An occupied kingdom

Many outsiders see Hawai’i as one of the 50 states that together make up the US, but the majority of Indigenous Hawai’ians understand themselves to be living under the occupation of the US government and military. Hawai’i was previously a sovereign kingdom and internationally recognized as an independent nation. On January 16, 1893, the United States Marine Corps invaded the island and illegally overthrew the Hawai’ian government the next day.

Nearly a year later, in his message to Congress, President Grover Cleveland acknowledged that this was an unlawful act and advised its reversal. Although this advice was never heeded, in 1993 — 100 years later — President Bill Clinton signed legislation apologizing for the US role in the 1893 overthrow but the apology did not extend the federal recognition to Native Hawai’ians that exists for Native American tribes.

The Native Hawai’ian people have never forgotten this injustice. And like most other Indigenous nations whose lands are being occupied by colonial states, the grievance of land theft and unlawful occupation was just the first in an endless list of human rights breaches and transgressions. In Hawai’i, this includes military occupations on many of the islands, where land is often used as a target for bombing practice.

The Disneyfication and gentrification of the islands have also pushed out Native Hawai’ians from their original communities and away from traditional ways of life. The rising cost of housing and economic incentives to develop land for vacation and retirement housing has meant that homelessness is a significant issue for Native Hawai’ians.

Additionally, the overdevelopment, ecological mismanagement and use of the territory as a military testing sacrifice zone have led to the endangerment of some indigenous species and their natural habitats. In response, the Department of Lands and Resources prevented Native Hawai’ian peoples from carrying out traditional forms of sustenance like fishing and trapping.

After 126 years of fighting for basic rights and recognition as Indigenous people, Indigenous Hawai’ians see Mauna Kea as a turning point that has united people in aloha ‘aina (love of the land) as they say, “No more.”

Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu: A new kind of frontline

Following the July 10 announcement that construction would begin the following week, a small group of 33 Native Hawai’ian kupuna (Elders), kumu (knowledge keepers), and kia’i (land protectors) drove to the base of Mauna Kea to set up camp. Camille Kalama, a lawyer who is part of HULI (Hawai’i Unity and Liberation Institute) and one of the first to arrive at the mountain, recalled that upon their arrival there was no formal plan or sense of whether others would join them. But by the end of that first weekend the group had grown to nearly 500 people.

Under the authority of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I (an order of knighthood established by King Kamehameha V that dates back to 1865) and guided by Native Hawai’ian ceremonial protocol, the camp at the base of Mauna was deemed a Pu’u Honua (sanctuary) where kapu aloha (a state of love and respect) was in effect.

Under kapu aloha protocols, everyone is welcome as long as they act with aloha ‘aina (love of the land), treat others with kindness and respect, refrain from swearing, abstain from drugs, alcohol or cigarettes, and avoid littering. Pua Case, one of the leaders of the movement who was born and raised on the island and has been defending it her entire life, repeatedly said, “We shall not leave one grain of rice on this land”.

Early in the week, in anticipation of construction trucks and state police, kupuna created a frontline; they insisted on being the first line of defense. Behind them, a group of protectors chained themselves to the road on a cattle grate. Kupuna have remained there every day to block the main access road.

Construction vehicles escorted by local police arrived on Wednesday, July 17. Within hours, 35 kupuna, some in their late 80s, were arrested. Many of them needed walkers to make it to the police vans while others had to be pushed in their wheelchairs; their younger counterparts wept, sang and prayed as they witnessed the Elders being taken away by law enforcement.

By the middle of the day, the police had retreated, but the footage and images of the detention of elderly Mauna protectors traveled around the world. Within days of the arrest, thousands of people were on the mountain, having created a small self-sustaining community named Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu (roughly translated to Fuzzy Mountain Sanctuary, after the hill facing Mauna Kea). Dozens of solidarity actions began popping up across the Hawai’ian Islands, as well as on the US mainland, in Canada, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Japan, and elsewhere.

The Principle of Kapu Aloha

While Mauna Kea has certainly been receiving attention in the international media, what many of the news reports are glossing over is how kapu aloha has remained the guiding principle of the Mauna protectors. What has been created at Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu in a few short weeks is nothing short of extraordinary.

