Blaine Namahana Tolentino

He Kuamoʻo ʻŌlelo o ka ʻUla
An Ongoing Record of Red

1.

Bound by or composed of red: an array
of notions, histories, names, objects,
and other living things.

Embodied, spectral, reminding,
remarking, permeating; red—

but not without the codex of knowing, alignments
and frequencies observed and remembered, sensed
before being organized or made into words, sensed
with an expert eye or ear or melody;

a system for time, catalogued
by scales and strength, tugged
and warped by use, electricity
between all things, as diffusive as it is well-constructed,
so escaping and finding, acquiring and concealing; red—

the logics and marks whose sum puts forth the methods
carried in embrace, the knowns
of how to consider, defy, oblige, and respond, fetched
from the shadows and sounds of gods and chiefs,

and fed,
maintained; red—

like paths memorized, competing to remain
and winning, affixed
by utility or ongoing happenstance,

here, named using words,
a collection of movements and contexts of interest
or aliveness that are Hawaiʻi

and its red mapping.

2.

Lava and its repository populate our East.
Kīlauea’s generative lands
take position in relative geography
and spacetime—available, arranged
in poetry, memory, and manner:
East, volcano, fire, light, dawn,
heat, embrace, fascination, draw, desire,
risk, longing.

Lava hurries its details
of surfacing, edges giving
and rupturing, disappearing
its own form without focus
or pause; its body
flops and cracks over the senses,
threatening, promising
the surge and thrill of closeness;
writhing as protozoa,
a here-and-there rapture
of newness
alights.

Apprehension moves over districts,
clouds consuming smoke
or the reverse,
obscured by tint
and atmosphere; fumed
by the movements of
land doing chores
(breathing and clacking
mass), the glow is reddened—

perhaps the only red we share
with those passed—red born
prior to the interim of new things
mounting these places,
before crowds multiplied and divided
while perched atop land’s aging body,
persistent red without need
for contrast, scale, or relativity.

In its library of functions, East stores
rock teeth fringing old lava at Kumukahi,
where beginning light cuts through
to jut and crawl over lands
ascending into mountains.

Nearby, sunlight and its many arrivals
are stored by its name, Hikina,¹
and bundled in still-recited songs
for the approach of volcanic gods:

Holo mai Pele mai Kahikina…
…E olohe koi ula e mauna mai ana,
Ka hikina o ka la o Kumukahi ma…²
Pele comes from the East…
…Clear, red mist emerging,
The coming of day at Kumukahi’s lands…

East waters, like those West,
are draped by pūnohu ʻula,
a red, rising mist,
which similarly adorns
the tops of mountains—
summits themselves
an area of linked
and weighed meanings, found easily
as companions and routes
in songs and stories,
both surviving and sprung forth:
height, status, separateness,
sacredness, rarity.

The nature of red—
throughout, upon, within—
is plain in the collection of red clouds
Davida Malo recorded.³
Ao ʻula: red, as dawn
Kiawe ʻula: streaked red
ʻŌnohi ʻula: red-centered

When they are in the East,
they are a kahaʻea,
a signal of oncoming rain.
In the West, they are an akaʻula,
a red shadow that clears rain.

In 1862, S.N. Haleʻole reminded us
that the near-Earth heavens remarked
on high-ranking chiefs
by surrounding encolored clouds
by those darkened.⁴
Higher, there is Laniākea,⁵
a galaxy supercluster named
in 2014 by astronomers
who defined humanity’s section
of boundlessness by relative velocity.
Kamakahonu houses Laniākea, a cave and pool
near Huliheʻe Palace, where land
is encrusted with springs and access
and structures for gods,⁶
the home of Kamehameha,
who died there in 1819.

In 1874, it was one of three places
Kalākaua had set to observe
the Transit of Venus
using the first telescopes in Hawaiʻi.⁷

3.

ʻAlaea describes a mixture of particles,
sized silt to grain, of brown-orange-yellow-red
earth used to dye or heal or purify,
but also names a rainbow’s red band
and the bloody part of meat or fish
that lives close to the bone.

Iron oxide makes ʻalaea salt⁸ red;
families on Kauaʻi fetch this volcanic silt
from Wailua while maintaining production
for the salt beds in Hanapēpē.
On other islands, an old jar
of red salt scrawled with a name or date
sitting on the kitchen counter
signals visitors from Kauaʻi.

