water’s refrain is a daily practice of wet weaves
there are multiple horizons on complex liquid grounds.
watersheds are refrains, not plans…..
refrains for He’eia
Refrains are the heart of a song, prayer, and daily movement. Repetitions at regular intervals and spaces.
Watery refrains are repeating compositions of
elemental
animal
plant
interfacing relation. Lines and paths made with gestures of abundant cooperation.
Woven in space time.
There are lines that separate water from land. Boundary lines drawn on paper.
These lines often indicate a course, a facilitation of settlement and development.
Course thought.
There are also lines that weave, bringing water molecules together forming temporary flows that facilitate the lines and paths
of fish schooling upstream,
kalo roots taking hold
and toes moving through soil.
A muliwai (estuary) is an open field of woven wet lines.
The line of a pond’s bank is only one line.
The horizon between land and sky is only one line.
There are many lines.
I prefer to think of futuring watersheds with woven lines. I prefer to think in terms of refrains, not plans.
What sort of refrains do watersheds need to carry into the 21st century?
He‘eia is a place to meditate on this question, an opportunity to
trace paths,
shapes,
overlays
and energies.
To understand how water’s refrain beckons the insects’ refrains which beckons the birds’ refrains which beckons the native reeds’ refrains which beckon necessary farming and fishing refrains… and so on.
From my position as a settler aloha ‘āina at Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, ma ka hana ka ‘ike (learning by doing) to bring the muliwai (estuary) back into abundance and support the sovereignty of Native Hawaiians, I have been lucky to kilo (observe and witness) the emergence of some of these refrains as the wetlands comes back to life.
Picture this refrain of the rotting mangrove mirroring the shape of the Ko‘olau mountains. This refrain is one of human labor, day by day, pulling out the mangroves, undoing short-sighted watershed management of the early twentieth century, when the area was used for sugarcane and pineapples. Pulling mangroves allows microbes and water to return the trees to soil. Mists coming off mountains flowing into the newly rebuilt au wai (canals) through the wet ground of the muliwai (estuary) and into the restored walls of the loko i‘a (fishpond).
Water’s refrain is a daily practice of wet weaves.
about He’eia
The He‘eia ahupua‘a is in the Ko‘olaupoko (district) on the moku (island) of O‘ahu. It is fed by the mists and rain clouds of the Ko‘olau mountains, brought by the winds wicking moisture across the ocean.
The Hawaiian conception of a watershed is the ahupua‘a, a socio-economic-ecological land and water system. The stream is among the most important aspects of an ahupua’a. The Hawaiian word for fresh water is wai and the Hawaiian word for wealth, abundance, and prosperity is waiwai. From a Native Hawaiian perspective, to know a place is to know the names of the akua (spirits) of winds, rains, and clouds; and to kilo (observe) and attend to the natural flow of the stream in creating an ever-replenishing food supply as long as natural cycles are honored.
He‘eia is known to be one of the oldest and largest areas of lo‘i kalo (wetland kalo) production on O‘ahu from the earliest Hawaiian settlements through the 1930s (Handy, Handy & Pukui, 1972) – the calabash of O‘ahu (Aiku and Camvel). Beyond extensive lo‘i kalo (kalo is the most important Hawaiian food staple), it also supported sweet potatoes, sugarcane, and coconut trees, providing food security and cultural autonomy for Hawaiians. By the early twentieth century, after the privatization of land during the Great Māhele of 1848, Bernice Pauahi Bishop leased the land to Hawaiian, Chinese and Japanese farmers who continued to tend to lo‘i kalo, while other areas were used for large-scale sugarcane and pineapple farming.
A 1928 image shows over 300-acres of lo‘i kalo and three poi mills used by the agricultural communities in the area. During this time, mangroves were planted to maintain the topsoil in the muliwai (estuary). But they also suffocated the stream and loko i‘a fishpond, choking out the native fish, plants and insects.
In the decades since the 1930s, developers sought to build luxury homes, a marina, a resort and golf course on this farmland. This was met with strong opposition from local kūpuna and other community members who blocked development for decades. In July of 1991, approximately 405 acres were acquired by the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority (HCDA) and efforts were coordinated to restore the upper He’eia stream, rebuild the fishpond, and mitigate terrestrial runoff into the coral reef ecosystems of Kāneʻohe Bay. Coalitions across the watershed have come together in efforts to not only restore water quality, but also to rebuild bio-cultural knowledge practices of Hawaiian agro-forestry techniques, lo‘i kalo farming, and loko i‘a management.
kākoʻo (to uphold, support) ‘oiwi (native)
In 2010, Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi was granted a 38-year lease from the HCDA for the 405-acre parcel to support Native Hawaiian cultural practices, agriculture, education, and natural-resource restoration and management. The cultivation of kalo and the re-engineering of the au wai that brings water to the ponds serve a critical cultural and ecological function for the future of the Heʻeia watershed.
The ongoing revival of the estuary is a combination of old, new, and natural refrains—massive machinery laying in PVC pipes to help direct the flow of water, hand cutting mangrove trees, and the return of estuary fish to the streams of He‘eia.