Hey everyone,
This has always been an interesting question for me ever since I found out that there are a number of Hawaiian language speakers against translation. What do you all think? This might be the wrong place to ask this question since many of us here have already made the decision that translation was worth doing, but we all have seen how impossible it is to completely carry across meaning from Hawaiian to English, or even vice-versa. So is it irresponsible of us to translate? Are translators, as some say, sabotaging language revitalization efforts?
I feel that Hawaiians are justifiably worried about translation because of the way it has working here for at least the last hundred years, but I still think it’s an important thing to do. I think a lot of the damage in the past had to do with the way the translations were presented; they were often presented as if you could read the translation and get everything that was in the original. Do we look at translation differently now? Anyone have input on this?
me ke aloha,
kamaoli
You need to be a member of maoliworld to add comments!
Apparently the front page of "Ka Unuhi" (or any other group for that matter) only shows the last three most active threads. This fact eluded me earlier and I thought it was taken down! …soooo much to learn about ningworld and these types of boards in general…
After reading the various discussions on translating, Iʻve been gathering information on books or articles about Hawaii and Hawaiians which has been translated into Italian or books and articles written by Italians about Hawaiian culture. So far I have found translations or articles about GMO and kalo, Hoʻoponopono, our political history, etc. A few books about Hawaiʻi have been translated into Italian. Among the authors who have been translated or who have written in Italian about Hawaii, are Fornander, Sahlins, Chomsky, and Notarangelo. I am no expert in translations, but I am interested in reading the results of a book written in English using Hawaiian "primary sources", then translated into Italian. Perhaps Iʻll start with Fornander.
Hey Alohalani,
Did you read that memoir of Robert Wilcox's wife? It's called An Italian Baroness in Hawaii (I think). She wasn't too happy about him though... Not quite what you're looking for though I think...
taking another spin around this thread, more questions abound. What types of writings are we talking about? Who is the audience for these translations?
Going back to my analogy of Gramma's bussup copy of Ruling Chiefs. I remember reading it at the time and thinking that the English was too archaic and unwieldy. 20 years later, being able to open it up with the recent reprints allowed me to appreciate the effort to translate from the Hawaiian thought. The Hawaiian sentence structure just pops in front of the eyes, evident in the strange manner of which the English sentence is constructed.
The child who thought RC held little practical use was monolingual. The adult who could perform comparatives was bilingual, having spent many years' worth of effort and conviction to pursue a fluently bilingual life. Those are two different audiences, albeit the same wahine. That effort, and importantly, the opportunity to exert that effort is something that not all kanaka have; Noelani aptly pointed that out and it should be underscored.
Finally, my honesty about my laziness is due to the fact that if I have both translations open, my eyes float to the English. It is easier, more familiar, and when I catch myself doing so, I get frustrated. By not having the Eng around it forces me to get serious about the moʻolelo in front of me. That is when the pule begins. ;-)
Without going too much deeper on that thought, I want to say that I am not anti-translation, but I do understand the concern against it is rooted in the belief to hāpai mau i luna i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, a belief I deeply share, because it represents to me the best form of ea of all. Governments are cyclical; they come and go. Yet if we can understand the fullness of the language of our kūpuna, then no one can take from us their account of their lives and thus our sovereign ability to process that account and reconcile it with what we face today. It is the best tool we have to determine precedent and permission to farther on.
Aue ka nani o kau olelo: if I have both translations open, my eyes float to the English. It is easier, more familiar, and when I catch myself doing so, I get frustrated. By not having the Eng around it forces me to get serious about the moʻolelo in front of me. That is when the pule begins.
I echo your sentiments entirely. It is like one long pule each time I try to translate. I have to confront how much I don't know every time I look at something written by our kupuna, and in that sense it's a little 'eha, and always makes me haahaa. This tiny 'eha is a small price to pay, though, for the rich reward of working through a piece and actually feeling like I may have an inkling, like I might be feeling the emotion the words were intended to transmit, like an understanding could be developing in my pea brain. A laila pii ka hauoli a me ke aloha. That is the selfish reason that I have an interest in translation. I like the way it makes me feel. I like the intellectual challenges I have to confront, and the process of finding ground that is common enough that it can express, approximately, the idea in the words. It makes me feel a tiny bit closer to our kupuna, not in some big flashy sense, but in a very quiet, little satisfying way. Selfish, yeah? And you posed great questions about who is the audience. As an L2, I seem to be the first audience for my work and it may be of more value to me than anyone else b/c of the nature of the process I just described. I am not really at the point of putting my translations out there for others to use, so maybe that's when it changes a lot and the questions become much harder. For the individual, though, I think it can be so rewarding. In that way it becomes less about translation as a practice and more about the process of learning olelo and reclaiming it for oneself, which is, as you said, at the heart of ea. E kala mai keia auana ana. Ua hooulu wale mai no kau olelo iau a hu ae nei keia mau manao!