ʻAlaea also describes people
grouped by connection, combining care

of lands within or between districts, a redness
of clustering families, marked by merging.

The ʻalae,⁹ a hen-sized, black-feather bird
with yellow legs and a red forehead,¹⁰
gave fire to humans.

4.

A kūʻula¹¹ stone—
large or small, carved
by humans, weather, or tides—
is a god or heiau¹² or assemblage
that attracts or receives thanks.¹³
Its domain:

fish (or fishponds or fishermen);

puakai and pūkohukohu (red-dyed kapa),
perhaps pukai (a phrase for ʻoʻopu kai,
a name shared by a sandy red-marked goby¹⁴
and a kalo with similarly colored stalks¹⁵
at times called kaimoi);

and sometimes, simply, all red things.

This setting where kūʻula
only attends to red
encourages the propagation of red fish,
like ʻāweoweo¹⁶
(which shares a name with an amaranth,¹⁷
a sugar cane,¹⁸ and a limu¹⁹)
or kūmū²⁰
(which shares a name with a kalo,
sometimes called
ʻeleʻele, kea, kū loa poni, ʻulaʻula, or welowelo lā,
but also refers to a good-looking someone,
appointed thus by the yearning of others).

In 1956, Henry Kekahuna jotted this red
information onto a map of North Kona²¹
for us to remember,
saving from long, alphabetized lists²²
a value worth noting
or unfolding.

5.

The category of popular limu
is largely plumed by this duo:
limu kohu,²³ a red alga,
and limu ʻeleʻele,²⁴ a green alga
(described ʻeleʻele, black, for its hue when dried and salted),
also called koko, līpehe, līpehu, and līpaʻakai.²⁵

It might not be known that limu is red,²⁶ green, or brown,²⁷
if Izzie Abbott hadn’t filed each type into two encyclopedic volumes
for reference, partners.

6.

ʻIlima’s²⁸ flower is so fine and delicate
that the ritual of its construction into a lei
starts best before the sun comes up,
set on a cloth or screen
through which needles can dive
(avoiding the heat of hands)
to thread blossoms.
The stringing speeds with expertise,
a skill consistently scarce through generations,
the recipient meant to know
the effort and adoration of this lei, to wear
this time as a gift from the maker.
Most ʻilima flowers are yellow or orange,
but its rare form—nearly extinct—
is red, koʻoloa ʻula,²⁹
found in the dry lands of Kalaeloa on Oʻahu.

Hala³⁰ offers leaves that one can assemble
into any number of useful things (like mats
or hats) after being dried, cleaned, soaked,
and cut. Its falling fruit
can signal the nearing of sharks,
noses pricked through many
atmospheres and surfaces; hīnano,
its flower, is used to scent fabric,³¹
but also for deep-sea fishing.³²
Most hala fruit is yellow or orange,
but its rarity is red, hala ʻula,
with body parts streaked, speckled,
or blushed.

ʻAʻaliʻi³³ is a plant whose taproot secures
its remainder in the rake of unrelenting winds.
It can gender itself—
twice, even simultaneously—
with females prized for their red-button blossoms.
The flowers³⁴ of ʻaʻaliʻi are capsules, tiny
and copious, scattered thus
on the slopes of Haleakalā and Kīlauea,
assembled in lei with spiraled wrapping
in bunches of greens or shifting rotations of radials,
grand columns of red framing the face
or perched on the brim of a hat.

ʻIeʻie³⁵ is a cane whose aerial roots
folks use for cordage in fish traps, but also weave
into structures under forms of gods or mahiole³⁶
(used or captured or maintained or gifted
by chiefs born or made sacred).
Bird feathers cover these dedicated objects,
in panels or specks, with reds
from ʻiʻiwi and ʻapapane.³⁷
The mark of ʻieʻie’s bud slides
into its leaves, orange or pink or yellow or red
fading to green. Hidden in brush by its own green body,
its bloom reveals its identity; sometimes
expert or amateur collectors
feel called to a section of mountain
by a constellation of its red knots.

When old and hardened to wood, ʻōhiʻa³⁸ is carved
into god images but also the posts or rafters of structures.
Paired to one of its homes, Kīlauea, it is an iteration
of volcanic movement and tremble, dew apparent on its spiny
blossoms and shaken loose with ease. Without fruit,
it is largely the flowers that populate references
in written or remembered notes, with prevailing varieties
showing red.

