Soul on Tap: Cultural Resources of Hawai‘i
Hawai‘i’s spirit can be found, and accessed more easily than ever, in our cultural repositories. Here are some resources.
Bishop Museum’s Hawaiian Hall tells stories of pre-contact Hawai‘i; the life and work of its everyday people, and their environment; and of the gods, ali‘i and historic milestones. Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
Bishop Museum
“Our collections are simply vessels for incredible stories of Hawai‘i and the Pacific. We hand down our stories about this place and our place in it,” Dee Jay Mailer, the museum’s president and CEO, says. “When you enter the front gallery, you see glorious pieces of arts and crafts, finely woven, carved, painted or feathered kāhili standing 10 feet tall. And right with them are videos of kūpuna and haumāna who made them, telling their intergenerational stories to all who visit, who will later tell our stories as well.”
1525 Bernice St., bishopmuseum.org, @bishopmuseum
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Hawaiian newspapers
A mother lode of 2 million pages of Native Hawaiian language newspaper stories from 1834 to 1948 has been put together thanks to Ho‘olaupa‘i, a translation project led by Puakea Nogelmeier. Visit the site, and you’ll come away refreshed by the richness of local life.
Local authors
Storytelling is soul. Pick up the publishing collective Bamboo Ridge, founded by Eric Chock and Darrell Lum, whose 45th anniversary volume comes out this month—a 400-plus page tribute to our flourishing local literary scene.
What else to read? Lee Tonouchi’s new anthology of Hawai‘i Okinawan writing, Chiburu. Three books that address loss of connection and erosion of culture are Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s short story collection Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare, Jessica Machado’s memoir Local, and Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes’ multigenerational novel Hula. Eugenics comes into play in Chris McKinney’s Water City Trilogy, which warns of a Hawai‘i out of Blade Runner if we don’t get our act together.
SEE ALSO: 5 Books Local Authors Couldn’t Get Enough of in 2023
Hawai‘i music
Kilin Reece of the Kealakai Center for Pacific Strings worked for seven years with Raiatea Helm to select, produce and record A Legacy of Hawaiian Song & String, a CD of rarities from Queen Lili‘uokalani’s era, restored to their full stringed glory and gorgeously sung by Helm. “We approach all of the music historically, putting the language and Hawaiian voice at the center,” Reece says. “There’s a strong story to be told, a long running commentary on Hawaiian knowledge, passed on by mele—it’s a direct descendant of the old tradition.” Read up on the songs’s histories at kcpstrings.com.
