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76 Introduction Information that would help illustrate the prehistoric conditions of the site and surrounding area are limited due to the site’s remote location and inconvenient access to marine areas. In published mo‘olelo, Koholālele, translated as, “leaping whale” is mentioned in the Heart Stirring Story of Ka-Miki…No other mention of Kohol ālele was found in published mo‘olelo.1 “Hāmākua Land Sale: Koholālele. Final Environmental Assessment,” Aug. 2010 When sugar companies began clearing the fertile lowlands of Koholālele, like much of Hāmākua, in the mid to late 1800s, to make way for the expansion of sugarcane production on the island of Hawai‘i, a process of erasure commenced , which has endured to this day. On the ground, as acres of ‘āina, cultivated and cared for by ‘Ōiwi for generations, were clear-cut and planted over in cane, it was as if a rubber eraser had been taken to a significant number of pages in the book of Hawai‘i island’s history. Erasure—the process of completely removing something from existence or memory—however, does not occur instantly. It occurs over generations, on the ‘āina and in the minds of a people, as communities or nations are dismembered, and as people and their mo‘olelo are displaced from the ‘āina of their origins. While this genealogy of erasure has persisted in different forms for nearly six generations in Koholālele, the faded words on those pages and the steadfast roots of the many native trees that were felled over a century ago remain unyielding and firmly fixed in their proper place in time and space. As I weave together this short mo‘olelo in the coming pages, it is this history of resilience that I intend to highlight. This a not a mo‘olelo of erasure. Rather, in writing this mo‘olelo I hope to begin to cultivate, in current and future generations, a consciousness critically aware of the ways in which processes of erasure are questioned, resisted, and overcome. As can be seen above, in the excerpt from a 2010 environmental assessment (EA) prepared for a proposed County of Hawai‘i land sale in Koholālele, these ‘O Koholālele, He ‘Āina, He Kanaka, He I‘a Nui Nona ka Lā: Re-membering Knowledge of Place in Koholālele, Hāmākua, Hawai‘i Leon No‘eau Peralto Peralto | 77 processes of erasure continue to impact our ‘āina and communities in Hawai‘i today. Narratives of erasure and void are utilized by the settler state that occupies this Pae ‘Āina to justify their continued disregard of the concerns raised by ‘Ōiwi in opposition to the exploitation and desecration of our beloved homelands . If the mo‘olelo of a place is effectively erased, so too is the mo‘okū‘auhau erased, which connects ‘Ōiwi today to that ‘āina and their kuleana to the many ancestors whose iwi were laid to rest there long ago. In the coming pages, I will attempt to demonstrate some of the ways in which research, done within an ‘Ōiwi context, can serve to counter such processes of erasure by empowering us as a lāhui to re-establish an intimate understanding of the depth of knowledge embedded within our own kulāiwi. It is this ancestral knowledge, this ‘ike kupuna, that forms the roots that connect us as ‘Ōiwi, both physically and spiritually to our kulāiwi—the roots that hold us firmly in place through the most turbulent of times. Our kūpuna refused to allow themselves and their mo‘olelo to be erased, and thus we are here today, continuing on in this genealogy of resistance and resurgence, working diligently in every corner of our Pae ‘Āina to re-member what has been dis-membered over the past two centuries. Thus, in the words of one of my most influential kumu, Cherríe L. Moraga, “I write to remember. I make rite (ceremony) to remember. It is [our] right to remember.”2 ‘O ia nō ko mākou kuleana e mālama ai. Re-membering ‘Ike Kupuna We have to pay attention to our Hawaiian native intelligence and experiences. We should be able to look for them, define them—because nothing is lost. In fact, we still have a lot of knowledge that A genealogy of erasure, circa 1905. Though thousands of acres of ‘āina in Hāmākua,once densely forested, and cultivated by ‘Ōiwi, were clear cut to the ground...

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