7.

On resident foreigners:

Outside, leaned over an old concrete sink,
a carver stands, teeth-scraping orange meet
from a wet seed, standing amid sun-hued fragments or soft bowls
of skin from midsummer mango on old trees in Kaimukī
while keiki,³⁹ eat odd sizes and angles of fruit;

passed hand to hand down an aluminum ladder,
Hilo lychee, success and volume measured
by filling a tub or small, blue kiddie pool;

strawberry guava, too comfortable, a tree of a weed,
dropping seed-packed orbs along trails and waterways
in and out of countless valleys, consumed in the steam of forests
by a variety of humans and animals;

aliʻipoe,⁴⁰ avid volunteer, flowered orange or yellow or red
and sung about slowly by Alice Nāmakelua⁴¹
and, later, Dorothy Kalima;
it takes remembering its short stature to know
the demand of these lines:

ʻO ʻoe a ʻo wau i ka pō laʻilaʻi
i ka malu o ka lau aliʻipoe.⁴²
It is only you and me on this quiet night
in the shelter of aliʻipoe leaves.

Under wobbling flecks of budding
on leafy stalks, brimming overhead,
there can only be complete repose.

8.

Glints of red spot history.

In 1790, chiefs sailed to Honuaʻula on Maui
to trade pig, chicken, sweet potato,
banana, and kalo to foreigners
for iron, guns, and red cloth.⁴³

In 1792, Captain Vancouver gave Kaumualiʻi
then a young king of Kauaʻi, two red coats,
so prized that they warranted names:
Kekupuohi and Keakualapu.⁴⁴

Born in the 1760s, Keliʻimaikaʻi
was a chief and a priest, sibling of Kamehameha,
and one of many that aided in the force
that made the lands of Hawaiʻi a unified kingdom.

It was his red ʻahuʻula⁴⁵ that vanished
amid the kāʻeʻe vines at ʻAlae, near Kākalahale,
when Maui chiefs routed Keliʻimaikaʻi’s forces to Kīpahulu,⁴⁶
a place to push the danger of that glistening battle
attempt to claim Hāna,
whose red sands at Kaihalulu still cut
into Kaʻuiki, a rocky hill where in 1768
Nāmāhana gave birth to Kaʻahumanu,
Kamehameha’s favored wife,
and, after his death,
the wife of Kauaʻi’s king, Kaumualiʻi.⁴⁷

Kamehameha honored the lands
that had offered him the two wives who would later
emplace Christianity in the Kingdom,
Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani,⁴⁸ when he started building
the Kingdom’s first palace in Lahaina on Maui
in 1798. One could construe the act as a focused
affront to the toppled autonomy
of Maui under Kahekili,
a chief who had lost to Kamehameha
and the assemblage of political tacticians
who had coupled under the new regime, in strategy,
with head lineages of war generals.

In 1802, citizens completed the red-brick palace,
bonded with lavender-hued mortar made of lime
from ashen sand and coral.⁴⁹ Long paved over
when Kenneth P. Emory excavated these remains
in 1964, all that endured was a red outline of its structure,
set into a concrete base, expressing the diameter
of its form.

In 2023, when fire consumed Lahaina,
the bodies of Keōpūolani and Kaumualiʻi,
kept nearby at Waiola Church’s Waineʻe Cemetery,
slept under the wind that scraped fire
through the town and out to the harbor.

9.

Over time, terms have changed, boundaries
expanding or contracting, lands
trading rulers, owners, or registered voters,
water capped, redirected, and hoarded.

Winds and rains endure,
though some remain elusive
or depleted.

In Nāpili, Maui, there is the Nōweoʻula,
a bright, red rain sparked by light;
Oʻahu’s Kaʻala mountain range
shares a name for one of its rains

with another rain from Maui,
ʻUlalena, a red captured by yellow.

In Hālawa, on Molokaʻi, a waterfall’s name
matches the wind that carouses it,
but also a nearby stream, ridge, and heiau,
all named Moaʻula.⁵⁰
This same name, at times recorded Moʻaʻula,⁵¹
also designates areas around lava flows
in Honuʻapo, Maunaloa, and Pāhala.

