Remembering Our Intimacies: Mo'olelo, Aloha 'Āina, and Ea by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio (review)
2023; University of Minnesota Press; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/nai.2023.a904190
ISSN2332-127X
Tópico(s)Asian American and Pacific Histories
ResumoReviewed by: Remembering Our Intimacies: Mo'olelo, Aloha 'Āina, and Ea by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio Michael David Kaulana Ing (bio) Remembering Our Intimacies: Mo'olelo, Aloha 'Āina, and Ea by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio University of Minnesota Press, 2021 this is a beautiful book. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a leader in the newest generation of Indigenous scholars articulating what it means to be Indigenous (in her case, Kanaka—Hawaiian) in the contemporary world. The pages of her book (re)member the past to show how relationality for Kanaka was unraveled by colonial projects and, more importantly, how relations might be rewoven into an 'upena (net) that binds together human beings as well as the places and other beings that inhabit the world. Osorio accomplishes these goals in just over two hundred pages that are equal parts literary analysis, theoretical engagement, personal narrative, and poetry. The result sets the stage for future Kanaka scholarship. Osorio centers the mo'olelo (story, account, history) of Pele and her family as they move to the islands that become known as Hawai'i and settle on the island of Hawai'i. Pele is the akua (deity) associated with volcanic activity. Pele's kāne (male lover) resides on the island of Kaua'i, so she sends her favorite (and youngest) sister, Hi'iakaikapoliopele (Hi'iaka in the bosom of Pele) to bring him to her. The mo'olelo reccounts Hi'iaka's journey from the island of Hawai'i to Kaua'i and back, accompanied by friends (and lovers) and their encounters with others that challenge them in various ways. The story is one of intimacy—with other people and with the lands they are from and travel through. Osorio engages in an "intimate and intense practice of reading, analysis, and interpretation" to discover a series of ha'awina (lessons) (16). Part of her goal is to encourage Kanaka to "take up the study of our mo'olelo as vigorously as we study our kingdom and legal history," which Osorio accomplishes (138). As someone who studies the ethical dimensions of literature, I deeply appreciated Osorio's readings. The mo'olelo of Hi'iaka, in its several versions, show us what it means to care for each other in ways that are often very different than those of the Christian hetero-patriarchal structures that have become dominant in Hawai'i. Osorio engages with related conversations in Indigenous, queer, and feminist studies to show several interventions made by nā mea Hawai'i (Hawaiian material). One important intervention highlights the notion of [End Page 116] aloha 'āina, which Osorio describes as "the central orienting framework for any attempt to understand what it means to be Kanaka Maoli" (9). Both words are rich in meaning, with aloha often connected with love and 'āina associated with land; but aloha 'āina is more than simply the love of land. Building on nineteenth-century Kanaka writers such as Joseph Nāwahī, Osorio explains that "Aloha 'āina is that pull to place, that internal compass orienting Kānaka Maoli toward intimacy and self-governance" (13). Rooted in her reading of the Hi'iaka mo'olelo, Osorio develops an "aloha 'āina literary consciousness" to show the many facets of this central tenet (91). On one level, aloha 'āina is a knowledge of the lands we inhabit—knowing winds, rains, history, and more. This knowledge is a precondition for moving from a malihini (foreigner) with the land to a kama'āina (literally, a child of the land; a person with a deep relationship to the land). On another level, aloha 'āina becomes "the standard by which we understand our pilina [relations] with each other. Our relationship to our 'āina is our kumu [source], and every pilina we practice thereafter echoes the pilina learned from our beautiful home" (119). In other words, 'āina is not simply the setting for an event, nor is it only a metaphor for how we ought to relate with each other. Rather, 'āina are "active participants in [our] narrative" (91). 'Āina is "an actor who moves, changes form, and (re)members events" (92). What we see in the Hi'iaka mo'olelo are figures that quite literally embody their 'āina; hence, their...
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