Antion - In Hawaii

In 1986, a vedic astrologer said to me “Hawaii is the best place on the planet for you”. I was unimpressed. In the cult-like organization to which Elandra and I belonged at the time, Hawaii was considered the place to which organization members, who could not handle the intense discipline, would run away. They would spend their lives laying on the beach and smoking dope. That was not what I wanted to do with my life.

“Isn’t there anywhere else that’s good?” I asked. “Well, anywhere near the Pacific Ocean is good but Hawaii is far and away the best for you”.

I had been to Hawaii four times already and would return again briefly twice in 1988. Yet, in all of those times, I had never spent overnight there. I soon forgot about the whole incident. Interestingly, since 1968, other than a short and unhappy stint when I tried to return to London, I have never lived more than ten miles from the Pacific. It wasn’t until 1989 that a generous gift from a friend sent me back to Hawaii, this time for a week’s vacation.

The beautiful, mystical, magical Hawaiian Islands are alive with divine sound. Billowing waves breaking on white, golden, red and black sandy beaches, the trade winds softly rippling through the fronds of swaying coconut trees, hundreds of tropical birds singing their songs, the roar and hiss as molten lava meets the ocean currents. All of these make up the soundscape of an isolated and idyllic tropical paradise.

Over centuries, the native people of Hawaii created another soundscape, complementing the natural cacophony of their homeland. Like many other lands on this Earth, Hawaii is a land of the voice. Here the human voice is given huge respect. A common name to give a child, male or female is Kaleonani – Beautiful Voice. For a man or a woman to have an outstanding, even world class voice is considered to be normal and natural.

How did this come about? No one knows. Certainly the beautiful environment is an inspiration. But there are other places, Tahiti, for example; an equally beautiful island paradise, where people sing as naturally as breathing. Yet, in my admittedly biased opinion, the power and beauty of Hawaiian singing and chanting stand out above all others.

Hawaiian culture was held, until comparatively recently, by oral tradition. I have been told by those who know that there was, and still is, a written language in Hawaii. This is, of course, contrary to what the books and scholars will tell you. The knowledge of this script is being held kapu – in secret, until such time as those that hold it feel that the world is ready to receive its ike (wisdom).

Some hundred and fifty years ago, the missionaries established a way to write the Hawaiian language with the sole intent of spreading Christianity. As an unintended consequence of this action, all that is now known to the world of ancient Hawaiian tradition was then transmitted to Caucasians, who committed what they garnered to paper. Many of these Caucasians found within themselves a deep respect for Hawaiian culture and felt a responsibility to preserve as much as they were able.

As Hawaiian culture was systematically suppressed by missionaries and government, the old ones died along with their memories and their wisdom. It was, in effect, cultural genocide. Huge sections of cultural knowledge and tradition simply disappeared. Yet much still remains.

In spite of the proscriptions of the missionaries, and later the State Legislature which banned the Hawaiian language, both language and culture have survived. The culture has experienced resurgence in the last thirty years and is continuing to grow. The Hawaiian language, if not exactly flourishing, is being nurtured and kept alive by immersion schools and by those who stubbornly refuse to allow this most beautiful and mellifluous of languages to die.

To go deep into Hawaiian culture, you have to go deep into hula. Hula is the very soul of Hawaii. It is indeed tragic that so few people, even within Hawaii itself, have managed to go beyond the 1930’s movie image of hula, promulgated by Hollywood. The image of brown skinned women (hardly ever Hawaiian) in grass skirts (definitely not Hawaiian) swaying their hips to a song by Bing Crosby or Elvis still reigns throughout the world as the accepted depiction of hula, indeed of Hawaii itself. I was once part of a Hawaiian cultural show in Germany where a few people came and asked for their money back because there were no brown skinned women in grass skirts.

Hula involves the movement of the hips, both for men and for women. It is a sensual dance and, on occasion, blatantly sexual in a manner that is both ribald and hilarious. But the context is always that sex is a natural part of life and not any big deal.

Hula is about life because it is life. All aspects of Hawaiian life are reflected therein. Birth and death, farming and fishing, love and war, spiritual tradition, navigation by the stars, history and legend, all these and much more can be found in this ancient dance.

In hula, the dance and the voice are ineluctably linked. Even in its modern form, dancing hula to instrumental music without a singer is all but unthinkable. The dance is a vital adjunct to the story being told in the song. Dance and voice are inseparable, no matter how profound the lyric, no matter how trite.

In this day and age, modern hula (hula auwana) is associated with the guitar and particularly the ukulele, but always as instruments to accompany a singer. In ancient times, the old hula (hula kahiko) was danced to the voice; to a chant called mele. The voice was accompanied by either the pahu drum or a percussion instrument created from two gourds called the ipu heke. But these were only there to accentuate the rhythm by which the dancers kept time. The voice was that which gave the narrative and melody to the dance.

The other vital aspect of the Hawaiian voice in ancient times was oli. Oli means chant. This is an extract from an excellent article in Spirit of Aloha (Aloha Airlines magazine) called The Art of Oli by Joan Conrow.

A sound has largely disappeared from Hawai‘i’s valleys and forests, a sound other than the songs of now-extinct native birds. It’s the sound of the human voice raised in oli, in chant, speaking words thoughtfully chosen by the composer, carefully memorized and delivered by the orator.