These red names mark lands,
many of them reserved
or feared.

10.

In English:
blood, traffic, dawns, tides, wine, scare,
seeing, lasers, sunsets, spots, giants,
leaves, hair, danger, sins, tape,
herring, carpet, flags, heat,
warnings.

But here, myriad reds
for all things observable or felt,
including dark skies or valleys,
churning or placid seas,
and any number of events
in and around the body, reflective
or radiating; a tinge or wash of red,
touched by doing or knowing,
situated or considered,
available to all and everything.

11.

Humans appear in Hawaiʻi for sections of time,
disappear, return, devise, impart, comply,
cease. Called by imagination
or lured, the duration of captivity varies.

In a section called “Color recollection—visual memory,”
Josef Albers wrote about color:
“If one says ʻRed’ (the name of a color)
and there are 50 people listening,
it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds.
And no one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.”⁵²

He published these words in 1963;
Nine years earlier, he was teaching at the University of Hawaiʻi.
That same year, 1954, the Josef and Anni Albers: Painting and Weaving
exhibit opened at the Honolulu Academy of Arts;
he gives a lecture, “Color: A Magic Power.”

Foreign speculation abounds.

12.

Puna the fire-laden oven of the woman,
heaped pit, overspread by fanned hīnano blossoms,
that cane-singing fire at Huia, amassing, gathering,
hala bursts, ʻōhiʻa struck, marred…

is a translation of text
offered in print in 1869 by John Papa ʻĪʻī
as a mele Kalaimamahū⁵³ composed, which reads:

O Puna umu ahi lehua a ka wsahine,
umu lehua kauwewe hinano,
ke a puako la no i Huia, hui la, hui la,
hu ka hala ka ka ohia ku kapakahi…⁵⁴

The sweet smoke of pandanus blossoms,
the memory (if you have one) of the parts of plants that hiss
when trenched by lava, the popping sound of food over heat;
a red province.

13.

ʻĪʻī’s mother had three names,⁵⁵
but a favorite is Wanaoʻa,
a common noun unto itself.

A meaning of wanaoʻa:
“Projecting in every direction,
as the spines of a sea urchin;
sharp-edged; to bristle, radiate.”⁵⁶

Wana is a spherical cluster of protrusions
usually Diadema paucispinum (thinner)
or Echinothrix diadema (softer).

Mostly, they are dark and tingling,
exuding or absorbing;
sometimes they are red.

14.

Haumea, a deity of procreation and fertility,
showed humans ways to safely give birth
when danger loomed over the act;⁵⁸
before that, babies were cut from the body.
She is called Hulihonua, Huhune, Hinamanouluaʻe,
Haunuʻu, Haulani, and Hīkāwaopuanaiea.⁵⁹

In some records, she is the ancestor
of Nīʻula, keeper of Mākālei,⁶⁰
an enchanted branch whose force
is used to correct infractions
of greed and carelessness.⁶¹
Sometimes, the woman-shaped being
Pele is one of her children,
this deity’s purview being the volcano.
Many accounts detail Pele’s arrival to Hawaiʻi,
but some offer her birth, like a human,
from Haumea,
singular among siblings
born from other parts of her mother’s body.

At times, Haumea is the sibling of Kāne,
a god associated with fresh water and reproduction,
and his complement, Kanaloa,
associated with the ocean and sometimes death.⁶²

The dwarf planet named for her
has two moons, named for two of her daughters:
Hiʻiaka and Nāmaka.⁶³ A thin icy shell shelters its form,
which shows a noticeable red spot.⁶⁴

The hau tree⁶⁵ blooms symmetrical, cup-shaped flowers
that first open with a red sigh reaching out from its center,
climbing and consuming fresh yellow petals
throughout the day until its appearance is wholly red,
whose depth could be confused for darkness.

In stories, Haumea is both encircled by
and generating birth, life, and living,
implicated in change and purpose, old or young or both—
the red filament between bodies and worlds.

15.

In 2016, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
returned the feather cloak and mahiole of Kalaniʻōpuʻu
to Hawaiʻi, 237 years after being handed to Captain Cook in 1779.

On March 19, Bishop Museum’s Hawaiian Hall filled
with scholars, museum staff,
and Hawaiian royal society members.
Hiapokeikikāne Perreira, a kākāʻōlelo,⁶⁶
addressed the gathering,
marking the act of this return
by describing it with words.

