Hawaiian Word of the Week: Pili

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Hawaiian Word of the Week: Pili

As Daines discusses the āina, he talks about how the Hawaiians cultivate a sense of belonging to the āina and the “pili” (pronounced: pee-lee) or connection that Hawaiians feel toward the land. He talks about how your sense of belonging  isn’t necessarily about your roots of where you are from, but creating the pili where you are today. It got me thinking about the pili I have to the Hawaiian islands and that almost magnetic pull I have to Hawaii. The pili I feel with the islands makes me miss it so very much when I am not there.

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Hawaiian Word of the Week: Āina

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Hawaiian Word of the Week: Āina

I recently finished an interesting book that I found at Talk Story Bookstore on my last trip to Kauai, “Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia” by Christina Thompson. I didn’t know much about the history of Polynesia and its people and thought it could be a good way to learn. The book was phenomenal and I highly recommend it. The thing I was most impressed by was how polynesians knew to move around the islands with virtually no instruments to help them. They knew how to ho’okele (pronounced: hoh-oh-keh-leh) or navigate the waters between the islands.

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