Hawaiian Cartography and 'Aina Sovereignty

Speakers: Renee Pualani Louis | Air Date: February 1, 2020 | Run Time: 52mins | The Native Seed Pod: Season 2

Hawaiian Cartography and ‘Aina Sovereignty

Cover of Kanaka Hawai’i Cartography: Hula, Navigation, and Oratory

Rooting us further into the Indigenous cosmologies of the Pacific (Moana), podcast host Melissa Nelson catches up with Hawaiian Cartographer Renee Pualani Louis during a writers’ retreat at the Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes, California.

Renee shares her experience of being changed while writing her book Kanaka Hawaiʻi Cartography: Hula, Navigation, and Oratory (2017),  which explores Kanaka Hawai’i place-name and spatial knowledge systems. We are met with the breadth of Hawaiian, place-based language and knowledge of ‘Aina – the land-food matrix. Deep in intimate conversation, together we traverse stars and seasons, plants and mountains, and how to embody food sovereignty, self-determination, and nourish relationships of food and community.

“ . . . . you can see how the bones of our ancestors are really what’s feeding the generations to come, and again, this is how we become invested in the landscape.”

— Renee Pualani Louis

About Renee Pualani Louis

Renee Pualani Louis is a Hawaiian cartographer passionate about Hawaiian storied place names, spatial knowledge systems, and an advocate for the integration of indigenous knowledge systems into Western Geosciences.

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A leader of her field, Louis is a graduate of The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, a Co-Chair of the Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers, the 2014 co-recipient of the American Association of Geographers Enhancing Diversity Award, and a member of CHIRP3 Working Group, whose goal is to develop new guidelines for building collaborations between Native and non-Native researchers working with Native communities.

Additional Resources

• Renee Pualani Louis Homepage

• Kanaka Hawaii Cartography (2017)

• Collaboratively Harnessing Indigenous Principles, Protocols, and Practices (CHIRP3)

• Article for Landscape in Language

• Article for First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies

• Ma’o Organic Youth Farm

• Protect Mauna Kea

CREDITS

Host/Writer/Director: Melissa K. Nelson
Producer: Sara Moncada
Co-producer and photographer: Mateo Hinojosa
Audio Editor and Engineer: Colin Farish
Production Assistant: Teo Montoya
Additional Photography: Melissa Nelson

Songs (in order of appearance):

“Plants of the Sea, Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai” by Del Medina, Linda Low, and Colin Farish

Kai Ora: Māori stories of life-giving foods across Moana

Speakers: Wikuki Kingi & Tania Wolfgramm | Air Date: January 18, 2020 | Run Time: 44mins | The Native Seed Pod: Season 2

Kai Ora: Māori stories of life-giving foods across Moana

Traditional umu (earth-oven) cooking, Tonga, 2019

Māori knowledge-holders Wikuki Kingi (Māori) and Tania Wolfgramm (Māori/Tongan) take us into the deep waters of Pacific Islander cosmologies, technologies, and foodways. 

On a sunny fall afternoon in the shadow of Mount Tamalpias, Seed Pod host Melissa Nelson and producer Sara Moncada sat down with Wikuki and Tania for a cup of tea to talk stories of land and foods across the Pacific. From the masterful Indigenous sciences of land and ocean, food and water (known to Māori peoples as kai wai), to the many foods of Aotearoa we explore the deep knowledge and nourishing relationships held across moana nui.

“Across the pacific we have the same word for our food, which is KAI. ‘KA’ is our word for energy, and ‘I’ infers our divinity. So we are actually talking about food as being divine energy. Kai means everything to us, without Kai we don’t exist. ”

— Tania Wolfgramm

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Wikuki with a Māori Pukaea

About Wikuki Kingi

As a Tohunga Whakairo/Master Carver, with over 40 years’ experience, Wikuki has created many heritage taonga (treasures), including the intricately carved masterpiece Pou Kapūa, the tallest Māori/Pacific carving in the world. Wikuki is a founding trustee of Pou Kapua Creations Trust and the HAKAMANA Virtual Reality Collective; convenor and founding member of Planet Māori and the Te Ha Global Alliance. Wikuki has many relationships throughout New Zealand and the Pacific and continues to learn and build on his passion for Mana Whenua and Indigenous community development, cultural resilience and robust futures, believing stronger identities make stronger people and families.

About Tania Wolfgramm

A creative producer, Native technologist, voyager, and storyteller, Tania hails from the Māori tribes of Aotearoa New Zealand and the beautiful island of Vava’u, of the Kingdom of Tonga. Following ancestral footsteps, she creates cultural taonga (treasures) in multiple media from stone and bronze to augmented and virtual reality. Tania is the founder of HAKAMANA Integrated System of Transformative Design, Development and Evaluation, which has been applied in technology, higher education, and healthcare. With her Global Reach Initiative and Development (GRID) Pacific Team, she captures incredible high-resolution imagery of Pacific peoples, places, cultures, and languages that (with their permission) is shared with the world.

Additional Resources 

• Hakamana - Integrated System of Transformative Design

• Pou Kapua Creations

• Maori Dictionary

CREDITS

Host/Writer/Director: Melissa K. Nelson
Producer: Sara Moncada
Co-producer and photographer: Mateo Hinojosa
Audio Editor and Engineer: Colin Farish
Production Assistant: Teo Montoya
Photography: Mateo Hinojosa, Melissa Nelson

Songs (in order of appearance):

Station ID break music credit:  excerpt from composition for Ocean Trilogy Dance Production (Spector Dance) by Colin Farish. Piano by Colin Farish and Jasnam Daya Singh.

Te Aroha sung by Waikuki Kingi and Tania Wolfgramm