Pure Manaʻo

Background: These final questions came out of an Indigenous Mixed Methods Convening held as a post conference workshop for the 50th Pacific Circle Consortium Conference, May 19-23, 2026 on the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa campus. At the end of the day, these are the four questions to chew before we were sent home to ponder further.  Source: For question 1, we were given the appendix from the Moanaroa Pacific Research Guidelines, a publication out of the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Moanaroa Pacific Research Network:  https://moanaroa.aut.ac.nz/pacific-research-guidelines As our own collective, we were just given the appendix:  Moanaroa Pacific Research Guidelines_Appendix The question and my thinking-out-loud sense-making (a dialogic with myself) are based on Table 1, "Examples of Pacific Methodologies," in the Appendix.  He Nīnau: What stands out to you in Moanaroa Pacific Research? He Manaʻo: Based on a quick glance and a few deeper dives -- • Tonga and S...

When I am weary, I remember a picture of my grandmother, Mary Uilani Kaumeheiwa Sodetani. She is sitting on the puʻunene with her feet up  Her long legs stretched out toward the ʻAuʻau Channel Her blue bandana Her long, brown arms clasped gently around her stomach Her eyes looking into her beloved yard. Once as a young child, after some nasty comments my grandfather said to her, and after his swearing that stuck out to my young ears  as sounding very much like the way my father talked to my mother, I asked grandma, "why do you let him talk to you like that?" Her eyes were tearless, steady. She looked at me and the sides of her eyes crinkled and her mouth, in the side smirk said,  "I just let it go one ear, and come out the other." I thought as a kid it was a way of forgetting. As she stared into her yard in that picture, I always thought it was what Sandra Cisneros described in House on Mango Street, "My Name," She looked out the window her whole life, the...

  My first job out of high school was as a student assistant with the pig eradication team at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. As a 17 year old, I was trained to trap, radio collar, and chase after wild pigs in the rainforest. I was assigned to the scientists, but I also accompanied the hunters and their dogs. I learned enough to know that I did not want to spend my career in green rubber boots and muddy jeans, but the lessons I learned from the wild boars have stayed with me in my 30 plus years in education. Pigs are very similar to humans and their bodies are studied in place of humans because of this. We have deemed this knowledge ethical to humans. Not necessarily ethical to pigs. I learned that humane treatment goes beyond just humans. The ʻāina, the kai, the animals, the birds, the fish are all sacred and have as much mana as the kanaka. How we treat each living entity defines our own humanity.  Wild pigs are vegans. I used to be a vegan. It was a lot of work. I used to ...

  Photo by Brent Keane 6/3/24 The first sign. On Sunday the earthquakes started along Kilauea 4.0 on the surface, but  20 miles down the road in Hilo, only a community alert on my husbandʻs phone  gave us any indication that Pele was waking up from nap. The second sign.  On Monday morning, during a 4 am Zoom class, Lava, Pele, was fountaining out of an old rift zone Her glow calling locals and tourists alike out of bed like a siren luring sailors onto her rocks. By 10 am she was done, leaving only a shower of sulfuric smoke to mark her path across the new black pahoehoe. Third sign. On Monday evening, Kanehekili, brother to Pele and Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, born from the mouth of Haumea rolls into Waiakea and Hilo bringing his thunder, lightning, rain. The sky lights up the Panaewa forest outside my home rain stomping on our totan roof and waking my moʻo who calls out for me as I try to compose this poem.  ---------------------- Anarchy - non recognition of authorit...