Hawaiian culture was traditionally imbued with oli, as chants were a part of every aspect of daily life. Whether it was a fisherman offering a chant before setting out to fish or a kahuna, priest, chanting within the context of a sacred ritual, oli were ubiquitous. Indeed, even the Hawaiian creation story, the Kumulipo, is presented as a 2,102-line chant.

It was frequent, in pre-Western-contact Hawai‘i, to hear women chanting as they pounded tapa cloth or cleaned hala leaves alongside the ocean or a stream; to hear men chanting before planting taro in the fields; to hear families chanting to greet the dawn and the dusk, to acknowledge all the ancestors.

Chant was also used to pay homage to the recently dead. As Lili‘uokalani, Hawai‘i’s last queen, lay in state in 1917, according to S.M. Kamakau’s Ruling Chiefs of Hawai‘i: “… the body was view­ed by a vast procession of people … the natives venting their sorrow in the oldtime oli or the uwe helu (lamentations.) … devoted at­tendants and loyal subjects [mourn­ed] in song, chant recitations, oli or the weird, soul-piercing disconsolate wail of a grief-stricken heart.”

Chanting was a way of expressing grati­tude, focusing intention, asking permission, acknowledging the gods, calling upon the forces of nature, seek­ing protection in short, oli were the utterances of a profoundly spiritual people who were deeply interactive with their environment.

Since they were human, with all the accompanying emotions, chant was used for more mundane purposes, too: professing feelings of love and admiration, asking for a favor or delivering a scolding, expressing praise or despair.

But with the arrival of the missionaries and new ways of doing things, oli began to rapidly subside from its once prominent role in daily life.

When I arrived for the first time (at least to stay overnight) in Hawaii, I had little idea of the great treasury of feeling and tradition in Hawaiian music and chant. It was not until my third visit that fate took a hand and gave me an unforgettable and life changing experience.

Returning from Maui to San Diego (where we were living at the time) required a stopover in Honolulu. A friend invited us to have dinner and then explore Waikiki. By some fluke (there are NO coincidences!) we arrived on the beach by the Royal Hawaiian Hotel just as the evening show was about to start. We were standing outside the Monarch Room, the hotel’s show room.

The Monarch Room has huge glass windows and doors. Normally the doors are normally open to the night, allowing air to circulate and passers-by to watch the whole show, free of charge.

As my wife and I stood there watching the house lights dim and the stage lights project their colors, there came a recording of some incredibly beautiful music with a thrilling narrative talking about the ancient gods of old Hawaii. I was enthralled. Then a large Hawaiian lady came out onstage. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but this was Aunty Leina’ala Heine, a well known kumu hula (hula teacher). She began beating on a huge pahu drum and started to chant the first oli I ever heard.

The curtains opened to reveal a group of hula dancers, men and women, the men clad in malo, traditional loincloths. While Aunty Leina’ala chanted a mele, Auwa ’ia e kama, the dancers performed a hula kahiko, an ancient hula. I was intrigued as they moved their hips in wide circles for the traditional step known as ami.

From opposite sides of the stage, two small daises slid onto the stage and came together in the middle. On one dais, a man stood with a white double bass. On the other, a man sat cross legged with a twelve string guitar. They began to sing.

I had never heard anything like it. Their voices slipped easily in and out of harmony. At the same time, they soared into and beyond the highest level a man’s voice could be expected to go without breaking into falsetto. The music was rhythmic and exciting while still holding a certain spiritual quality. I stood there with tears running down my cheeks, utterly captivated. This was the duo known as the Brothers Cazimero, at that time the top Hawaiian music act, and still riding high today. After three songs and to my intense frustration, our host called us away.

Our overnight flight deposited us in San Diego at around seven am. As soon as Tower Records opened that morning I was there. In their world music section, and somewhat to my surprise, I found “The Best of The Brothers Cazimero”, a selection of their most popular songs. Common knowledge says that CDs don’t wear out but, after playing it over and over for the next fifteen months, this one did. The songs on that CD spoke to parts of myself and my soul that I never even knew existed.

The most surprising aspect of this turn of events was that I had not felt like I needed a new musical discipline. I deeply loved Indian music and I especially loved Gurbani Kirtan, the sacred music of the Sikhs. I was not looking for more. It was as if the Universe said to me “OK, now learn this. This is what’s next for you”.

There was a recession in California in 1991/92 that brought my plumbing business to its knees. That, plus my love for the music and chant of Hawaii, precipitated our moving there in February of 1993. Our original intention was to settle on Maui but, after only a few days, I was directed to the Garden Island of Kauai.

Five months previously, Hurricane Iniki had devastated the island. Many houses had been destroyed, many people had left the island and the different communities on the island were in varying states of shock. Accommodation was hard to find. The saving grace was that, if you were in construction, there was plenty of work rebuilding the island.

It took us time to create a semi-permanent place to live. We lived in a tent for six months and, after that, in a yurt for five years. There was, however, never any shortage of work. Still, it took time to get my business re-established. All of this meant that I could not pursue my dreams of learning Hawaiian music and culture for which I now held an unslakeable thirst.