'Iolani Palace in Honolulu, where Queen Lili'uokalani was imprisoned after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. From the last verse of Kaulana Nā Pua: “Ma hope mākou o Lili'ulani/A loa'a ē ka pono o ka 'āina.” We're all behind Lili'ulani until we get the rights to our land back. Photo: Blaine Fergerstrom

Tyranny and iwi exposed
Why Kaulana Nā Pua is important to our
Kūpuna and our Mo'opuna

By Alika Poe Silva
Kahu Kulaiwi, Koa Mana,
Kupukaaina o Wai'anae Wahipana,
O'ahu, Hawaiian National

Aloha no, 'ohana.

Several kūpuna asked, and one kupuna said when he was knee-high (about 5 years old, back in the 1930s), his Mama dressed him up and took him to the park on the mauka side of the old Wai'anae Plantation Sugar Mill. The Royal Hawaiian Band was going to play that day.

He said he remembers “like it was yesterday.” When the Royal Hawaiian Band was playing this song, Kaulana Nā Pua, he felt tear drops on his hand. He was holding his mother's hand and he looked up and she was crying. “All the kūpuna were crying.”

He couldn't understand at that time so he asked, “Mama, Mama, why are you crying?” She reached down in her purse and grabbed a handkerchief to wipe the tears from her eyes and she said, “Because this song is so sad!”

He asked her again: “Mama, why are you crying, and why are all the other people crying?” And she said, “Because they imprisoned our Queen and our people.”

He said, “I will never forget that, even if I understood the song much later than I did at the time, and what she said! Everyone there was crying with true tears!”

So he called me after after getting a call from kupuna on Kaua'i who read the July KWO column. He called me and told me about that and told me about this story, too, how it affected him and how he remembers that song.

And when he read our story in KWO, he wanted to thank us for helping him to remember his Mama, and how all the kūpuna and people felt. He said he swore he would never forget the tears that rolled down from his mother's eyes and onto his hand as she was holding it, and what she said to him: “Kaulana Nā Pua, my child, the whole world knows who you are!”

Remember, 'ohana, what our kūpuna visualized, practiced and taught us: “Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka 'Āina I Ka Pono.”