Noʻu Revilla and Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio

Aloha Is Deoccupied Love

What is Aloha? According to Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, aloha
denotes a complex set of practices and relationships. In the Hawaiian Dic­
tionary, aloha is defined in the following way:

love, affection, compassion, mercy, sympathy, pity, kindness, senti-

ment, grace, charity; greeting, salutation, regards; sweetheart, lover,
loved one; beloved, loving, kind, compassionate, charitable, lovable;
to love, be fond of; to show kindness, mercy, pity, charity, affection; to
venerate; to remember with affection; to greet, hail. Greetings! Hello!
Good-­by! Farewell! Alas!1

Demonstrably, aloha has mind, body, and spirit. Made alive through generative
and honest interactions, aloha is pos­si­ble when we share ­things—­whether
breath, food, shelter, storytelling, information, or desire—­with ­others in sus-
tainable ways. Aloha requires reciprocity and responsibility. While the word
is a common expression in Hawaiʻi nei, particularly in greetings, it is impor­tant
to remember that aloha is not tourist-­oriented; the practice does not exist for
consumption, purchase, or display. Aloha cannot be owned like property, like
a souvenir.
What is Occupation? Occupation is, in one sense, a ­legal term that de-
scribes extended military invasion of one country by another. By definition,
occupation is temporary. Yet in Hawaiʻi, occupation by the U.S. military has
been ongoing since the end of the nineteenth ­century. Deoccupation, there-
fore, requires demilitarization. Deoccupation requires investing in ʻĀina and
Kanaka as more than pawns of profit. Deoccupation is the pro­cess by which
Kanaka Maoli practice historically inspired, life-­affirming ­futures rooted in

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 the ʻāina. In this way, deoccupied love does not possess, does not profit, does
not bomb, does not overstay its welcome. Deoccupied love is invited, gives
and receives plea­sure, and values ongoing, enthusiastic consent. Deoccu-
pied love resists meta­phor, is practiced, is informed action. Deoccupied love
believes in decolonization and does not surrender sovereignty. Deoccupied
love is ea, beginning in our manawa and always, always rising.
Unfortunately, since the arrival of foreigners to Hawaiʻi in 1778, aloha has
been seriously fucked with. The sexing and selling of Native bodies, particu-
larly Native ­women’s bodies, continues to define Hawaiʻi to the outside world,
and the expectation of “getting lei’d” upon arrival persists. Although aloha
is a living Indigenous practice that ably straddles sexuality, sovereignty, and
kinship, it is gratuitously sold as exotic Native love. In the shared labs of colo-
nialism, global corporate tourism, militarization, and heteropatriarchy, aloha
has been genet­ically modified into a diseased host. American colonialism
uses aloha as an alibi; tourism uses aloha as a commodity; New Age peddlers
of Polynesian sorcery use aloha to gloss over settler identity; and politicians
use aloha to define our ­people as “happy hosts,” punishing us when we go
off script—­when we refuse to perform. Even so-­called Christians use aloha
to outlaw love even though aloha did not begin in a church and is bound to
neither Chris­tian­ity nor heterosexuality. Aloha is much more than this.
Our aloha is born from the power of creation, as established in our
moʻolelo.
Let us be clear: aloha does not carry the limitations of tolerance or
economy-­driven ploys to attract more visitors; it is not just “hello” and “good-
bye.” Aloha is a complex set of practices and relationships that keep the in-
tegrity of our ʻāina, ʻohana, and lāhui at the center. Born from the power of
creation, established in our moʻolelo.

Mele Kumu Honua

ʻO Wākea noho iā Papahānaumoku

Hānau ʻo Hawaiʻi, he moku
Hānau ʻo Maui, he moku
Hoʻi hou ʻo Wākea noho iā Hoʻohōkūkalani
Hānau ʻo Molokaʻi, he moku
Hānau ʻo Lānaʻi, Ka ʻula, he moku
Liliʻōpū punalua ʻo Papa iā Hoʻohōkūkalani
Hoʻi hou ʻo Papa noho iā Wākea
Hānau ʻo Oʻahu, he moku
Hānau ʻo Kauaʻi, he moku

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 Hānau ʻo Niʻihau, he moku
He ʻula aʻo Kahoʻolawe

