Hawaiian Word of the Week: Laulima

In Hawaiian, ‘lau’ means ‘leaf’ and ‘lima’ means ‘hands.’ Together, ‘laulima’ [lah-oo-lee-mah] means many hands. As they say, many hands working together make light work.

In old Hawaii, Hawaiians would take a long rope and tie ti leaves to it. Everyone would hold it and form a line in the ocean to wrangle fish towards the shore. In this way, they’d catch fish - but only if everyone worked together. A successful catch was dependent on everyone doing their job.

This week, consider a way to gather in the spirit of aloha, working together for everyone’s success.