I think it is a very real that concern that the original text not be disregarded in favor of the translation as they have in the past, and that is the reason we (Awaiaulu) always publish both the Hawaiian text and the English; for Hiiaka, we had to put it in separate volumes because of its length, but for something like Ka Oihana Lawaia, we were able to put the Hawaiian and English in the same text. We also have introductions that try to contextualize the printing of the stories in the newspapers and how they are part of a much larger tradition of stories and writings.
But, what I think is more worrying to me is the way the translation itself is presented and received. Even if you know that the translation comes from a readily-identifiable original, translations are often read as if translation=original. Although Noe and kuualoha pointed out that translation is not about finding the one-to-one correspondence between languages, modern translations of Hawaiian into English (here I include everything from Malo to Hooulumahiehie) often present their translations as “literal,” implying that they did not engage in the act of “interpretation,” and only carried across the direct meaning of the text.
For example, Frances Frazier says in her introduction to her translation of Kaluaikoolau that she provided a literal translation of the text, yet the translation she created runs only about half the length of the original. She even translates words incorrectly (one time translating “make” as if it were “male”); yet many people feel that they have read Sheldon’s story if they have read Frazier’s translation, and the Hawaiian text is included in the book. This is not just to cast blame on others, as I think we were guilty of it as well in the introduction to Hiiaka, when it was said that the translation we created was a “mirror” of the Hawaiian. Granted, we still described the process as one of interpretation and consensus, but I think that image is potentially more dangerous than it needed to be.
In reference to the idea of “historical precendent” and Hawaiians being leery of how translation has been working here for the “last hundred years,” what I meant was that I think Hawaiians are justified in being scared when modern translations take place because of the way Hawaiian works have been translated into English, starting, in my mind, (because I forgot the year Malo was translated. Noe?) with the translation of Kamakau’s writings by committee.
I don’t want to rehash Puakea’s whole dissertation here, but extensive internal reordering of the texts; breaking the piece from one continuous narrative into a Western-framed understanding of history, physical culture, and material culture; unqualified translators and even the invisibility of those translators (with everyone thinking that Mary Kawena Pukui translated the whole thing) all led to highly misrepresentational texts. Nevertheless, they were presented very clearly as if someone could read the translation and they would be reading Kamakau, just in a different language. Another quick example of problematic translation that I found comes from Emerson’s translation of Malo. Malo’s third chapter is entitled “Ke Kumu Mua o ko Hawaii Nei Kanaka,” which got translated into “The Origin of the Primitive Inhabitants of Hawaii Nei.”
What makes this history of translation so damaging is that a huge amount of scholarship (and even just plain understanding) by and about Hawaiians is based on these misrepresentational texts. How much of what we learned and studied had its basis in these books? What about our teachers and their teachers? They would’ve all been affected. There were debates in the last few decades about whether or not certain cultural activities were Hawaiian or not, just because they were not found in these works. This is why I think “historical precedent” is so important to keep in mind when translating. Any time that we choose to create a new translation, there is the very large possibility that we will only perpetuate the kinds of problems that arose out of the translation of the so-called “canon” texts.
Another thing that I think is dangerous about translation is that we have to be very careful to try to present the translations in context. Again, I turn to Frances Frazier (not to be mean; it’s just that it’s such an easy example). Her introduction to Kaluaikoolau is very brief and she makes no mention of the iconic status that Koolau and Piilani took on for a large portion of the Hawaiian people of the day. For instance, there is no mention of them being seen as national symbols of resistance to the PG, or them being compared to the 300 Spartans who died at Thermopylae (an interesting image from the newspaper). There is not even a mention of what Kelekona seemed to be trying to do with such high-level language use, or even that he was esteemed as one of the most-accomplished Hawaiian writers of his time (along with Poepoe). Because of this, all the reader of the translation gets is a nice love story about a family from Kauai.