Every morning begins with prayer, oli (chanting), mo`olelo (story) and cultural activities including hula. Kupuna set the tone for the day with reminders of what it means to be in a state of kapu aloha and teach all those staying at the Pu’uhonua how to enact respect and honor protocol. Evenings end in much the same way. All day long, rain or shine, storytellers, dancers or musicians perform for the kupuna and anyone else who wants to witness and learn.

The Pu’uhonua offers three warms meals to the many supporters. There are dozens of latrines set up that are regularly cleaned, pumped out and fully stocked. There is a medical station, childcare, legal advisers and an area where massage therapists and healers provide bodywork to anyone who seeks it. Small children, teens, families and elders are cared for. A free university runs four sessions a day, with five classes in each session between 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. As one of the instructors there said, “It’s a place where tuition is free, everyone is welcome and the bathrooms are gender inclusive.”

There is daily non-violent direct action training, which is mandatory for anyone planning to stay on the mountain. There is even a designated team of crossing guards who ensure the safe crossing of pedestrians, highway traffic and delivery vehicles every day. While crossing, it is common for both pedestrians and crossing guards to be calling mahalo (thank you), aloha (love) and ku kia’i mauna (guardians of the mountain) — just one example of how the principle of Kapu Aloha has turned even the most mundane daily tasks in the Pu’uhonua into acts of love and community building.

The Pu’uhonua is run entirely by layers of volunteer leaders; there is no hierarchy but rather emergent leadership. The people who have come to protect the mountain embody the principle of caring deeply for one another, and it is working. It’s as though a doorway to another way of being has been created at the base of Mauna Kea.

As the kupuna were being detained by the police, they were praying for their captors, telling them they were not angry with them, that they understood, proving that the kapu aloha embodied at Mauna Kea is so powerful that not even those who have come to destroy the mountain itself can disrupt that way of being.

The world should understand that the Mauna is a holy place. What is taking place there now is sacred; people are living in harmony and ceremony with one another and the land, and showing us all that another world is possible.

Global Solidarity

In just six weeks, Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu has become a beacon for Indigenous land-based direct action and cultural revitalization. It is reframing a narrative from one in which Indigenous land defense and human rights struggles vie among one another for external support to one in which each action exists in solidarity with and strengthens one another. It is refuting the notion that scientific progress is inherently antithetical to Indigenous knowledge paradigms and offering alternative, decolonized ways forward.

The kuma and kupa on the mountain have repeatedly stated that they are not anti-science or anti-progress. They are opposed to the destruction of sacred places and the disregard for Indigenous sovereignty.

In an interview with Democracy Now, Mauna protector Pua Case explained, “We are making a stand as not just Native people and not just the local community, but really a worldwide community, because there are so many similarities… There are Native people everywhere around the world standing for their mountaintops, for their waters, for their land bases, their oceans, and their lifeways. We are no different than them.”

Mauna Kea is proving not only to other Indigenous frontline communities, but to all of us that another way of being with one another and the Earth, grounded in love and the wisdom of our ancestors, is viable and attainable not only in our lifetimes, but now. The kia’i on the Mauna are living, breathing, thriving examples of this every day.

Supportive delegations arrived from Aotearoa, Tahiti and Tonga, and high-profile visitors such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Damien Marley and Jason Mamoa have shown solidarity with protectors of Mauna Kea. One of these visitors, LaDonna Bravebull Allard, founder of the Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock, came to support Mauna leader Pua Case. The two now consider each other sisters. When she arrived on the Mauna, Bravebull Allard expressed that she had come to “give her sister a hug” and shared stories of how it was Case’s phone calls that got her through even the hardest days of Standing Rock.

During her stay, she taught a session at University Pu’uhuluhulu in which she shared that witnessing what is occurring at Mauna Kea helped her to understand her role in Standing Rock: “It was a seed we planted.” And look what has emerged: “the Mauna is bringing families together, it is bringing nations together, this Mauna is bringing the world together.”