by Juliana Sebben 

Under a hot Hawaiian sun in Kaua’i’s Waimea Valley, small hands are at work. Amidst the red of canyon walls and blue of cloudless skies, they grasp green nylon ropes and pull them tightly against wood which has been collected from surrounding areas and shaped so that it can be notched together. The children sit on wooden-runged scaffolds that they built themselves, flocked like birds on a wire. Bare feet dangling above the heads of peers below, they put to test what they’ve been practicing all summer: lashing together a hale. 

Open walls and thatched roofs characterize the indigenous architecture that West Kaua’i’s youth have found themselves replicating as part of Kumano I Ke Ala’s summer program. Translating to house in English, the hale was much more than that to native Hawaiians, helping to also organize society -- there was the hale noa, in which men and women could mix freely; the hale kuke, where meals were prepared; the hale ʻāina, where women and children ate; and the hale pe’a, where women stayed during menstruation. 

However significant to Hawaiian culture, the hale began vanishing from the land with the advent of colonization in the seventeen- and eighteen-hundreds. Two hundred years after first Western-contact, it was all but gone -- along with much of the Hawaiian language, which was banned after the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893 along with many other significant components of Hawaiian heritage. 

Preventing further loss is part of the mission of Kumano I Ke Ala, a non-profit organization founded by Kaina Makua. Committed to Hawaiian values of aloha ʻāina (love of the land), kuleana (personal responsibility), maiau (attention to detail), and laulima (collaboration), Makua works to reconnect Kaua’i’s youth to practices that will foster a strong work ethic and set them up for future success. This summer, he has them building hale. 

“In hale, you learn so many different things,” Makua says. “Not only mathematics and measurements, but these foundational components that are crucial to the existence and efficiency of humans.” 

Hale building requires the “many hands” that laulima stands for, the understanding of one’s kuleana, or personal role, and the tedious, careful craftsmanship of maiau. A practice which entails the collecting of wood, piling of rocks and harvesting of loulu (palm leaves). It also brings one into intimate contact with the land, helping to build a culture of aloha ʻāina, which Makua says is perhaps most important of all. 

“The land is something that is very important and dear to our existence as human beings, not just as Hawaiians,” he says. “It’s obvious when you look at some countries, which ones have lost their connection toʻāina. They’ve lost themselves; they’ve forgotten how simple life can be.”  

Connection to indigenous traditions, Makua insists, is necessary to retain our  connection to the land. “We’ve got to keep pushing these efforts of cultural identity and perpetuate the ways that we’ve been taught.” 

And so, while some kids spend their summers playing video games or watching TV, the many youths that pass through Kumano I Ke Ala callus their palms on wood and ropes, practice Hawaiian language and find the support of a community eager to see them succeed. 

“As I’ve been reflecting more than ever before,” Makua muses, “I feel like our program is for prevention -- all the problems we have in Hawaii with drugs, alcoholism and homelessness I think can be prevented by the work we do because of the foundation we help our kids build.”

At the end of the work day, the kids clamber off the scaffolds, swinging themselves down from the beams. Smudged with sweat and dirt, they’re herded across the street to the Waimea River to swim. It’s the same river that Captain Cook came upon in the 1770s when he arrived in a valley which he declared to be “the most pristine land he’d ever seen”. 

The kids shriek with joy in the water, breaking the glittering surface with cannon-ball bodies. The two hales they built this summer rise from the earth behind them, as much a part of the land as the trees which arch along the shoreline. Altogether, the scene is a simultaneous vision of future and past -- a moment of homage, a picture of hope. Buoyed by the wisdom of a culture safe kept despite so many threats to its existence, the kids of Kumano I Ke Ala emerge from the depths and float.