Like Luahiwa, I too have not found letters from the newspapers in which Hawaiians were complaining about their works being translated, but I doubt we would find any, at least not until the early 1900s, because I think the writers of the time were more concerned that their works get to their people, who were reading/speaking/thinking Hawaiian at the time. Translation of their works would be for outsiders and most of the translation of the time was from other languages into Hawaiian, everything from daily news items from foreign papers to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Now though, the tables have turned, most of our people have been raised with English, and so translation is now no longer to present Hawaiian works to haole, but to present Hawaiian works to Hawaiians. Thus, with the vast majority of Hawaiians speaking English, I don’t see discussions of translation as manini, since translators now are in a similar situation to those writing in the newspapers of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Just as they were trying to get stories, mele, mookuauhau, etc. printed for perpetuation and to add to the discourse of the time, we are trying to reintroduce their stories for similar reasons.
That is why I brought up this discussion, not really to get an idea of for or against translation, but to see the kinds of issues that we need to keep in mind when we are translating. I agree with Noe that we need to get more people interested in doing “responsible” and “ethical” translation, and that is why the group that I work with is trying to train new translators, so that we do reach a critical mass of people working to give more of our population access to the momi, as Luahiwa called them, that were carefully preserved in the newspapers for them to see. Anyway, I’ve been writing too much and I don’t know if I added anything to the discussion, so I’m going to stop now. Please feel free to call me on anything that’s ambiguous or just plain wrong:)
This thread is over a year old, but so compelling that I had to post a short manao. What a beautiful and fruitful discussion! Everyone's comments are really insightful and I wanted to address one thing that you said, in particular. You talked about the fact that little or no context is given for a lot of the translated works and that this is part of the danger. I couldn't agree more. I truly believe that is part of the kuleana of this generation of workers - to provide ample cultural/historical information so that the text itself and its being translated can be contextualized. Maybe the reason that this has not been done more until now is because it's probably really hard work that requires a knowledge base that is both deep and broad. How many people have that? (Thus working collectively can be very powerful) How many workers had it in Frazier's time? I guess my main point is that even if it takes a lot more work and research and time to provide this background to the reader, it is imperative that it be done. Resources should be slated at the outset of a project to make sure that it happens. I think that if we make a commitment to that kind of work then we don't perpetuate the kinds of issues that you brought up. Instead, we provide responsible scholarship grounded in the understanding of the many issues discussed in this thread.
Mahalo, as well, to kuʻualoha and anyone that posted stuff on the translation lit that is out there. I have been wanting to do some reading in this area and now I know where to start!
ke aloha nui no,
Hina
Noelani > Hina Puamohala KneubuhlJuly 13, 2009 at 12:12am
Yay!!!! I'm glad someone resurrected the thread by replying here! I had one quick thought in response to what you wrote, and that is that the knowledge base that is required to intuit, puzzle out, unearth, make connections and work in a vast and diverse archive ------ (archive, newspapers, manuscripts, maps, material culture,) etc. is not dependent simply upon good faith or intention. What is challenging, certainly to the individual student, scholar, researcher (this was true when I was going through my MA program at UHM) is that there is not enough institutional support in the form of classes, programs,etc,. to train those interested in being disciplined within a particular area of study (History, Literature, Hist & Lit, Religion, etc.,) AND in the acquisition of skills necessary to be able to engage this problem.
Also, the social structures in our communities that ensured that oral transmission of knowledge of this breadth and depth are crumbling, depleted or just beginning to to rebound----although I'm sure pockets of wisdom traditions remain in places.
When you say resources should be allocated, I agree, but can a "project based" learning be facilitated if the "goal" is always "the text?" (Of course, there is ma ka hana ka 'ike) But I'm sort of tired of these great projects that sacrifice the time and sweat and energy of students who are still trying to get their BA/MA.
Shouldn't we make the "product" be our intellect, skill and seeking after knowledge? And if training or disciplining the student is the goal------where should this training take place, upon what ground? I suspect this will take more than one kumu dedicated to this process. Therefore within whose house will this knowledge building take place?
Ae ho'i! Awesome questions e ke hoa. I definitely agree that the main goal should not be "the text," rather the rebuilding/creating of avenues where this depth and breadth of learning can take place. Slating resources for project-based learning like I talked about earlier is more like the band-aid approach rather than a deep and holistic healing that comes from treating an ailment at its source. I think sometimes my vision gets too narrow when I think about how much there is to do and how little support there really is. It makes me ultra thankful for the projects that do happen and distracts from the fact that bit-by-bit may not always add up to the whole that one hopes for. Surely it will take many kumu dedicated to the process, just as you said, and a place for the learning to happen. But my pea brain is not creative enough at the moment to suggest where such a thing might happen, or where the resources might come from. Scale is another thing to consider. Are 15 committed kumu and haumana that meet regularly in someone's living room as good a place to start as any?
