Mana concept explored in new book

Transcript

KAMANA'OPONO CRABBE: The genesis of this book goes back to about 2010 when I was a research director for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs back then.  My background actually is in clinical psychology, and much of my work for about the past 30 years has been about the health and well being of Native Hawaiians from a cultural perspective and really researching and studying traditional concepts of self.  The relative state of well being or what we are really striving for is mana. And although we live in the 21st century, I think we need to be considering more traditional concepts like this. And in Maori and Maoriora, and I think it only reaffirms our connection to our land, to our whakapapa and to our whanaunga and to our current and future generations of having a Hawaiian presence in our own homeland, so that we never forget where we come from and then where we go in the 21st century.

SARA VUI-TALITU: What sort of reactions have you had to the book?

KC:   Actually it has been kind of overwhelming. I am an old fashioned person as I like to read a book but my staff are all good with technology and accessing websites. So we decided to make it available for free for our own people and communities. But I didn't realise that it went out to the whole world network and we have been getting calls from all over about mana and how this can be applied in education to the community and as cultural traditions. Reviving some of our traditional and cultural practises and health programmes and in many areas and really it has gone beyond. We really wanted to publish a book based on all the work we had done and we went through an exhaustive period of reading traditional Hawaiian newspapers from mid 1800s to early 1900s and so there was a  wealth of knowledge and wisdom that was never available to our people and so now we make it available to different cultural practitioners on each island communities, from professionals to farmers and kupuna and we consolidated all of that into this book. And as a framework to begin and to have a discussion around mana and how it influences our daily behaviour, our it influences our psyche and our minds and how it is a very positive and aspirational direction rather than finding all of the colonisation and Western assimilation factors we come from more of a resilient background and heritage. And I think if we can tap into that core fundamental soul, I think that many of us would be able to move forward, despite challenges.