Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 2018. xix, 250 pp. (Maps, B&W photos, illustrations.) US$19.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-87071-922-6.
Mehana Blaich Vaughan tells a story of devastating loss for the Native Hawaiian communities of Haleleʻa and Koʻolau districts on Northeast Kauaʻi—loss of their land to rich outsiders, loss of access to the coast, fewer marine resources—but also a story of hope for them to maintain their connection to the place and its resources. The author moved to Kīlauea on the boundary between Haleleʻa and Koʻolau as a child of three. She calls herself a newcomer—not having been born to a family from there— but clearly she has become a member of the community. Her account is rich with stories shared with her by local elders and their children over a period of twenty years and with accounts from participating in community events.
The first part of the book describes the tightly woven local Hawaiian communities of the past, up to the mid-twentieth century. Much of the detail concerns fishing and marine resources, but the themes are general, among them respect for resources (fish choose whether to be caught or not), the custom to fish only at your home place, and the resulting intimate knowledge of that place. Her most important theme is kuleana, meaning both obligations and rights. The right to fish in your home place was/is based on the obligation to care for the resources, for example weeding the limu (seaweed) bed to help it flourish. Kuleana includes the obligation to take only what you need for your family and friends, and not to sell for profit. People had what they needed to live because they could produce their own food and because they shared. Those who fell on hard times were helped by others.
Vaughan’s account of subsistence and sharing echoes Davianna McGregor’s description (Nā Kuaʻāina: Living Hawaiian Culture, University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007) of rural Native Hawaiian communities that she calls cultural kīpuka, islands of Hawaiian culture that survived the onslaught of Western capitalism into the mid-twentieth century. Vaughan also echoes McGregor’s call for continued Hawaiian stewardship of those places to maintain Hawaiian culture and sustainable resource use, but her book is more focused on how that can be done.
The latter part of the book details the displacement of the Native Hawaiians of Haleleʻa and Koʻolau as the coast became a playground for wealthy outsider residents and tourists, and the efforts by those Hawaiians to maintain their ties to their place, continuing to care for it. At the end of the nineteenth century, the bulk of the land was owned by the Princeville Ranch and the Kilauea Sugar Plantation, although Native Hawaiian families still owned small plots of land for houselots or loʻi (pondfields for taro). When the ranch and plantation closed (1969 and 1971, respectively), their land was subdivided and sold off to wealthy outsiders. Land prices went up, property taxes went up, and many Hawaiians could no longer afford to pay the tax. They lost their land and had to move away. Fishing became more difficult as outsider owners closed access through their land to the coast and as increasing numbers of tourists and outsider residents used the ocean for recreation, scaring the fish away.
The author points to efforts by individual Hawaiians to maintain their kuleana to place, for example by continuing to fish the coast of the family area even while living elsewhere and then sharing the harvest with others who come from that area. Most importantly she describes the collective effort at Hāʻena ahupuaʻa, the local area at the far western end of Haleleʻa. In the 1960s the seaward portion of Hāʻena was condemned by the state for a park. Native Hawaiians from Hāʻena then formed an association, the Hui Makaʻāinana o Makana, open to all who could trace their genealogy at Hāʻena to before 1850. The group persuaded the state to grant them exclusive access to a portion of the park, where they restored the former loʻi and continue to grow taro. That area became a kīpuka (refuge) for the Hawaiians of Hāʻena, a place to gather, work, and camp, a place where they built community. Eventually it led to a movement to turn the fishing grounds of Hāʻena into a community-based subsistence fishing area (CBSFA) recognized by the state of Hawaiʻi, with fishing rules proposed by the community and enacted into state law in 2015. Vaughan celebrates this achievement, pointing out how much work it took to keep the community together during nine years of work with state officials; but she also points to the ways in which the rules are insufficient to protect the fishery for future subsistence fishing. In spite of the limited success of the rules enacted, Vaughan points to the importance of the community organization that developed, recognizing it as a foundation for local-level governance and a step toward Native Hawaiian sovereignty. She calls for the establishment in other ahupuaʻa of kīpuka like the Hāʻena loʻi area, as “centers for cultural and ecological replenishment” (177). In time they can connect, “regenerating collective kuleana across the landscape” (178).
Overall, the book is a joy to read, but there are minor flaws. The hand-drawn maps (13–14) look beautiful but are difficult to decipher, even with a magnifying glass. The discussion of the fishing rules enacted seems too limited. The rules are listed in an appendix, but the reader would get a better sense of them if a map of the Hāʻena CBSFA was included and the rules were related to the map.
Vaughan’s description of the evolution of the Hāʻena association is nicely detailed. She is persuasive in arguing that the Hāʻena Park loʻi area provided the focus for the community to solidify and in pointing to the political significance of the resulting organization. If Native Hawaiians are ever to achieve some form of sovereignty, it will require successful organization. It is probably easier to start at the local level and build up; statewide efforts have so far ended in recriminations. However, it may not be easy to replicate in other Hawaiian localities the community solidarity and fishing regime that were created at Hāʻena.
Charles M. Langlas
University of Hawaiʻi (retired), Hilo, USA