Noelani > Hina Puamohala KneubuhlJuly 13, 2009 at 1:54pm
haha, ya, I am so consumed by the idea that there needs to be a structure or a system, and the tendency as far as I can tell that has ruled at home is that crisis situations (lack of resources, and support) look like the Status Quo. So people have been used to doing less with less instead of seeking out larger funding sources, and partnerships----perhaps we need to begin looking beyond our home for support, as well as within.
I'm not sure what the answer is or the number of people that need to be involved, I didn't in my mind think I was asking you to answer this question, but thought to put it out here in Maoli--world as a question to encourage collaborative thinking.
Hey, I'm hanging out here in Massachusetts with the Wampanoag language reclamation teacher who is the primary instructor for several tribes and is simultaneously writing a dictionary, planning and running an immersion camp for her tribe, and training teachers, and writing grants.......imagine only having one 'olelo HI teacher?!?
We have many, many more resources than some communities have. Bunches of us just have to get together as you suggest and find the time in our lives to dedicate to this learning, and training process.And the living room is a great place to be, but professional degrees will do wonders as well-----think about a literature PhD, or Religion, or History but with a Hawaiian focus. Think about our knowledge reaching indigenous people everywhere and making a difference and broadening conversations in/with other communities as well.
Maybe less surfing, or less internet surfing, or less kanikapila, or less inu i ka pia, and more time for heluhelu, unuhi, and ho'opa'a ha'awina?
Replies
Apparently the front page of "Ka Unuhi" (or any other group for that matter) only shows the last three most active threads. This fact eluded me earlier and I thought it was taken down! …soooo much to learn about ningworld and these types of boards in general…
ʻo ia ihola,
naʻu
Did you read that memoir of Robert Wilcox's wife? It's called An Italian Baroness in Hawaii (I think). She wasn't too happy about him though... Not quite what you're looking for though I think...
me ke aloha,
kamaoli
Going back to my analogy of Gramma's bussup copy of Ruling Chiefs. I remember reading it at the time and thinking that the English was too archaic and unwieldy. 20 years later, being able to open it up with the recent reprints allowed me to appreciate the effort to translate from the Hawaiian thought. The Hawaiian sentence structure just pops in front of the eyes, evident in the strange manner of which the English sentence is constructed.
The child who thought RC held little practical use was monolingual. The adult who could perform comparatives was bilingual, having spent many years' worth of effort and conviction to pursue a fluently bilingual life. Those are two different audiences, albeit the same wahine. That effort, and importantly, the opportunity to exert that effort is something that not all kanaka have; Noelani aptly pointed that out and it should be underscored.
Finally, my honesty about my laziness is due to the fact that if I have both translations open, my eyes float to the English. It is easier, more familiar, and when I catch myself doing so, I get frustrated. By not having the Eng around it forces me to get serious about the moʻolelo in front of me. That is when the pule begins. ;-)
Without going too much deeper on that thought, I want to say that I am not anti-translation, but I do understand the concern against it is rooted in the belief to hāpai mau i luna i ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, a belief I deeply share, because it represents to me the best form of ea of all. Governments are cyclical; they come and go. Yet if we can understand the fullness of the language of our kūpuna, then no one can take from us their account of their lives and thus our sovereign ability to process that account and reconcile it with what we face today. It is the best tool we have to determine precedent and permission to farther on.
aloha,
na Luahiwa
Aue ka nani o kau olelo: if I have both translations open, my eyes float to the English. It is easier, more familiar, and when I catch myself doing so, I get frustrated. By not having the Eng around it forces me to get serious about the moʻolelo in front of me. That is when the pule begins.
