Ancestral Places

Ancestral Places explores the deep connections that ancestral Kanaka (Native Hawaiians) enjoyed with their environment. It honors the moolelo (historical accounts) of the ancestral places of our kupuna (ancestors), and reveals how these moolelo and our relationships with the aina (land) inform a Kanaka sense of place. Katrina-Ann R. Kapaanaokalaokeola Nakoa Oliveira elucidates a Kanaka geography and provides contemporary scholars with insights regarding traditional cultureincluding the ways in which Kanaka utilize cartographic performances to map our ancestral places and retain our moolelo, such as reciting creation accounts, utilizing nuances embedded in language, and dancing hula. A Kanaka by birth, a kumu olelo Hawaii (language teacher) by profession, and a geographer by training, Oliveiras interests intersect at the boundary where words and place-making meet her ancestral land. Thus, Ancestral Places imbues the theoretical with sensual practice. The books language moves fluidly between Hawaiian and English, terms are nimbly defined, and the work of the field is embodied: geographic layers are enacted within the text, new understandings creatednot just among lexica, but amidst illustrations, charts, terms, and poetry. In Ancestral Places, Oliveira reasserts both the validity of ancestral knowledge systems and their impact in modernity. Her discussion of Kanaka geographies encompasses the entire archipelago, offering a new framework in Kanaka epistemology.