Molokai's Communal lifestyle

Recently I mentioned to a Nish friend of mine about Molokai and its communal society. This discussion was further demonstrated as I just had replied in a forum where people were inquiring about "Hawaii" to where a young girl mentioned the unfriendly attitude of people of Molokai against tourists to which I corrected her.

http://community.livejournal.com/alt_hawaii/44030.html?view=193278#t193278

I've never heard of locals being hostile but have been very irritated by rude behavior displayed by outsiders in general and I understood it to be people from the mainland who moved to the island, rather than the tourists themselves. The tourists are the ones who go there temporarily, unlike the other older Haoles who move there that tend to want to change things there, change the lifestyle, mainly because they can't get on Molokai what they got in their own places where they lived. So they criticize the island for its lifestyle, saying that it is backwards, slow in progress (as it always has been) and that people have a laid back personality to where they seem to lack interest in things. Hardly true, but interesting observation. Then you wonder why these people ever moved to Molokai, right? What attracted them to the island in the first place? In any case, the assessment/comment made by that person was not only unfair but inaccurate.

The hostility definitely isn't towards the tourists, but rather people who move there and have this pretentious behavior because they demand things to go their own way and not the way the island has always been. And what is that really?

Hawaiian society in general has always been a communal one. As I've explained in the past to people the importance of names and according to the historian Tutu Mary Kawena Pukui, Hawaiian names were one of the few things that Hawaiians possessed as their own, hence the importance and protocols surrounding names.

Molokai is a place, one of the places that I know of and have experienced where this communal society still thrives even through all these changes today, it still continues to exist. I recently saw a link to the Molokai Enterprise Community website, specifically created to preserve certain cultural aspects of the island and preserved by the entire community. This is a community really focused on working together as a whole.

When my father died and I went back for his funeral, I forgot how much people came together. I always wanted to run away to Honolulu and of course later to Los Angeles because I yearned to be anonymous. But what I got to experience was an eye opener, having lived in LA for a long time. The entire community came together for my father's funeral. Granted things are done differently on Molokai than O'ahu and definitely from here.

I ran around the island with my aunt doing some errands in preparation for the funeral. According to Lori Buchanan (whose family runs the mortuary service on the island), the county pays for the burial so it's free (unlike elsewhere) but we have to build the box to place the casket in according to the specifications given. My step-cousin's husband who works for the county took care of the box since the dimensions is something he's familiar with having done that for other people. We stopped in town one day to meet Moku Buchanan, the husband of Lori. He gave us a bunch of THANK YOU cards to be used at the funeral. That way, we didn't have to purchase it ourselves. My step-cousin created a flier to let the island know of my father's funeral and we had to make copies. I was already surprised that Molokai had their own copying service. lol But when I took the flier to the place and made copies, the girl running the place told me that there was no charge for the copies. That was a very nice gesture and I thanked her for it and my Aunt was surprised too. But that was their way of contributing.

We stopped at the local clinic, my Aunt and I walked in and she asked the nurse working at the front, "Hey, aren't you my brother's classmate?" She said yes and then my Aunt asked her if she and the classmates could handle the refreshments for the services and she gladly obliged. That really surprised me because my Aunt had her list of things to do and she was just going down that list. lol Later on the day of the funeral I found out that some of the church members had already set up a lot of things at the church for my father's funeral. My father, actually his wife had made sure that my father was paying his dues to this "Filipino Club" which seems like the club does nothing but collect $$ from people and everytime there's a funeral, they donate a set amount. lol But still, a very nice gesture and the $$ was welcomed in order to pay for funeral expenses.

My Aunt also contacted my classmate's mother - Aunty Kanani. She was asked by my Aunt, since she worked at the high school cafeteria if she could use their facility to bake a huge pan of cake for the get together after the funeral. But that surprised me too because here my Aunt made arrangements with all kinds of people who had connection, all in preparation for the feast to follow the funeral services, it's like to say thanks to the people. Not sure if it's practiced elsewhere which I thought it was, but not sure if it's a combination of influence from various cultures (Filipino, Japanese) or a Hawaiian thing or a small community thing, etc. But the fact is, that many people came together to contribute. My step-mother's side of the family contributed a couple of pigs and others on that side of the family also contributed with the food to feed all the people who came.

Now this is what a communal society does. They're there for one another, they come together most especially during a time of need. I remember when I was younger we'd go fishing in the fishpond and my Aunt would share the catch with friends and neighbors and saved a lot of it in her freezer. And later she'd continue to give them away to friends, relatives & neighbors. I've seen my Uncle's neighbor do the same thing when he'd go fishing. My other Uncle and father did the same thing when they went hunting. They share the catch with the community. Basically with friends, relatives and anyone else around, like close neighbors. This is what a community society does, like in the old days. Many, many years ago I was helping a neighbor with her son's watermelon crop. What happened when we couldn't sell his watermelon? Later, we gave them away, to people in town. So when they came up, we gave them away. If you can't sell them anymore, why let it go to waste? People were tired of watermelons by then but the idea is, you share with others in your catch. Simple as that.

Looking back, I am so thankful for having been raised up the way that I was.