< Native Hawaiians aim to bring cultural sensitivity to Maui wildfire cleanup

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It's been more than seven months since wildfires swept through Maui, and the cleanup is proving to be a complicated and delicate operation. The disaster killed 101 people and destroyed historic Lahaina, a sacred landmark for Native Hawaiians. Now special cultural monitors are working with federal cleanup crews to protect artifacts in the burn zone. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.

MEHANA HIND: Aloha.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Aloha.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Mehana Hind stands in the center of a hotel conference room with a wide, welcoming grin. She's surrounded by members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, newly arrived from the mainland.

HIND: This training is going to have a lot of Hawaiian words. Don't get stuck on them. Let them flow over you. It's fine.

ELLIOTT: Hind is with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. The group is conducting this training to equip federal cleanup teams to recognize and engage with the unique culture here.

HIND: I want you, though, to pay attention to the way the words are spelled and how I'm pronouncing them. My name is Mehana. It's a Hawaiian name, means warmth.

ELLIOTT: She's trying to get them comfortable with the local language and landmarks in Lahaina, the onetime capital of the kingdom of Hawaii.

HIND: Say that after me. Haleakala.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Haleakala.

HIND: Good job.

ELLIOTT: She tells them it's a lesson in how to honor a people who have endured a lot, both in the deadly wildfires last summer and historically through colonization and ancient Hawaiians' first contact with Europeans.

HIND: And we knew from our history with contact and with tourism especially that one of the biggest things that can harm a community that's already been traumatized is cultural differences, simple misunderstandings.

ELLIOTT: Along with this cultural liaison work, several Indigenous groups are providing cultural monitors to work with cleanup crews through a nearly $19 million contract with the corps. Local residents pushed for this.

HIND: How are you doing?

ELLIOTT: Outside, looking over the burnt ruins of Lahaina, Hind says that work is critical because so much of Hawaii's history lies just below the surface of the ash.

HIND: It's hard to express how significant this particular 5-mile stretch of land is to what Hawaii was, is and can be.

ELLIOTT: She asks workers to be respectful.

HIND: Walk lightly. Know that you are walking in spaces that have created the footprint for some very important things in Hawaii's history. Remember the people whose lives have been devastated through here.

RICHARD BISSEN: This is the most complex disaster that EPA and FEMA has ever dealt with, according to them.

ELLIOTT: Maui Mayor Richard Bissen.

BISSEN: In any other debris cleanup situation outside of Hawaii, they would just bulldoze everything from one end of the property to the other, put it in a truck and haul it away. But what they're doing here is each individual property is being looked at for historical and cultural significance. They're being very deliberate and delicate. This is not what they normally do.

ELLIOTT: To date, about 200 properties have been cleared out of thousands. Colonel Jess Curry, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers Recovery Field Office on Maui, estimates it will be next January before the debris cleanup is complete.

JESS CURRY: Moving quickly, moving rapidly is not necessarily the best way to do this work.

ELLIOTT: He says the cultural considerations here add new layers of complexity to the disaster response, one that's complicated by Native Hawaiians' historical relationship with the federal government.

CURRY: As we dig into properties, as we address removing this debris, we are going to take care of things that are important and sacred to this community, and they're going to be holding us accountable and helping us understand.

ELLIOTT: It's about protecting a way of life, says Keeaumoku Kapu, the curator of the Native Hawaiian Cultural Center that burned down in Lahaina.

KEEAUMOKU KAPU: There is a consultation that needs to be done to make sure that the people of the land and the history of the land basically isn't erased.

ELLIOTT: Kapu serves as the coordinator of the cultural monitors. He's 60 and says 27 generations of his ancestors have lived here.

KAPU: The land that I live on was awarded to my family from the time of the kingdom. Lahaina was the Venice of the Pacific during the time of the kingdom. A lot of sites have been recognized on a national historic registry.

ELLIOTT: Kapu says a few dozen local people are working on the cultural monitoring teams along with archaeologists. He says with the town burned down, there's an opportunity to document previously unearthed artifacts and to record important historic data, including original boundaries of properties and ancestral burial grounds. Some of the things they found...

KAPU: Family heirlooms like poi pounders and a lot of tools that during the time of pre-contact, a lot of the vestments that were used way prior to the coming of the missionaries and a lot of the iconic historic sites.

ELLIOTT: Poi pounders are stone pestles used to process traditional crops like taro and breadfruit. Kapu says the cultural teams have been a reassuring presence for people now watching heavy equipment plough through what's left of their homes, treasured family relics and, for some, the remains of loved ones.

KAPU: It's good that our cultural monitors are there because we know who uncle, we know auntie, we know everybody, and when they see us, it's kind of a sign of relief.

ELLIOTT: There's a ritual the cultural teams follow each day, starting with a series of morning prayers.

KAPU: It's a two cup and a clap, and everybody that's in the circle, they do the same thing, and it goes (singing in non-English language). Then everybody repeats (singing in non-English language).

ELLIOTT: Kapu says contractors and federal cleanup crews are also invited to participate.

KAPU: In order to clean the area, we need to get everybody in sync spiritually, physically and mentally.

ELLIOTT: They unfurl traditional woven mats that represent the layers of emotion involved in this work and, he says, the secrets hidden within the consecrated ground. Then at the end of the day, they gather again in prayer circles. The mats are folded back together to carry the burden of the day.

KAPU: We call it kaumaha, weight that we endured throughout the day.

ELLIOTT: Kapu says it's about grounding themselves for this grueling and haunting work.

Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Lahaina.

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MARTIN: This story was produced by NPR's Marisa Peñaloza.

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