He answers his own queries,
itself an offering:⁶⁷

He aha naʻe kēlā ʻula ʻana?
He aha kēlā ʻula ʻana?
But what is that reddening?
What is that reddening?

Ke kau aku nō nānā, he nae.
ʻAʻole naʻe kākou maopopo loa
ka milo ʻana i kēlā nae,
olioli ʻia kēlā nae.
When you look, see, a netting.
We do not really understand
the binding of that netting,
that netting enchanted.

Kū hahaʻi ʻia ana ia, a paʻa ka moʻokūʻauhau.
Lilo ia paʻa i loko o kēlā nae,
paʻa ka nae.
It is recited, and lineage is emplaced.
It becomes fastened within that netting,
the net strengthened.

ʻUo mai ana i ka hulu ā paʻa,
olioli ana i ke kānenae i loko o kēia poʻe hulu,
paʻa aku ana, paʻa aku ana, paʻa kaʻā.
Gathering in the feathers until affixed,
chanting the prayers into these many feathers,
securing, firming, cording bound.

Hele nō ā komo, he ʻula ʻaʻole ma ke kino,
he ʻula ma ka mauli ola ko ke kanaka,
ma ka wailua hoʻi o ke kanaka, a ma ka ʻuhane—
ma laila hoʻi ka ʻula ʻana.
Going until emplaced, a red not of the body,
a red in the life force of a person,
in the energy of a person, and in the spirit—
there is the reddening.

A no laila kēia uiui ʻana e waiho nei i mua ʻoukou:
Ma hea kēlā ʻula i loko o kākou i kēia lā?
Ma hea kēlā ʻula i loko o kā kākou mau hana o kēia lā?
So I submit this query before you all:
Where is this reddening in us today?
Where is this reddening in our actions today?

No ka mea, inā ʻaʻohe pili ka ʻula o kēlā kupuna
me ka ʻula o kā kākou hana o kēia lā,
he lole wale nō, he pāpale wale nō.
Because, if the red of that elder hs no connection
to the red of our effort today,
it is just clothing, only a hat.

ʻAʻole naʻe kēlā he lole,
he ʻahu ʻula kēlā o ke Aliʻi Nui.
ʻAʻole kēlā he pāpale,
he mahiole palepale poʻo.
So that is not just clothing,
it is the feather cloak of the High Chief.
That is not a hat,
it is the head-protecting helmet.

Hōʻihi, hoʻokapukapu ʻo Kalaniʻōpuʻu.
Kalaniʻōpuʻu is sacred, sanctified.⁶⁸

Endnotes:.

1. A contraction, “hiki ‘ana,” an active arriving.

2. M. J. Kapihenui, “HE MOOOLELO NO HIIAKAIKAPOLIOPELE,” Ka Hoku o ka Pakipika 1, no. 24 (March 6, 1862): 4.

3. Davida Malo (W. D. Alexander manuscript copy), “Ke Kapa ana i ko Luna me Lalo,” Bishop Museum Library & Archives, HI.L.19 (originally Storage Case 4, HMS L19).

4. S. N. Hale‘ole, “KA MOOLELO O LAIEIKAWAI,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 1, no. 53 (November 29, 1862): 1.

5. R. Brent Tully, Hélène Courtois, Yehuda Hoffman, Daniel Pomarède, “The Laniakea Supercluster of Galaxies,” Nature 513, no. 7516 (Sep 2014): 71–73.

6. Henry Enoka Palenapa Kekahuna, “Kaiakeakua now known as Kailua Bay including: Kunuiakea, Hale Pua Ilima, Hiiaka Heiau, Hale o Papa, Honuaula, Hulihee, Pa-o-Umi, Opunui Heiau, Ahuena Heiau, Hulihee Palace and the house sites of Keawemahi, Kekauluohi and Kuakini; North Kona, Hawaii,” May 1, 1955, Bishop Museum Archives, MS Group 312, Map: 50-HA-D9: 1.

7. Dorothy Riconda and Robert M. Fox. “National Register of Historic Places Inventory–Nomination Form, Hulihee Palace.” September 28, 1972, https://historichawaii.org/download/nomination-form-pdf37/.

