Morse, Stephen K.

English

ScholarSpace at University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Comics F4 F Names and Faces F2 Classified ads FS-12 Molokai 1110 Pl Hale o t.ono lP@@lli]@/exploring molokai ~yle Molokai Style la the latest Honolulu Advertiser-sponsored trek around an Island. Groups previously have hiked around HawaH, Lanai. Tahiti, Moorea and Maul. This time, Hawaiian activ-ists and Molokai residents Join land• owners, business figures and Adver• tlaer hikers for a 10.day trip around the Island. Reports from two perspec--tivea are presented - one by Adver-tiser columnist Bob Krauss and the other by Stephen Morse, a part• Hawaiian and writer-In-residence for the Office of Hawalfan Affairs. These stories were written Monday night at Halena Beach. Ar• aof m•~ Kaunakakai Moonlight and a beach -politics, Molokai style By Stephen K. Morse Special lo Tl1e Adllerlirer HALENA BEACH - Moloka'i Ranch, t:he island's largest landowner, is no ~anger just a cattle operation. It has diversified its interests now. Among its interests is the real estate business. Over 10 years ago, it sold approximately 6,000 acres of land on the west end of the island to the Louisiana Land and Explora-tion Co., which formed a subsidiary called the Kaluakoi Corp. The Sheraton Moloka'i Hotel and the adjacent condominiums on Papohaku Beach represent Kaluakoi's first increment in its long-range development plans. Kaluakoi ·and its joint venture partner, Kam & Associates, a contracting firm, have now applied for a special managemen t area (SMA) permit from Maui County to con-struct a second resort-condominium com-plex at Kawakiu Beach. Just north of the Sheraton Moloka'1 and the site of our sec-ond overn ig ht stop an Moloka'l Sty~e. mg party, and afterwards we gathered on the beach for a moonlight session on land politics, Moloka'i style. ''The. site needs to be tested," said our walking archaeologist, Glenn Nanod, in reference to the archaeological significance of Kawak1u. "The developer hired an archa-eological consultant from Kaua'i to do a survey. but they missed many sites." He .pointed to a location mauka of the beach where he knew of a burial cave. He went on to chastise the consulting firm for what he politely called "non-standard archaeolog-ical behavior." Emmett Aluli, a practicing physician on Moloka'i in addition to his work with the Ohana, added that their contested case hearing against Kaluakoi's application for an SMA was the first time the Society of Hawaiian Archaeologists had publicly criti-cized an independent archaeological survey. "Economics," said Colette Machado, the Alu Like organization's representative on Moloka'i, when asked by a member of the group how Kaluakoi's application had been . ' . our walk to Hale o Lano on the southwest end of the island. Our course took us onto the 13th fairway of the Sheraton Moloka'1 golf course, where we made a frontal as-sault on the green and the restroom facili-ties behind. After three days of digging our luas in the bushes, the restroom was a "re-lieving" site for some. Back down towards Papohaku Beach, Glenn Nanod pointed out a distinctive pu'u (hill) right on the beach . "It was the site of a large helau. Sometime during the '60s, the military leveled it and built a viewing plat.-form for amphibio~s and air maneuvers 1t was conducting at Papohaku," he said. Papohaku Beach is, perhaps , one of the longest of white sand l:'ieaches in the Hawaiian chain. HC&E> conducted sand mining at the beach for some time unlll it was x,uled illegal in a classic environmental suit filed by the Life of the Land organiza-tion in the mid-'70s. During the sand~mining, trucks hauled the sand from Papohaku to Hale o Lano, our destination for the day, where 1t was l'roper'V of,us1tA1"'. N\C SiUO\\:S · · A\l £i\-1, \T'!' () ,· HA\~ uNNERS , The Honolulu Advertiser Wednesday , September 1, 1982 the development at Kawakiu. One of the most vocal and active groups agamst the project 1s Hui Alaloa, a loose-knit organiza-tion of residents whose founders included OBA Tr-ustee Walter Rttte, Protect Kahoo-lawe Ohana leader Emmett Aluli, and Judy Napoleon, a community worker on the is--land. Commission. "Del Monte was phasing out its pineapple operations in Maunaloa, and despite the social, archaeological, and envi-rorunental data we presented at the public hearings against the application, the com-mission felt the resort-condominium proJect was needed to boost Moloka'i's economy." The com1ensus of the Moloka'i residents present was that their legal battle to stop the development. will continue and if any-thing, Kawakiu should become pa,r,t of a wilderness park. We slept on the beach during the night . Moloka'i Ranch's jeep roads to Kaupoa, where we made a rest stop at the ranch's guest quarters for members of its private hunting and fishing club, and then to La'au Point. There the jeep roads ended, so, for the next several hours, we had to make like a'ama crabs, bugging the coastline, scrambling over the large boulders along the rocky coast lookmg for where the road would start again. When we finally found the road and reached Hale o Leno, we were told we would be staying overnight at Halena Beach, another mile or so to the east. Pnoto,i by Tom Collman Through lhe efforts of Hui Alaloa, which means group of trails, and with the guid-ance of its