Hokule‘a stops off in Canada to honor Mohawk community
Continuing its Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage, the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hokule‘a made a stop at the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake in Canada last week to meet with Mohawk leaders and to acknowledge the indigenous community’s influence on language immersion efforts in Hawaii.
Joining the Hokule‘a crew were Kauanoe Kamana and other founding board members of Aha Punana Leo, the Native Hawaiian nonprofit organization that first established Hawaiian language immersion schools in Hawaii in the 1980s.
Kamana addressed both groups in Hawaiian. An English translation of Kamana’s remarks provided by the Polynesian Voyaging Society read in part: “The connection between our work in language revitalization and the pursuits of our wa‘a (canoe) Hokule‘a have to do with the fact that we set out with our work, prepared and with a strong resolve to succeed as best as we can. But we don’t know what the result will be until we actually arrive.”
Mohawk community member Dorothy Lazore helped establish the Mohawk language immersion program in Kahnawake that served as a model for Aha Punana Leo and helped to lobby the Hawaii Board of Education on behalf of the proposed program in its earliest days.
The two groups met Wednesday at the Kanonsonnionwe Long House and exchanged gifts and songs in their native languages. Kalepa Baybayan, captain of the current leg of Hokule‘a’s journey, presented Kanentokon Hemlock, bear clan chief of the Kanonsonnionwe Long House, with a traditional Hawaiian kahili.
“As you were telling us just how we helped you and how we were an inspiration for your people, and how our teachers went out to help you to revitalize what could have been lost in one generation or in two — it’s interesting because you inspire us,” Hemlock said. “We look to you. We follow your inspiration, too, in all the work you have been doing in your land.”
The Hokule‘a passed through the 34th lock of the St. Lawrence river near Montreal to reach Kahnawake, the first marina within a native reserve at which the canoe has docked.
On Sunday, the Hokule‘a traveled along the southwestern shore of Lake Champlain in Chambly Fort, Quebec, en route to Westport, N.Y.
One response to “Hokule‘a stops off in Canada to honor Mohawk community”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Verbalism, as in neglecting to use the legal term, and it is small n native Hawaiian, meaning 50-100 percent BQ, the nearest kinship group to the 1778 Hawaiians, and instead using the word indigenous as part of the PR campaign to conflate Hawaiians with native Hawaiians using the term capital N Native Hawaiian and the term indigenous still does not alter the legal fact that the native Hawaiian is federally recognized as singled out by Congress. the capital N Native Hawaiian is a state majority population construct. Now both could co-exist as long as the state would stop obstructing the inherent rights of the federally group, including its right to speak its own language without assistance from the state. KsBE is a missionary school that started life as a copy of the typical Indian mission school of the day. It is now a political force that works in support of the vast commercial empire of the insiders who run it.