This mele koʻihonua, or genealogical chant, provides one story of how our
ancestral land was born. In the first three lines of the koʻihonua we learn
that Papa, our foundation, our earth-­birthing goddess, and Wākea, our wide-­
open sky, our deity of the heavens, share aloha. From their ­union, the islands
Hawaiʻi and Maui are born as siblings. In lines four through six, Wākea leaves
Papa to share aloha with their ­daughter, Hoʻohōkūkalani, and from their
­union, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi are born as siblings. When Papa and Wākea come
together again in lines seven through twelve, the islands of Oʻahu, Kauaʻi,
Niʻihau, and Kahoʻolawe are born. While this mele koʻihonua features Wākea
as the only ­father, other moʻolelo, or stories, identify multiple parents. Does
this make us savages? ʻAʻole. Does this mean we possess no honor or dignity
in the ways we love, live, and relate our bodies? ʻAʻole. Our outstretched kin-
ship is a source of strength.
Another mele koʻihonua is the Kumulipo. According to this creation story,
Native Hawaiian gods, lands, ­waters, and ­people emerged as articulations
of Pō and Ao. Its 2,102 lines of world-­making are divided into sixteen wā: the
first eight wā emerge in Pō, the generative, ancestral blackness from which
all life issued; the next eight wā emerge in Ao, or light. Creation time is pono.
References to ­these Hawaiian categories of space and time constitute a po­
liti­cal act that reinforces ʻŌiwi conceptions of world-­making, genealogy, and
belonging. We use our language to return to our bodies. We use our bodies
to return to our lands. As ʻŌiwi poets, we recognize that the Pō in our bodies
is pili to the Pō in our art and activism. That hot, churning blackness. That
blackness that births.

moʻolelo—­kino—­ʻāina
The word hōʻao, for instance, we put in our mouths. Hōʻao means “to stay
­until daylight,” marking the space and time in which lovers bring in the day
together. From Pō to Ao. Hōʻao. When we invoke the Kumulipo and call what
we do “hōʻao,” we are saying we have spent creation together.
stories—­bodies—­lands

Aloha is deoccupied love.

­Whether turning to the Mele Kumu Honua or the Kumulipo, Kanaka ʻŌiwi
understand that our islands are siblings, their genealogies and ours an in-
tricate ʻupena, or fish net, of relations. Indeed, Hawaiian culture values who

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 you are and how you are connected, related, accountable. Specifically, our
kūpuna valued how we nurtured our connections to ʻāina, lāhui, akua, kuleana,
each other. Our moʻolelo remind us that our bodies are extensions of our
lands. When we say aloha is deoccupied love, we not only declare our love
of ʻāina and lāhui but also, more importantly, that in our love, we ­will resist
and rise.
In the mid-­nineteenth ­century, while missionaries and Kanaka Maoli con-
verts published articles chastising any aloha blossoming beyond the con-
fines of Chris­tian­ity, and courts punitively legislated the desiring Hawaiian
body, Hiʻiaka a wahine and Nānāhuki a wahine shared aloha at the shore of
Hāʻena. Sharing hula, names, surfboards, and breath. Born from their ­union
in the Moanianilehua wind was the lehua grove of Hōpoe. Bringing in morn-
ings together, Hiʻiaka and Nānāhuki become more than hōʻao; they become
aikāne, intimate companions and lovers.

And we feel this genealogy in our moʻolelo.

We watch as they share a single surfboard and carve the ­faces of
breaking waves.
We hear the pahu bellowing as their bodies ʻoni against each other.
We listen to the rage and mourning in Hiʻiaka’s kanikau as Nānāhuki
and her lehua grove are set ablaze.
We answer their love memorialized in stone.
We watch as Nānāhuki’s lehua is the first to sprout out of Pele’s
pāhoehoe.

Hiʻiaka and Nānāhuki remind us that ­after new land is created by fresh
lava flow, it is the aloha between them that makes the forest flourish again.
The ʻōhiʻa lehua is one of the first plants to grow roots in newly formed lava;
it is capable of blossoming from near sea level to over seven thousand feet
in wao akua. Like this unsurpassed blossom, aloha is resilient and thrives
in many forms. In other words, Hiʻiaka and Nānāhuki remind us that aloha is
radical. That radical means roots, and Hiʻiaka and Nānāhuki demonstrate how
aloha endures—­through destruction, pain, death, and jealousy. Our kūpuna
wrote, read, and savored the aloha between ­these wāhine, who are still waiting
for us to meet them in the nāhele.
In 1912, Alice Everett composed the mele “Ua Like no a Like” to celebrate
a blossoming relationship between two young lovers in Hilo. Wahi a ke mele,
­these lovers are called by the playful Kanilehua rain to share aloha in the
forest at dusk. The rain is not backdrop but an active lover, and eve­ning ­after
eve­ning the young kāne and wahine are wet with desire and take plea­sure

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 together in the forest, only to return before morning. Yet one day, as the
Kanilehua mists the lovers’ cheeks and lips, they realize they have brought in
the morning together. Hōʻao has made them paʻa i ka poli, bound together in
love, in the creation of day.

We trust creation.
We choose to feel.
Even when our lehua is set on fire and hardened to stone.
We plant seeds for tomorrow, for more lehua to follow.