kupuna advisers, public access to Kawakiu Beach was reopened In 1976 after years of bemg closed by Moloka'i Ranch. Their efforts included a protest march from lhe main road near Maunaloa to the beach, and negotiations with county and Moloka'1 Ranch officials. Last mght. at Kawakiu, Hui Alaloa hosted a pa'ina (small dinner party) for our travel-We decided t.o leave the shelter of the k1awe trees to the centipedes, which made frequent appearances in and around our sleeping bags. This morning, despite knees, ankles, and feet that needed overhauling, we started At that point, members of the group sug-gested that I retract a statement I had made in an. earlier article about this hike not being a test of physical endurance. My body couldn't agree with them more. Archaeologist Glenn Nanod inspects an old home site at Kawakiu . Above, some of the hikers find easy going on the 13th fairway of the Sheraton Molokai's golf course. · Respect grows when s,µspicion fades By Bob Krauss Adi:tttittr Columnill HALENA - It's beginning to work, the concept that people who walk to-gether learn about one another and '-fm1ld up understanding, respect and even admiration. But it isn't easy. Understanding and respect are bullt on sunburn and blisters. It doesn't happen in a day. That's probably why Molokai Style, this hike around the Friendly Island, is only now beginning to accomplish that purpose. It began Sunday night in the lamp-light under a kiawe tree on Kawakiu Beach. Nearly two dozen people sat on the sand in a circle. Most of them are young and part-Hawaiian. About the only haoles there were Thurston Twigg-Smith, publisher of The Adver-tiser, and myself. · That's the major limitation of Molo-kai Style so far. The establishment haoles of this island have not raised any blisters with us or gotten any sunburn. These young Hawaiians have . Mon-day night they told us what Kawakiu Beach means to them. It's a Molokai "Wounded Knee," the local Waiahole-Waikane ·controversy, the rallying point. The beach was shut off from acces!:i until a group of Hawaiians marched ' there from Moomomi several years ago. They were organized by an activ-ist group called Hui Alaloa. Under that kiawe tree, Twigg and I got both barrels from Hui Alaloa's most articulate spokesperson, Colette Machado Then we got it from their intellectual leader, Dr. Emmett Aluli. The message is that Hui Alaloa . wants Kawakiu Beach to remain as 1t is, not to be the anchor of a con-dominium development that is making its way through the Maui County bu-A budding ohana, Molokai Style: morning prayer at Kawakiu. reaucracy. We talked for a long time. Twigg said the best way to preserve a histor-ic place like Kawakiu is to convince a developer it is in his economic interest to do so. The Kawakiu issue did not get solv-ed. But something happened. Several layers of suspicion were removed. We all understood a little better how the others felt. The next day I learned more about Molokai than I ever knew before. Take Walter Ritte, one of Molokai's leading activists, trustee of lhe Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a leader of Hui Alaloa. He's a descendant of Kipikane, the daughter of Kamehameha I who married rancher John Parker. Kipikane mea,ns "The Rebel." One ). of the Parker girls married a Hawanan and was disowned by her father . She doesn't even have a tombstone. 0 'The Purdys came from that line," said Walter as we strode along a Molokai red dirt trail through the kiawe toward Laau Pmnt. "They were cowboys, hunter . . "I've hunted Slnce I was 12." Hunting on Molokai meanc; deer . , And most of the deer are on Molokai Ranch land. Hunting Molokai Ranch deer is poaching unless you have per-mission, and Walter seldom bothered · to get permission in the days he hunt-ed for a living. "How did you avoid the Molokai Ranch enforcers?" asked one of the hikers. "That's half the fun," said Walter. "I've hunted right under their noses. I love it. I go where the deer go." He also goes where the action 1s in the Hawaiian movement HP's a mover, a driver who under-staQds how to get things done, how to make things work, someone who has little pallence with bureaucracy and a lot of understanding about people. Emmett Aluli is another sort. He's a young medical doctor who wore a bathing suit and bare feet (except for go-aheads over cliffs) during. 19 miles of hiking from Kawakiu past Hale o Lono to Halena. He told me his story while we were walking under a blazmg sun, dodgmg - rocks in the road and kicking up dust. ''I was domg work in New Mexico, outreach ." he explained. "It was natu-ral for me to come back and work among the Hawaiians. "I decided to pick e\ther Ka'u on Hawaii, Hana on Maui or Molokai m which to practice (all rural areas). Molokai really struck me because of its clanty. People were developjng a life-style of subsistence off the land which is very Hawaiian. "I think Waiahole Waikane was a social reason for protest. Molokai 1s the cultural reason. There was so much to learn from the kupunas and the brothers . "I came for three or four years and I've stayed for seven or eight." Tomorrow: 25 miles to One Alii Park. ( 

Moonlight and a beach -- politics, Molokai style

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Moonlight and a beach -- politics, Molokai style

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