8. Also “pa‘akai ‘ula‘ula,” simply “red salt.”

9. Hawaiian common moorhen; Hawaiian common gallinule; Gallinula chloropus sandvicensis.

10. Though some are white.

11. Paul William Kaawa, “Ka Hoomana Kahiko,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 4, no. 49 (December 9, 1865): 1.

12. Temple.

13. “Moolelo no ko Hawaii Oihana Kahuna,” Ka Hoku o Hawaii 24, no. 36 (March 10, 1931): 1.

14. ‘O‘opu nākea; Awaous guamensis.

15. Referred to as hā, petioles, or leaf stalk, which attached the leaf blade to the stem.

16. Bigeye; Priacanthus meeki. Called, in its younger stage, ‘alalauā, ‘alalauwā, or ‘alauwā.

17. ʻĀheahea; Chenopodium oahuense.

18. Also called ‘ōhi‘a and māʻoheʻohe.

19. Seaweed.

20. Goatfish; Parupeneus porphyreus. Called, in other stages, kolokolopā, ʻāhuluhulu, or kūmū aʻe.

21. Henry Enoka Palenapa Kekahuna, “Heeia Bay to Kahaluu Sites in Keauhou, North Kona, Hawaii; including Kamahaula, Kapehe Kuula, Koele Kuula, Pahee Kuula, and Kaualiilii Heiau,” November 20, 1953, Bishop Museum Archives, MS Group 312, Map: 50-HA-D4: 5.

22. L. D. Keliipio, “KA INOA O NA I’A A KAKOU E AI NEI,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 38, no.32 (August 11, 1899): 4.

23. Red sea plume; Asparagopsis taxiformis. Formerly Asparagopsis sanfordiana.

24. Sea lettuce; green bait weed; gutweed; grass kelp; Enteromorpha prolifera.

25. Heather J. Fortner, The Limu Eater: A Cookbook of Hawaiian Seaweed (Honolulu: Kuaʻāina Ulu ʻAuamo and University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program, 2022).

26. Isabella Aiona Abbott, Marine Red Algae of the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1999).

27. Isabella Aiona Abbott and John M. Huisman, Marine Green and Brown Algae of the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 2004).

28. ‘Ilima papa; ‘ilima kū kahakai; ‘āpiki; yellow ‘ilima; golden mallow; Sida fallax; Anoda ovata; Sida diellii; Sida ledyardii; Sida meyeniana; Sida nelsonii; Sida sandwicensis; Sida sertum.

29. Abutilon menziesii.

30. Screwpine; Pandanus tectorius. Types: hala ‘ula; hala lihilihi ‘ula; hala ʻīkoi; hala melemele.

31. Ho‘oulumāhiehie, “Ka Moolelo Walohia o Hainakolo,” Ka Na’i Aupuni 3, no. 39 (February 22, 1907): 1.

32. Zapena Panea Kalokuokamaile (Kawaikaumaiikamakaokaopua), “KA UPENA LAWAI’A O KA WA KAHIKO ME KA LAKOU MAU HANA,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 62, no. 24 ( June 14, 1923): 5.

33. Broadleaf hopbush; Dodonaea viscosa.

34. Though the red part of the ‘a‘ali‘i plant referred to in this section is actually the seedpod of the plant, these seedpods are used for their red bodies in lei and are commonly referred to as the flower of the plant. The actual flowers are slim, pale, and inconspicuous compared to the seedpods.

35. Freycinetia arborea.

36. Helmets, sometimes made of feathers.

37. But also yellow, green, black, and white, native or foreign, and, later, natural or synthetic.

38. Lehua; Metrosideros polymorpha. Five Hawai‘i species recognized.

39. Children.

40. Indian shot; Canna indica.

41. Alice Kuʻuleialohapoinaʻole Nāmakelua, “Ka Leo Hawaiʻi 149: Alice Nāmakelua.” Interview by Larry Kauanoe Kimura, Ka Leo Hawai‘i, KCCN-AM, March 20, 1977. Audio, https://ulukau.org/kaniaina/?a=d&d=A-KLH-HV24-149&.

42. Written by Rev. William Maka‘ehu. Dorothy Kalima, with The “K” Sisters, recorded a beautiful version for the 49th State Hawaii Record Co. as “Alii Poe,” captured on a vinyl 45 record sometime in the 1950s; the other side plays “E Naughty Naughty Mai Nei” by Genoa Keawe and Her Hawaiians.

43. Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau, “KA MOOLELO O KAMEHAMEHA I. HELU 24. Ke kaua ana o Kamehameha me Keoua Kuahuula,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 6, no. 16 (April 20, 1867): 1.

44. Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau, “KA MOOLELO O KAMEHAMEHA I. HELU 27, Ka hiki ana mai o Vanekoua i Hawaii nei i ka A. D. 1792,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 6, no. 20 (May 18, 1867): 1.

45. Feather cloak or cape.

46. Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau, “KA MOOLELO O KAMEHAMEHA I. HELU 24. Ke kaua ana o Kamehameha me Keoua Kuahuula,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 6, no. 16 (April 20, 1867): 1.

47. G. W. Nakaa Jr., “He Moolelo Hawaii,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 33, no. 8 (February 24, 1894): 1.

48. Inez Ashdown, “KA HALEPAAHAO KAHIKO O LAHAINA ame LAHAINA KAHIKO,” Ka Hoku o Hawaii 36, 1 (April 30, 1941): 6.

49. Walter M. Fredericksen, Demaris L. Fredericksen, and Ray Morris, Report on the Archaeological Excavation of the “Brick Palace” of Kamehameha I at Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii (Maui: Maui Historic Commission, 1965).

50. Temple.

51. Meaning “cooked red.”

52. Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).

53. Sometimes referred to by ʻĪʻī as Kaleimamahū.

54. John Papa ʻĪʻī, “Na Hunahuna o ka Moolelo Hawaii,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 8, no. 27 (July 3, 1869): 1. A similar version of this mele reads, “O Puna umuahi lehua a ka wahine, Umu lehua kauwewe hinano, Ke a puoko ia no i ka o Heeia. Hu ka hala, ka ohia i kai o Alanapo—e ...”.

55. Kalaikane and Pahulema are the other names.

56. Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1957).

57. Sea urchin.

58. Joseph Moku‘ōhai Poepoe, “Ka Moolelo Hawaii Kahiko,” Ka Na’i Aupuni 2, no. 2 ( June 2, 1906): 1.

59. Joseph Moku‘ōhai Poepoe, “Ka Moolelo Hawaii Kahiko,” Ka Na’i Aupuni 1, no. 152 (May 23, 1906): 1.

60. Beach heliotrope; velvetleaf soldierbush; tree heliotrope; veloutier; octopus bush; Tournefortia argentea; Heliotropium arboreum.

61. Samuel Kaiakea Kekoowai, “Makalei, ka Laau Pii Ona a ka I’a o Moaula-Nui-Akea i Kaulana,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 62, no. 3 (January 18, 1923): 3.

62. Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau, “Ka Moolelo o Hawaii Nei,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa 4, no. 36 (September 9, 1865): 1.

63. International Astronomical Union, “IAU Names Fifth Dwarf Planet Haumea” (September 17, 2008), https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau0807/.

64. Pedro Lacerda, “The Dark Red Spot on KBO Haumea,” Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 5, no. S263 (April 6, 2010): 192–196.

65. Sea hibiscus; coast cottonwood; Hibiscus tiliaceus.

66. Orator.

67. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, “Nā Hulu Lehua: The Royal Cloak and Helmet of Kalaniʻōpuʻu,” Uploaded October 27, 2016. Video, 19:30, https://vimeo.com/189245734.

68. Ua hana ka mea kākau i nā unuhina a pau i ka mo‘olelo nei, no laila, me a‘u iho nō ka maopopo hewa a hemahema paha ke ‘ike ‘ia ma luna. A mahalo iā Manuel Arturo Abreu no ka ho‘oponopono ‘ana o kēia kuamo‘o ‘ōlelo.

Acknowledgement: “He Kuamoʻo ʻŌlelo o ka ʻUla: An Ongoing Record of Red” was first published by Bishop Museum Press in 2024. The exhibition, Ka ʻUla Wena: Oceanic Red was held at the Bishop Museum in May 2024 to January 2025 and was curated by Leah Caldeira, Kamalu du Preez, Kapalikū Maile, and Marques Hanalei Marzan.

Blaine Namahana Tolentino lives and works in Hilo (Hawai'i) and Honolulu (O'ahu). At Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, she works as an editor and translator. At Awaiaulu, she works as a managing editor and archival researcher.