The internationally known ‘Aha Punana Leo, Inc. is a non-profit organization which was established in 1983 to revitalize the nearly extinct Hawaiian language and establish schools taught entirely through that language. The following year, the organization founded the first Punana Leo school which was also the first Native American language immersion school in the United States. After the Punana Leo families changed an 1896 law banning Hawaiian language schools, the Punan...

The long-awaited third edition of the Atlas of Hawai'i is entirely revised in content and design. It is divided into six sections, five of which are abundantly illustrated. The first contains detailed reference maps with place names for towns, mountains, bays, harbors, and other features; geographical descriptions of the state and the main islands; and an introduction to Hawaiian place names. This is followed by four sections on the physical, biotic, cultural, and social...

Eo e ku'u lei mokupuni o na kai 'ewalu- I call to you, acknowledge O my lei islands of the eight seas. Located between 19 and 22 degrees north latitude, Hawai'i is the southernmost state in the United States and has the same general latitude as Hong Kong and Mexico City. It is situated almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean and is one of the most isolated yet populous places on Earth. The west coast of North America, for example, is 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) fr...

Olioli na kanaka a pau ke nanaku i na mea kupaianaha. Ina ike kakou i ka hale hou, he hale nunui, ano e, a me ka hanohano loa, olioli ka naau me ka mahalo. Pela no ke ike i ka moku nani, holo, ane e, e like me ka moku ahu, olioli ka naau me ka mahalo. Ina hoi ike kakou i ka aina ino, pilipali, nahelehele, aa, a ua hanaia ua aina la a maikai, ua paa i ka pa, ua mahiia, a ua uliuli i na mea kanu, e like me ke ko, kalo, kulina, uala, kofe, olioli no hoi ka naau ke nana ae....

Ua hanau o Puaailiki ma Waikapu ma Maui, he kulanakauhale ma kahi kokoke i Wailuku. Aole akaka lea ka makahiki o kona hanau ana. Ua manao ia i ka makahiki paha o ka Haku 1785. Ua olelo ia ma ka Mooolelo o Hawaii, i kona wa komalii uuku, ua eliia kona lua kupapau e kona makuwahine, a ma-nao oia e hoolei i kana keiki iloko, aka, ua hoo pakeleia ia i kekahi makamaka. No ke Akua kona pakele. Ua akaka lea, ua hanau ia o Puaaiki i ka wa pouli loa. Aoleikeia ke Akua oiaio, ia m...

Why after thirty years, should Beckwith’s Hawaiian Mythology be reprinted? Why, for the last twenty-five years, have scholars and amateurs alike sought for either new or used copies of this book which has become a rarity? To begin with, it was the first, and is still the only, scholarly work which charts a pathway through the hundreds of books and articles, many of them obscure and scarce, and through the little-known manuscripts that record the orally transmitted myths,...

This guide to the native mythology of Hawaii has grown out of a childhood and youth spent within sound of the hula drum at the foot of the domelike House of the Sun on the windy island of Maui. There, wandering along its rocky coast and sandy beaches, exploring its windward gorges, riding above the cliffs by moonlight when the surf was high or into the deep forests at midday, we were aware always of a life just out of reach of us latecomers but lived intensely by the kin...

The Kumulipo (“Beginning-in-deep-darkness”) is the sacred creation chant of a family of Hawaiian alii, or ruling chiefs. Composed and transmitted entirely in the oral tradition, its two thousand lines provide an extended genealogy proving the family’s divine origin and tracing the family history from the begging of the world. This chant remains as an authentic work or primitive literature. Moreover, it is one of the principal sources of information on Hawaiian mythology,...

Twenty years have passed since the publication of Martha Warren Beckwith?s translation and extended annotation of the Kumulipo, a Hawaiian cosmogonic and genealogical chant. When it appeared in 1951 she was celebrating her eightieth birthday. Except for one or two brief notes published during the remaining eight years of her life, the book about the Kumulipo was her last publication. It was the crown of over forty-five years of intensive research in the folklore of many ...