Fundamental to our culture and identity, aloha is an ʻŌiwi ethos of con-

nectivity. In addition to our bloodlines and cultural heritage, we use aloha
to navigate our affective networks. What intimacies have we earned? What
ways of knowing each other have we cultivated properly? Aloha is judicious
and collaborative, and in its intergenerational practice—­even if quietly, in
order to survive—­aloha embraces vulnerability. Of course, that vulnerabil-
ity is not come and bomb the kingdom in our chest and commemorate our
ruin with a state holiday. Vulnerability is not come and poison our ­waters,
divert and privatize our rivers, ­bottle them industriously, and sell it back to
us as ­waters of life incorporated. Vulnerability is not come and desecrate
where we are sacred, where worship happens, where gods happen. Vulner-
ability is not suffering the vio­lence of settler colonialism, patriarchy, and
homophobia and vowing to harden against the world. Aloha is the audacity
to feel. Plea­sure as well as pain. Play as well as torment. The opposite of
vio­lence is creation. We want to create with each other, again and again and
again. From Pō to Ao. We spend the night. And when I sleep with you, I sleep
with all of your ancestors.

Manu ʻŌʻō

ʻO ka manu ʻōʻō i mālama

A he nani kou hulu ke lei ʻia
Mūkīkī ana ʻoe i ka pua lehua
Kāhea ana ʻoe i ka nui manu

Hui:
Hō mai ʻoni mai
Ko aloha ma nēia
Kīhene lehua

Nō Hilo ē ka ua Kanilehua
Popohe lehua ai Hanakahi

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 Hoʻokahi aʻu mea nui aia ʻoe
ʻO kou aloha ua hiki mai

Precious honey-­eater
Your beautiful and soft feathers are woven into a lei
You sip the lehua blossoms
And are called away by other birds

Chorus:
Come, come to me
To you beloved
Lehua cluster

Your lehua-­sounding rain of Hilo

Decorative lehua of Hanakahi
One greatest ­thing I love is you
Your lover has come
“Manu ʻŌʻō (Black Honey-­eater)—­Traditional,” Huapala

Aloha makes good love ­because in aloha we make good connections. Like in
the curve of a ­woman’s arching back, we embody this nectar-­seeking as lov-
ers. And in this aloha, the manu wahine penetrates. Over and over and over.

the curve of your hips 

mūkīkī ana ‘oe
the same curve as an ‘Ō‘ō bird’s beak

We are satisfied, their backs still arching. In language, satisfaction comes as

mūkīkī. What birds do to lehua. Mūkīkī ana ʻoe i ka pua lehua. To sip, suck in
the mouth, make sucking noises, to squirt ­water through teeth, to kiss. Manu
ʻŌʻō beautifully reimagines gender roles and norms of plea­sure. Who sips
and who gets sipped. Mūkīkī ana ʻoe.

my worship
my medicine
my nectar-­seeking morning

Aloha is a capacious and generative force of revolution. Papa and Wākea

conceived islands, whereas Hi‘iaka and Hōpoe conceived lehua. ­Today, some
kānaka conceive ­children while ­others conceive loʻi, mele, schools, and po-
etry. Some ʻŌiwi identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual,
asexual, queer, polyamorous, monogamous, slutty, shy, vanilla, kinky, quiet,
loud—­moe aku, moe mai. Aloha spends the night, wears a strap-on, requires

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 ongoing and enthusiastic consent, cums, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, gives keynotes, pro-
tects sacred places, grows kalo, carries baby, cooks for grandma, gets dirty
lickens, jumps waterfalls, signs antiannexation petitions, weaves baskets,
looks you in the eyes, and ­will not be silenced. Aloha is far too vast, imagi-
native, and sexy to be reduced to only one man and one ­woman ­under one
god. Check your sources, check your naʻau. Indeed, we do not offer a singular
body of aloha. ­There is no one body, no one love, no one way to spend cre-
ation. Commit this Hilo mele to memory. See where this aloha takes you as it
follows a female ʻŌʻō bird as she leaps from lehua blossom to lehua blossom,
penetrating the delicate flowers with her long, curved beak.

Note

1 A note on Hawaiian language: In this chapter the authors use Hawaiian language
terms without parenthetical citations. To maintain the poetic integrity of this piece,
we direct readers to consult the Hawaiian language dictionary online at wehewehe​
.­org to learn denotative and connotative meanings of untranslated terms, or refer to
the Glossary of Terms in this volume.

References and Resources

Kanahele, Pualani. “E Ala E,” Traditional Chants, Mauna Kea. Accessed May 29, 2018.
www​.­mauna​-­a​-w
­ akea​.­info​/­maunakea​/­I2​_­traditional​.­html.
The Kumulipo: An Hawaiian Creation Myth. Translated by Liliʻuokalani. Kentfield, CA:
Pueo, 1978.
“Manu ʻŌʻō (Black Honey-­eater)—­Traditional,” Huapala. Accessed May 29, 2018.
www​.­huapala​.­org​/­Man​/­Manu​_­Oo​.­html.
Pukui, Mary Kawena, and Samuel H. Elbert. Hawaiian Dictionary, rev. ed. Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press, 1986.
Simpson, Leanne. Islands of Decolonial Love. Winnipeg, MB: arp, 2013.

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