Photo By Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Gamble | 180818-N-YC738-0010 PEARL HARBOR (Aug. 18, 2018) – Chief petty officers and chief...... read more read more
Subscribe
On a sunny Saturday morning, tucked away off a well-traveled road on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, a group of Chief Petty Officers and Chief Selectees gather in a circle, hidden from the traffic by a green wall of trees and bushes. The native Hawaiian everyone refers to – with the respect due to a cultural elder – as “Uncle” sprinkles some water on each Sailor, one-by-one, as the Hawaiian referred to as “Auntie” follows behind with a ti leaf, touching each of us on the head, each shoulder, the chest, and then the abdomen. Ti leaves stick up out of a couple of buckets filled with tools, glistening with the sunshine reflecting off water droplets Uncle had recently dripped on them. A chant accompanies each blessing – the “E hō mai.”
This ceremony is known as pikai, and is a traditional Hawaiian blessing involving a pule – a prayer to call the ancestors and let them know that we come to help, and ask them to join us – and a peleku – a blessing where the ti leaf touches the spiritual points, accompanied by an oli – the e hō mai chant.
Each point represents something different. Just about the head is the ke akua, which represents the father above, or God. The crown of the head is the amakua, which represents the family, or ancestors. The shoulders and the heart area is the uhane representing the mother. And the unihipili is the abdomen, representing the child inside each of us. Auntie touches each of these areas as a symbol to show that love comes down from ke akua to unihipili.
While others are trimming the bushes and clearing the brush – the purpose of our visit – auntie and I are talking. She points to the sky. “Do you see the birds?” She tells me the birds represent the ancestors coming to join us. This is a sign that the ancestors approve of what we are doing.
“This is a sacred burial site,” said Religious Programs Specialist 1st Class Petty Officer (SW) Glenda Techur, selected to chief petty officer. “We have to ask permission. We have to let them know who we are and why we’re here.”
Techur was born and raised in Tamuning, Guam, but her family comes from the island of Palau – one of the Micronesian islands near Guam. When I asked her about the Guamanian and Hawaiian cultures, she said “it’s very similar. Respect for people. Respect for the land. Respect for your other brothers and sisters. We have the same food. Same ocean surrounding the island.” For her, this custom was familiar, as it was done at funerals back home.
For others, this is the first time they’ve seen the ceremony.
Chief Master-at-Arms (SW/EXW) Matt Haylow, of Fort Worth, Texas, coordinated the volunteer efforts. I asked him if he is normally a spiritual person, and without hesitation, he said, “No. Not at all.” But going through the ceremony, he said, “It felt kind of surreal. It made me think about things I hadn’t thought about in quite a long time.” His niece died 22 years ago. She was 35 days old. “It was surreal. Solemn. Kind of a goose bump thing. It felt like your ancestors were actually coming to help out.”
This tradition gave Haylow the opportunity to honor his niece. “Without it, I wouldn’t have thought of her. I wouldn’t have had any reason to go spiritual with this. [The clearing] would have just been yard work.”
The site is known as Halealoha Haleamau, which means house of welcome, house of eternity.
According to Jeff Pantaleo, the culture resources manager for Navy Region Hawaii, there are 98 native Hawaiian remains in the burial vault. These remains have been recovered from all across the joint base, and they fill one of eight compartments buried under the rocks. The compartment has been sealed with concrete, but the remains will always touch the earth. According to Pantaleo, this was sacred and important to the Hawaiians when this site was built.
The Halealoha Haleamau was constructed here in 1997. At that point, the Navy was expanding the wastewater treatment facility, and during an archeological survey, a burial site was uncovered. Pantaleo said that Hawaiian burial sites are generally kept secret to protect the ancestors’ ‘iwi – or bones of the dead – and their artifacts from being pilfered. He said that King Kamehameha’s burial site, for example, will never be found because he was such a powerful man, that his burial site would have been kept the most secret. King Kamehameha is known as the great uniter, as he was the first king to bring all the Hawaiian Islands under one kingdom. Pantaleo said this site had associated artifacts, and the Navy consulted with native Hawaiians to develop a plan to sacredly move the remains, dating back 800 years, to a more protected area. Part of the move included the construction of a traditional burial platform, which is what these chief petty officers and chief selectees were cleaning up today.
The Navy developed a memorandum of understanding with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, where the burial site would be made permanent, and native Hawaiians would be invited to do a pule and pikai each time work was done on the site.
“We don’t just come to a place and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go here and do this.’ You have to ask permission. You have to go and find the point of contact and make sure that it is OK. Because you don’t know what the consequences are if you just go,” said Techur. “The Navy has its own traditions and the Hawaiians have their own traditions.”
For Haylow, the ancestral ties are akin to our naval heritage. “They might not have been blood family, but [past naval leaders] were folks who kind of laid the groundwork for what we do,” he said. “Our service wouldn’t be what it is and have the capability that it does without them. So, not blood-ties, but they very much are our predecessors. Ancestors.”
“The Navy – they know what they are doing,” said Techur. “They have respect, loyalty and teamwork. And they’re working with the people here in Hawaii.”
“If we weren’t doing this kind of thing with the chief selects, this would be nothing more than a leadership course. Which you can get anywhere,” said Haylow. “When we bring these kind of events to it, of course, it broadens the experience for them, but I think it makes it worthwhile. And again, we would be doing a disservice to those who came before us if we didn’t remember and pass those on.”
| Date Taken: | 08.25.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2018 18:31 |
| Story ID: | 290331 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HAWAII, US |
| Hometown: | TAMUNING, GU |
| Hometown: | FORT WORTH, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 263 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Chief Selectees Bring Honor, Tradition to Native Hawaiian Burial Site, by SCPO Alexander Gamble, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