I echo your sentiments entirely. It is like one long pule each time I try to translate. I have to confront how much I don't know every time I look at something written by our kupuna, and in that sense it's a little 'eha, and always makes me haahaa. This tiny 'eha is a small price to pay, though, for the rich reward of working through a piece and actually feeling like I may have an inkling, like I might be feeling the emotion the words were intended to transmit, like an understanding could be developing in my pea brain. A laila pii ka hauoli a me ke aloha. That is the selfish reason that I have an interest in translation. I like the way it makes me feel. I like the intellectual challenges I have to confront, and the process of finding ground that is common enough that it can express, approximately, the idea in the words. It makes me feel a tiny bit closer to our kupuna, not in some big flashy sense, but in a very quiet, little satisfying way. Selfish, yeah? And you posed great questions about who is the audience. As an L2, I seem to be the first audience for my work and it may be of more value to me than anyone else b/c of the nature of the process I just described. I am not really at the point of putting my translations out there for others to use, so maybe that's when it changes a lot and the questions become much harder. For the individual, though, I think it can be so rewarding. In that way it becomes less about translation as a practice and more about the process of learning olelo and reclaiming it for oneself, which is, as you said, at the heart of ea. E kala mai keia auana ana. Ua hooulu wale mai no kau olelo iau a hu ae nei keia mau manao!
I think it is a very real that concern that the original text not be disregarded in favor of the translation as they have in the past, and that is the reason we (Awaiaulu) always publish both the Hawaiian text and the English; for Hiiaka, we had to put it in separate volumes because of its length, but for something like Ka Oihana Lawaia, we were able to put the Hawaiian and English in the same text. We also have introductions that try to contextualize the printing of the stories in the newspapers and how they are part of a much larger tradition of stories and writings.
But, what I think is more worrying to me is the way the translation itself is presented and received. Even if you know that the translation comes from a readily-identifiable original, translations are often read as if translation=original. Although Noe and kuualoha pointed out that translation is not about finding the one-to-one correspondence between languages, modern translations of Hawaiian into English (here I include everything from Malo to Hooulumahiehie) often present their translations as “literal,” implying that they did not engage in the act of “interpretation,” and only carried across the direct meaning of the text.
For example, Frances Frazier says in her introduction to her translation of Kaluaikoolau that she provided a literal translation of the text, yet the translation she created runs only about half the length of the original. She even translates words incorrectly (one time translating “make” as if it were “male”); yet many people feel that they have read Sheldon’s story if they have read Frazier’s translation, and the Hawaiian text is included in the book. This is not just to cast blame on others, as I think we were guilty of it as well in the introduction to Hiiaka, when it was said that the translation we created was a “mirror” of the Hawaiian. Granted, we still described the process as one of interpretation and consensus, but I think that image is potentially more dangerous than it needed to be.
In reference to the idea of “historical precendent” and Hawaiians being leery of how translation has been working here for the “last hundred years,” what I meant was that I think Hawaiians are justified in being scared when modern translations take place because of the way Hawaiian works have been translated into English, starting, in my mind, (because I forgot the year Malo was translated. Noe?) with the translation of Kamakau’s writings by committee.
I don’t want to rehash Puakea’s whole dissertation here, but extensive internal reordering of the texts; breaking the piece from one continuous narrative into a Western-framed understanding of history, physical culture, and material culture; unqualified translators and even the invisibility of those translators (with everyone thinking that Mary Kawena Pukui translated the whole thing) all led to highly misrepresentational texts. Nevertheless, they were presented very clearly as if someone could read the translation and they would be reading Kamakau, just in a different language. Another quick example of problematic translation that I found comes from Emerson’s translation of Malo. Malo’s third chapter is entitled “Ke Kumu Mua o ko Hawaii Nei Kanaka,” which got translated into “The Origin of the Primitive Inhabitants of Hawaii Nei.”
What makes this history of translation so damaging is that a huge amount of scholarship (and even just plain understanding) by and about Hawaiians is based on these misrepresentational texts. How much of what we learned and studied had its basis in these books? What about our teachers and their teachers? They would’ve all been affected. There were debates in the last few decades about whether or not certain cultural activities were Hawaiian or not, just because they were not found in these works. This is why I think “historical precedent” is so important to keep in mind when translating. Any time that we choose to create a new translation, there is the very large possibility that we will only perpetuate the kinds of problems that arose out of the translation of the so-called “canon” texts.
Another thing that I think is dangerous about translation is that we have to be very careful to try to present the translations in context. Again, I turn to Frances Frazier (not to be mean; it’s just that it’s such an easy example). Her introduction to Kaluaikoolau is very brief and she makes no mention of the iconic status that Koolau and Piilani took on for a large portion of the Hawaiian people of the day. For instance, there is no mention of them being seen as national symbols of resistance to the PG, or them being compared to the 300 Spartans who died at Thermopylae (an interesting image from the newspaper). There is not even a mention of what Kelekona seemed to be trying to do with such high-level language use, or even that he was esteemed as one of the most-accomplished Hawaiian writers of his time (along with Poepoe). Because of this, all the reader of the translation gets is a nice love story about a family from Kauai.
