Mill’s need for a workforce led to imported labor from other nations such as China, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Portugal.
Puuhanau would have seen first hand the political and agricultural changes of Lele over the course of his life. Yet, he completes his lei with a proud expression for Lahaina. He exclaims that Lahaina cannot compare to Kahiki, “Aohe hua kii i Kahiki, o Lahaina wale no ia walea ia! [There is no need to gather anything from Kahiki, Lahaina has all the pleasantries necessary!]” Here, Kahiki symbolizes all matters foreign: foreign ideologies, foreign land tenure systems, foreign foods, foreign language, and foreign pleasures. By asserting the abundance of Lahaina’s pleasantries, Puuhanau employs the tradition of ʻauʻa-refusal to all adventitious ways of thinking and being. The people of Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele activated lāhui where they saw fit, unfailing in reminding others of their authority over their beloved home.
The deep love for ʻāina and lāhui that the people of Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele have consistently shown is the cooling shade that provides relief from the undulating heat of Lahaina. Stories of life in Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele is a lei strung together over generations of ancestral resistance and tidalectics, an oceanic worldview that acknowledges the natural ebb and flow of our existence. In this current moment, the people of Lahaina maintain their love of their homeland, making clear that they will stay to fight against land and water theft, climate catastrophes, and uncivil government agents. Makaʻāinana of Lahaina remain steadfast lei-makers, stringing moʻolelo from Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele from the past into the present and planting seeds of ʻulu to ensure sovereignty for future generations of our lāhui. If that isn’t nationhood, then what is?