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The traffic jam is on as island residents stream through the gates of cemeteries this weekend to decorate their family graves in floral glory. Memorial Day helps families
stay connected with ancestors
By Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.com
Memorial Day was created as the national holiday to honor fallen military heroes, but in Hawaii it has become a time to remember every deceased member in the family. It's about spirituality and culture and a whole lot about ohana.
"I think it's religious and cultural," said Bill Amigone, Williams Funeral Services manager. "I would say it shows how people are close to their rich culture and act out their faith."
Amigone, a veteran of 34 years in the funeral business here, said, "I would say you see mostly Hawaiians and Caucasians. It's more of a Christian thing, but sometimes just a way for families to stay connected. You see the whole family there with bentos and lawn chairs." This may be a universal Memorial Day, but it isn't a one-time thing, he said. "You will see people here every day or every week; they put out toys and Christmas trees, Easter baskets, birthday flowers."
Honoring ancestors is key to Asian and Hawaiian cultures, and some people see the modern grave-visiting practice as another example of the ways island residents adopt each other's rites and customs.
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"The practice of American Memorial Day crept into our society. It sort of fit into the Hawaiian situation," said John Keola Lake, chanter and kumu hula who teaches Hawaiian studies at Chaminade University. "In the ancient past, a body was kept for a year, then placed in a hidden cave. That time was marked; it became an annual thing to have a feast, the aha aina waimaka" or gathering for tears, usually a year after the death."It becomes a celebration that they (the dead) are with the family," Lake said. "It's a family reminiscing. ... As long as they are remembered, they are still alive." Lake said he remembers being taken as a child to decorate graves in five different locations, a journey that his mother and sister will observe this weekend on Maui.
"People would honor the bones of their ancestors. It would be customary to care for a burial site," said the Rev. Kaleo Patterson, pastor of Kaumakapili Church. "In terms of Hawaiians and their kuleana, burials were in the back yard.
"In terms of deep culture, the bones were reburied in secret, with the idea that they are sacred and you don't want anyone to know where they are," said the minister. That was in ancient times when "there was fighting and if your enemies got the bones, they had power over you, they could be desecrated. And the poor Hawaiians, in times of disease epidemics, would bury their dead in unmarked graves, in sand dunes."
Then came the Western culture, public cemeteries and burial rites, and the cross-culturization began.
"For example, at the Royal Mausoleum, there is the very healthy tradition of honoring the kupuna up there," Patterson said. It is the first stop he makes when he takes visitors around Hawaii. "I start by making the connection to the people of this land."
The people who are carrying the flowers to the grave today likely have childhood memories of similar outings, their parents' habit they didn't choose to discard although they may have drifted from their parents' religion.
"There is a desire to be connected with traditional beliefs, a nostalgic connection with the past," said Nathan Napoka with the Department of Land & Natural Resources' Historic Preservation Division.
It's a Western idea to set a time to honor the dead, Napoka said. "It's not just Memorial Day. In Hawaiian households you have a photograph of an ancestor. Their spirits are always around you ... unless they ask to be released." Napoka said. "Some older Hawaiians say, 'When I'm gone, don't call me.'
"In contemporary days there is a longing for the deceased -- not a morbid thing, it is a loving thing. It is not like Dia de los Muertos in Mexico," a Halloween carnival-like festival mixing indigenous peoples' ancestor worship and Catholic belief about souls and saints.
Napoka said many younger Hawaiians have learned to chant to the family's aumakua, or protecting spirit. "There are some aumakua chants you hear nowadays that call on ancestors to come forward, seeking guidance.
"Native Hawaiian spirituality has evolved in a hundred different directions. There are all different nuances. There are Jewish Hawaiians, Buddhist Hawaiians, Christian Hawaiians. When it comes to revering of ancestors, it's hard to make a generalized statement. We just honor the diversity," Napoka said.
"It's not just bringing flowers. A family will come and sit around and talk story," said Leinaala Chong-Kee, supervisor of the Kaahumanu Society's cemetery. She planned to spend today and tomorrow at the Kapalama Street graveyard to seek historical information about burials from the people who visit. "Now I go around and listen to their talk," she said.
"It is not just a Hawaiian thing. It's more of a family thing," said Chong-Kee. "I think they bring the children so they will know where they belong. I hear people meditating with whoever is (buried) there. There is one group of 16 in an ohana who come in vans and go from one grave to another. Everyone brings flowers, down to the little kids who can hold a lei they sewed. They hold hands and say a prayer."
Nona Kamai of Palolo said three generations of her family will trek to a small Chinese cemetery near Punchbowl, where her mother's family members are buried. "We take potluck, like a family get-together, and we talk about them. My daughters and niece do an aloha chant, a welcome chant. We are sending our love. It is our Hawaiian thing."
In an archives search, Kamai found photographs of 19th- and 20th-century services when alii were buried that show white-clad men's and women's burial societies. "They were keepers of the bones. They gathered for burials."
Kamai said she doesn't wait until Memorial Day to visit her late husband. "I go to talk to Heine all the time. I say my prayers there."
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