Maika‘i ‘o Hā‘upu

Kipi Brown

I finished this mele on a rainy morning at Niumalu Park, Kauaʻi, in the shadow of what the tour industry has identified for years as Queen Victoria shaking a finger at her errant son and admonishing him with a stern, “Now, Willie-Willie.” The mele was composed in response to these and other abuses visited by the poʻe ʻē upon Hāʻupu Ridge and the cliff-face of Hinaiuka, to wit: the construction on Hāʻupu of the Stangl Broadcasting Co.’s 250 foot, red and white radio tower, "complete with a constantly blinking red light" (Ka Wai Ola o OHA, Mei 1998). The tower was completed in March 1998 in spite of community opposition and the Federal Communication Commission's apparent failure to examine the process by which a state agency approved of Stangl’s project "without adequate community notice" and without apparent regard to the FCC’s own "non-negotiable duty" to protect traditional Native Hawaiian sites from intrusive development. Verse four of the mele addresses the opportunistic mentality of these developers: they are mound-perching kōlea who have adorned Hāʻupu with a "hat pin." Verse five addresses the flawed political process by which the tower was approved: the "arranging of kauila trees at Puʻukapele" is Samuel Kamakau’s metaphor for a government that loses track of its own power and accountability. Verse six confirms the traditional relationship between Hāʻupu and its people. And verse seven speaks of aloha ʻāina, the "thing" that will not go away, that persists unabated: our love for the land.

© Kipi Brown, 1998