By Erica Taniguchi
The leather of the saddle squeaked under me with each step that Jack, our mule, took on the rocky, uneven ground. I ducked under hanging kukui branches and fronds of lauaʻe dipping into his path, which really wasn’t a path. Mosquitoes and twists of lilikoʻi vines caught in my braid were brushed away as I tried to keep up with my grandad on his mule ahead of me. “You see all this?” he said, waving his arms up the mauka side of the trail, “This is how you know Kanakas was living all inside here. You see all that ti leaf, and the rock walls, and all this kukui trees? This whole place”, waving his arm, “They was living here. They had plant all this when they came from Tahiti… everything they needed right here, water, food, medicine, their houses, oil for light…” My saddle continued to squeak.
I don’t remember where we were riding to, or why exactly we were riding, I think it was just to go “holo holo” like my Nana liked to say. The mules needed to stay in condition and my grandad wanted to check “his trail”… that must’ve been 25 years ago, I was a teenager, happy to go wherever my grandparents were going. We’d go up the hillside above his house and ride through the trees along the base of the mountain. That day I saw ti leaf, or lāʻī, in a whole new light… the ti leaf that I had so often overlooked and thought of as “common,” it lined the side of my Tutu’s house, it was in the corners of our yard, we were always using it for this or that, it seemed to be everywhere… this day I saw it differently.
There glowing in the sunlight that filtered through the kukui branches, the root bases of these lāʻī were bigger than any I’d ever seen. Their stalks reached high above my head, with leaves as long as my arm. That day I saw them as a living remnant and intentions of our kūpuna, our ancestors, who arrived here hundreds of years ago from Kahiki. I imagined their faces, their hands, wondered what they might have been thinking about as they purposefully prepared for a voyage on a sailing canoe across thousands of miles of open Pacific ocean. I thought of them harvesting pieces of lāʻī stalks, and wondered what their home island must’ve looked like. A voyage that far could take more than a month. It would’ve taken detailed planning, effort to protect the cuttings from the salty sea that washes across the deck in open ocean crossings. Fresh water would’ve been needed to keep them moist and prevent them from drying out. And finally after traveling such a huge distance, these lāʻī were carried here, to the base of this mountain hundreds of feet above sea level, planted and nurtured until new green leaves unfurled . My imagination wandered as I thought of generations of people being nourished by these same ancient plants, steaming food in their leaves, preparing lāʻau to heal ailments, incorporating them into ceremonies of life and death. In these thriving, supersized stalks of lāʻī I realized for the first time what wise, intentional people we descended from, a people always thinking of the generations to come. Here in these kūpuna plants those intentions lived, for my grandfather and myself to touch, to harvest for our nourishment, our healing, our own continued growth. There began my deep appreciation for lāʻī, and for kūpuna. I felt humbled in their presence, the once-overlooked ti leaf, this day I saw them as kūpuna.
When I was expecting my first son we began building a small hale for us near my granddad’s. As many Hawaiian ʻohana do, I wanted to plant lāʻī outside each corner of our new little hale. I made my way up the hillside and after a quiet prayer asking permission and stating my intention, I cut two healthy stalks from two separate clumps of lāʻī. I carried them home and cut each stalk into four sections. After soaking the lower ends in water for several days, when small white roots sprouted, we planted lāʻī in each corner of our house. We watered them every morning and before my son was born green leaves were unfolding, welcoming him home. It’s been 17 years and those la’i have grown and thrived, as has my son. Each year there are new off-shoots, new branches reaching for the sun, and the harvesting and propagating of those eight corner plants has continued. It seems the white five-gallon bucket under the kukui tree in the front yard has a constant rotation of cuttings sprouting roots that make their way to family and neighbors houses.
Five years ago my Grandad, in his constant quest to teach my sons (I now have two sons) “how to work”, started having them dig holes in neat rows. “They get so much energy” he said, “gotta show them how for use all that energy.” And so they dug holes, and more holes, and rows added to rows, and each hole got a two foot tall ti leaf stalk. The boys, 12 and 5 at the time, dug, and planted, and watered, following my grandad. At first I watched, a little grudgingly. I wasn’t a fan of the location of the new rows of holes, and the dirt everywhere, and the mud crusted laundry that would find inconvenient hiding spots everywhere it seemed, except the laundry hamper. But I watch the prideful smiles grow, first on my grandad’s face, then the boys’ with each new sprouting green shoot that turned to leaves. Eventually I surrendered and joined them and made my own rows of holes and dirty laundry. After five years, the first rows they planted are now so tall we need a step ladder to pick leaves, and the most recently planted are just waist high.
Over the years the lāʻī have made their way to numerous marriage ceremonies and lūʻau, baby showers, canoe club laulau fundraisers, the hulls of the visiting Hōkūleʻa, the kid’s school hōʻike, lei for hoʻolewa of community members who have passed, and adorned my children, family, and friends as they’ve celebrated special milestones. The patch has slowly changed my morning rhythms as I find myself opting to let the work emails wait until after I’ve walked through the patch. A few yellowing leaves as a snack for the mule who is now 27 or 28 and waits every morning by the fence for a treat, a few for our pet mountain pig “Hoku”, (who we rescued from the same spot on the mountainside where the parent plants came from), a few weeds to be pulled, a bit of watering. There is always admiration for the sprays of flowers in their season, and the small mejiro that make their nests in the dried flower stalks.
There is appreciation for the many times we’ve prepared lāʻau for various ailments over the years and the healing that followed, and the clarity that seems to come more easily in this space under emerald leaves and dappled light. This patch humbles me constantly, reminding me I am just a connecting link in the long line of receivers of these gifts. I am not the first or the last, but a small part of this continuous rope of connection from their distant home island across the Pacific, from their ancestors of the deep past, to my grandfather, myself, my sons here and now, and one day hopefully to the next generations of children. One day I will be the tutu grandma teaching the over energetic small ones how to work and use their energy wisely. I hope that they will also see these lāʻī as kūpuna, and find gratitude, humility, clarity, a sense of belonging and kuleana in their shade.
