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Decolonizing the Mind as an Exercise of Ea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2023
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Native Hawaiians believe that every person is born with a bowl of perfect light. It is in our bowl of perfect light that our mana or supernatural divine power grows in strength to gift us the capacity to defy what we've been indoctrinated to believe. While we alone place stones into our bowl of light, the effect of colonization is that we become weighed down by illusions and fallacies created by colonizers to compel us to betray our light. When we choose to grow our light, however, only a simple overturning of the bowl releases the stones. After the stones are released, our bowl of light can once more become free.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by International Association of Law Libraries
Footnotes
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JD, LLM, and Doctor of Juridical Science candidate in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Mahalo piha to my advisor, Professor Rebecca Tsosie, for her invaluable wisdom and guidance.
References
1 CJS INTERNLAW § 5 (2023).
2 CJS INTERNLAW § 5 (2023).
3 CJS INTERNLAW § 5 (2023).
4 Dr. Trask, Haunani-Kay, Settlers of Color and “Immigrant” Hegemony: Locals in Hawai'i, 26 Amerasia J. 1, 24 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “But as a people, Hawaiians remain a politically subordinated group suffering all the legacies of conquest: landlessness, disastrous health, diaspora, institutionalization in the military and prisons, poor educational attainment, and confinement to the service sector of employment.”
5 One of our most important cultural beliefs is mālama i ka 'āina, which means to respect or care for the land.
6 Freedom for our land must include Native Hawaiians remaining on the land. Just as we need our land to live, our land needs us there to survive as well. We are both aspects of the same as one cannot exist without the other.
7 Ea, Hawaiian English Dictionary, (5th ed. 1986).
8 Tsosie, Rebecca, Reclaiming Native Stories: An Essay on Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Rights, 34 Ariz. St. L.J. 299 (2002)Google Scholar.
9 Pono, Hawaiian English Dictionary, (5th ed. 1986): “‘Pono’ refers to that which is right, proper, or good, or exemplifies balance, goodness, morality, excellence, and well-being.”
10 Rubellite K. Johnson, Religion Section of Native Hawaiians Study Commission Report (Office of Hawaiian Affairs, February 1983) pp. 225–250; The conceptual framework for the Ola (life) Triangle – that stems from the Lōkahi (unity) Triangle – articulates Native Hawaiian spirituality by utilizing a triangle to show the necessity of unity and harmonious balance regarding the three bodies: mind, body, and spirit.
11 It's imperative to recognize that although we are all human, our needs may not be the same. For Native Hawaiians, there are spiritual aspects of living that must be addressed to live a full life. Our cultural practices inform our spiritual beliefs and vice versa. This is not the same for non-Indigenous Peoples as their spiritual and cultural beliefs are often not one and the same. The result of this difference in beliefs means that colonization cannot and does not account for spirituality as being integral to living a life of well-being.
12 Silva, Noenoe K., Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004)Google Scholar: Per Dr. Silva, the banning of the Native Hawaiian language and culture resulted in many Native Hawaiians being unable to read the expansive literature of resistance in our mother tongue that expressed heartfelt opposition against colonization: “Songs, poems, and stories with the potential for kaona, or ‘hidden meanings,’ presented ever greater opportunities to express anticolonial sentiments. People made use of these forms, and they created and maintained their national solidarity through [the] publication of these and more overtly political essays in newspapers…there is no access to this body of thought except through the Hawaiian language.”
13 Trask, Haunani-Kay, From A Native Daughter, 2nd ed (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Id. at 251.
15 Id.
16 Riley, Lorinda, Ke ala i ka Mauliola: Native Hawaiian Youth Experiences with Historical Trauma, 34 Am. Indian L. Rev. 123 (2010)Google Scholar.
17 Id. at 1.
18 Id.
19 Id. at 27.
20 Id.
21 Trask, supra note 13 at 251.
22 Id. at 42.
23 Id.
24 Id.
25 Id.
26 In this context of decolonizing the mind, the pursuit of knowledge entails the building of ideology from the Native Hawaiian perspective, as well as from the perspective of other racialized peoples outside of the classroom. It involves the centering of our lived experiences and the centering of Native Hawaiian values.
27 With every new generation, we become that much closer to liberation. Yet, due to systemic and structural racism, the extent to which we can be free will always be unduly constrained. Until the system is dismantled, we will always be subjugated and continuously indoctrinated into colonialism in all its forms. This does not mean that we cannot be free, but that we are stymied from reaching true liberation if the current systems and structures of power are maintained. Although the goal will always be true liberation, the gift of pursuing liberation in every generation is that we become a little freer than we were before albeit not the true liberation we innately deserve.
28 Johnson, supra note 10.
29 Id.
30 Id.
31 Crabbe, Nainoa, et al., Mana Lāhui Kānaka (Honolulu: Kamehameha Publishing, 2017).
32 Id. at 23.
33 Id.
34 Mary Kawena Pūku‘i, Lawrence Kalainaina Haertig & Catherine A. Lee, Nānā i ke Kumu, Look to the Source, Vol. 1 (Honolulu: Hui Hanai, 1972); Mana is not linear nor static which means it can be enhanced and also diminished.
35 Although I utilize the word “reclamation,” I do so through the lens of unearthing that which has always been as opposed to the process of claiming back something that has been lost. I choose to utilize this lens of perspective as we can never be fully severed from our ancestors, our cultures, our lands, our languages, and anything else that colonization seeks for us to perceive as “lost.” That is the deception of white supremacy because it detracts from the innate power of us as Indigenous Peoples. Therefore, we need not repair a connection that has been severed but excavate our connection from all that colonization has done to hide it from us.
36 Willis, Koko & Lee, Pali Jae, Tales From the Night Rainbow (Honolulu: Bess Press, 1994)Google Scholar: “Help was given to us in many ways. Our spirit family – who knew the way of the light so well, and knew the power and the problem of the stones – they blessed us, surrounded us with love, their light, and gave us dreams to help us understand and to learn, watched us fall on our faces, helped us up, and started us on the pathway of light again, and again, and again.”
37 Id. at 46: “We were taught also in things we had always known, but had not been taught. These were called 'ohana knowledge. These were things we had brought with us from other lifetimes. We studied ourselves and why we had returned at this special time and place. Each person's lesson was different at this time. Each of us was her own teacher. We had to go into ourselves for every answer.”
38 Crabbe, Nainoa, et al., supra note 31 at 38; Just as mana is not static, nor is kuleana static: “An individual had multiple and simultaneous kuleana to the land, to his or her family, to the community, and to the gods. Fulfilling kuleana by acting in pono ways was considered an important way for Native Hawaiians to maintain and enhance mana. Failing to act in pono ways, or failing to fulfill a kuleana, would result in diminished mana. As such, much of the foundation of ancient Hawaiian spirituality and morality consisted of the mediation, negotiation, and actualization of pono and kuleana in daily life with respect to their effects on the mana of kānaka.”
39 Id.
40 Tsosie, supra note 8.