Oral History Finding Aid: Emma Kauhi

Abstract

Auntie Emma was the only kūpuna hula we met with in the early years of HPS who was a native speaker of Hawaiian. Being from a most rural environment on Hawaiʻi Island – the lands of Puna – her country and subsistence upbringing set her apart from most elders we had spoken with by that time, for she was raised immersed in her mother tongue. Most others we were interviewing came from families who had made the decision, conscious or otherwise, to not pass on the language to their children in that time of great change and westernization for the islands. When we met Auntie Emma in her twilight years, she was living in Hilo but shared how she had lost her Puna home to Pele years earlier. The most striking comment from that discussion was that she was “happy” her home had burned from Pele’s heat (versus being run over by lava), so she could collect her insurance and rebuild. That sums up our kūpuna – persevering through difficult times and circumstances and finding the blessings!