Honaunau Ola Mau Loa - Nov. 5
Saturday, November 5
Keoua Honaunau Canoe Club
2 – 6 pm
Special Guests
TE VAKA
World-famous South Pacific music group
Music • Dancing • Food • Kava Bar • Silent Auction • Information Booths
Honaunau: Facing Future, Seeing Past
Please join us on Nov. 5 & 6 at Honaunau Bay for a weekend of activities honoring Honaunau – learning about its past through the eyes of its kupuna, and imagining its future through the eyes of those who will come after us.
Honaunau Ola Mau Loa with TE VAKA on Nov. 5, from 2-6 p.m., is the launch of a community visioning project with the intention of creating a community- and Hawaiian values-based resource and land management plan for our precious ‘aina and all of the cultural, historic, spiritual and life-giving treasures that it holds within its lands and waters. Come learn more about the project, enjoy an afternoon by Honaunau Bay, and dance to the awesome music of TE VAKA, the world-renowned Pacific Island music group.
Also part of the event will be a silent auction to benefit a member of our paddling community who is faced with a very serious medical condition – and no medical insurance.
This event is presented by Keoua Honaunau Canoe Club and sponsored by ‘Apono Hawai‘i and Pasifika Foundation Hawai‘i. For more info: acurrie@hawaii.rr.com
Also, on Sunday, Nov. 6, from 3-6 p.m., Kukakuka O Honaunau is a very special talk-story gathering that will bring together kupuna of Honaunau along with Danny Kaniela Akaka, Jr. for an afternoon of sharing stories about the old days in Honaunau.
This event is presented by Ka ‘Ohana O Honaunau/Kukulukumuhana O Honaunau and sponsored by Hui Kuapa (Friends of the Future), Ala Kahakai Trail Association and the National Park Foundation through the generous support of Lowes Charitable Education Foundation, the Anschutz Foundation and the Ahmanson Foundation. For more info: bnavas@hawaiiantel.net
Honaunau Ola Mau Loa – project background
The sacred coastal lands of Honaunau – from the Pu‘uhonua O Honaunau National Historic Park to Kealakekua Bay – are home to a unique and precious array of cultural, historical and natural resources.
In this area, there exists the Pu‘uhonua itself – an ancient “place of refuge” – one of the very few such places that existed in old Hawai‘i, and the only one that has been restored and can be visited today.
We also find the tiny village community of Honaunau, with no electricity (by choice of the residents), where dozens of local Hawaiian fisherman put out to sea each day.
The sacred waters of Honaunau Bay, adjacent to the Pu‘uhonua and Honaunau Village, is a pristine body of water fed by cold-water underground springs. The bay’s tidepools and foreshore harbor a rich variety of marine biota, including several kinds of limu (seaweed) that support a significant population of honu (Hawaiian green sea turtle). Dolphins regularly come into the shallow sandy part of the bay to rest and socialize during the day. Honaunau Bay has some of the most varied and extensive shallow-water coral gardens in Hawai‘i.
Based here at Honaunau Bay is Keoua Honaunau Canoe Club, one of Hawai‘i Island’s oldest canoe clubs and one which is dedicated to its mission to “perpetuate the ancient art and culture of Hawaiian outrigger canoe paddling as traditionally practiced on historic Honaunau Bay.”
Further north is the historical site of the Battle of Moku‘ohai, fought in 1782, which was a key battle in the early days of Kamehameha I’s effort to conquer the Hawaiian Islands.
A little ways mauka (upslope) is the paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) community centered at the Honaunau Rodeo Grounds, the last (and much-loved) vestiges of this area’s ranching tradition.
Queen Lili‘oukalani Children’s Center runs an educational program on coastal lands on the northern side of Honaunau Bay, and in the village of Honaunau the organization Ka ‘Ohana O Honaunau operates the Kukulukumuhana O Honaunau keiki program, teaching area youth about stewardship of Honaunau’s coastal shoreline.
Currently, these and other groups and organizations in the community are in the process of creating an alliance to explore ways to create a proactive, Hawaiian values and culture-based resource management and land use plan for their cherished community and its ‘aina.
On Nov. 5th, Please join us for a beautiful afternoon at Honaunau Bay and learn more about the HONAUNAU OLA MAU LOA community visioning project – and enjoy the incomparable music of Te Vaka!
Te Vaka is Pasifika’s most beloved band, whose work has been termed “Pacific Fusion.” The musicians and dancers come from Tokelau, Tuvalu, Samoa, Cook Islands and Aotearoa, together under the leadership of Opetaia Foa‘i, a truly inspired songwriter. In the Pacific islands and worldwide, they regularly play to audiences of 5,000 to 10,000 people.
The name Te Vaka means, of course, “the canoe.” Winners of many music awards, Te Vaka’s musical statements reflect both a rich Polynesian heritage and Te Vaka’s deep concerns about the social and environmental issues facing all those islanders inhabiting our “Blue Continent” – from Hawai‘i to Aotearoa, from Papua to Tahiti – all of us linked by the oceanic pathways still traveled by voyaging canoes.
The event is presented by Keoua Honaunau Canoe Club and is sponsored by ‘Apono Hawai‘i and Pasifika Foundation Hawai‘i.