Like Luahiwa, I too have not found letters from the newspapers in which Hawaiians were complaining about their works being translated, but I doubt we would find any, at least not until the early 1900s, because I think the writers of the time were more concerned that their works get to their people, who were reading/speaking/thinking Hawaiian at the time. Translation of their works would be for outsiders and most of the translation of the time was from other languages into Hawaiian, everything from daily news items from foreign papers to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Now though, the tables have turned, most of our people have been raised with English, and so translation is now no longer to present Hawaiian works to haole, but to present Hawaiian works to Hawaiians. Thus, with the vast majority of Hawaiians speaking English, I don’t see discussions of translation as manini, since translators now are in a similar situation to those writing in the newspapers of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Just as they were trying to get stories, mele, mookuauhau, etc. printed for perpetuation and to add to the discourse of the time, we are trying to reintroduce their stories for similar reasons.
That is why I brought up this discussion, not really to get an idea of for or against translation, but to see the kinds of issues that we need to keep in mind when we are translating. I agree with Noe that we need to get more people interested in doing “responsible” and “ethical” translation, and that is why the group that I work with is trying to train new translators, so that we do reach a critical mass of people working to give more of our population access to the momi, as Luahiwa called them, that were carefully preserved in the newspapers for them to see. Anyway, I’ve been writing too much and I don’t know if I added anything to the discussion, so I’m going to stop now. Please feel free to call me on anything that’s ambiguous or just plain wrong:)
me ke aloha,
kamaoli
This thread is over a year old, but so compelling that I had to post a short manao. What a beautiful and fruitful discussion! Everyone's comments are really insightful and I wanted to address one thing that you said, in particular. You talked about the fact that little or no context is given for a lot of the translated works and that this is part of the danger. I couldn't agree more. I truly believe that is part of the kuleana of this generation of workers - to provide ample cultural/historical information so that the text itself and its being translated can be contextualized. Maybe the reason that this has not been done more until now is because it's probably really hard work that requires a knowledge base that is both deep and broad. How many people have that? (Thus working collectively can be very powerful) How many workers had it in Frazier's time? I guess my main point is that even if it takes a lot more work and research and time to provide this background to the reader, it is imperative that it be done. Resources should be slated at the outset of a project to make sure that it happens. I think that if we make a commitment to that kind of work then we don't perpetuate the kinds of issues that you brought up. Instead, we provide responsible scholarship grounded in the understanding of the many issues discussed in this thread.
Mahalo, as well, to kuʻualoha and anyone that posted stuff on the translation lit that is out there. I have been wanting to do some reading in this area and now I know where to start!
ke aloha nui no,
Hina
Also, the social structures in our communities that ensured that oral transmission of knowledge of this breadth and depth are crumbling, depleted or just beginning to to rebound----although I'm sure pockets of wisdom traditions remain in places.
When you say resources should be allocated, I agree, but can a "project based" learning be facilitated if the "goal" is always "the text?" (Of course, there is ma ka hana ka 'ike) But I'm sort of tired of these great projects that sacrifice the time and sweat and energy of students who are still trying to get their BA/MA.
Shouldn't we make the "product" be our intellect, skill and seeking after knowledge? And if training or disciplining the student is the goal------where should this training take place, upon what ground? I suspect this will take more than one kumu dedicated to this process. Therefore within whose house will this knowledge building take place?
I'm not sure what the answer is or the number of people that need to be involved, I didn't in my mind think I was asking you to answer this question, but thought to put it out here in Maoli--world as a question to encourage collaborative thinking.
Hey, I'm hanging out here in Massachusetts with the Wampanoag language reclamation teacher who is the primary instructor for several tribes and is simultaneously writing a dictionary, planning and running an immersion camp for her tribe, and training teachers, and writing grants.......imagine only having one 'olelo HI teacher?!?
We have many, many more resources than some communities have. Bunches of us just have to get together as you suggest and find the time in our lives to dedicate to this learning, and training process.And the living room is a great place to be, but professional degrees will do wonders as well-----think about a literature PhD, or Religion, or History but with a Hawaiian focus. Think about our knowledge reaching indigenous people everywhere and making a difference and broadening conversations in/with other communities as well.
Maybe less surfing, or less internet surfing, or less kanikapila, or less inu i ka pia, and more time for heluhelu, unuhi, and ho'opa'a ha'awina?
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next