As people grapple with more than 100 people who died in the Lahaina fire on Maui, they're still trying to understand the loss of priceless artifacts and their connections to the island's ancient past.
Uilani and Keeamoku Kapu run the Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural and Research Center which was burned to the ground in the wildfires so they set up this grassroots community distribution center in Lahaina. They are on the phone here taking a call from Oprah about supplies she will be delivering.Uilani and Keeamoku Kapu run the Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural and Research Center which was burned to the ground in the wildfires so they set up this grassroots community distribution center in Lahaina.
The Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural and Research Center was home to vestiges of Ancient Hawaii, before European colonization."Old documents. Maps. Genealogy. Books that were actually signed by our kings," said Ke'eamoku Kapu, the center's steward."Our cultural center was the hub for a lot of our native Hawaiian people longing for the past."
Keeamoku and Uilani Kapu run the Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural and Research Center which was burned to the ground in the wildfires so they set up this grassroots community distribution center in Lahaina.For Kapu, the center meant even more than the rare, tangible treasures of his ancestry. It was where his community gathered."It was a place of worship. A place of traditional cultural, protocols.
He also went to the site of the cultural center with the hopes of recovering some artifacts. But he found very little."Carving images made out of stone. That made it, one of them. And a stone that was given to me personally by different chiefs from the South Pacific, New Zealand, Tahiti, Samoa, so a great loss."
At last, Jaylen Kaneaku lost his home in the wildfires and is helping transport donated items to this distribution center which has been set up by the indigenous community in Lahaina. Helping unload in the truck is Mandy Grace and Erica Goldsmith, right. Jayden hung the Hawaiian flag upside down on his truck as a sign that the state is in distress.
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