Menehune Action

A recent discussion at Olyblog got me to thinking about civic responsibility, the roles of government and the private sector, and common sense. It started when someone said that the city had told them it was fine for folks to pick up wood from trees being trimmed and felled in the aftermath of a big storm. Then they posted again, saying that no, the City had informed them that this is not the policy. I chimed in with the opinion that it probably boils down to liability, and that city government must officially say no, lest every joker who hurts themselves comes looking for a big payoff.

But what really interested me was the next comment, from a resident of Legion street, where some beautiful but doomed oaks were damaged. Under normal circumstances, she said, the city crew would cut, and the neighbors would then come through and salvage the wood. But this storm hit too many trees, and a contractor was hired that proceeded to block access to locals, while allowing someone from out Delphi Road way to come in and load up with prime firewood. The commenter said she called the City, which said that no, the contractor was not entitles to the wood.

Yet again, we see how transfer of a government function to the private sector can devolve to piracy. I don't know whether the load of firewood is destined for the market, or just heating some guy's house. But I do know that putting up barriers and preventing the neighbors from getting a share is wrong. I also see that when all is said and done, private entities will have lined their pockets with government funds, even if they are not ripping off firewood, for work that some of the neighbors would have done for free.

When I lived in Hawai'i, and worked for a chronically cash-strapped government, we sometimes relied on neighbors. Sometimes they formed a group, and signed an agreement, and became official curators of a place. But just as often, they pitched in, doing at least some of what needed doing. This kind of work came to be known as "menehune action," a reference to the menehune, ancient Hawaiians known for getting big jobs done with amazing speed and prowess.

In modern tourism-dependent Hawai'i, the menehune have been cutesified and co-opted, turned into grinning big-eyed munchkins and pressed into service selling everything from keychains to bottled water. (Disclosure: Menehune water was my favorite, but more because I knew it came from deep below Halawa Valley than for the logo.) Long ago, Hawaiians themselves mythologized the menehune to some degree, noting their strangely short stature and ascribing to them incredible feats such as building fishponds and other massive public works in a single night.

I don't doubt the power of a determined group of hard workers unfettered by red tape, but there is at least a little of the phenomenon in which elites unaccustomed to manual labor exalt the physical ability of their laborers. The word menehune derives from Tahitian for commoners, the people who worked for the chiefs. Hawaiian lore, however, enriches this relationship with some complexities. For one, the menehune are often described as being the first people, or at least the ones who were in a place before the big Hawaiians and the bigger south sea chiefs. Also, no matter how high a chief, mistreating the menehune or ignoring their demands to work in privacy, led to them disappearing and not completing the job.

The secrecy of their work, often under cover of darkness, usually without tolerating non-menehune, survived in some of the menehune action I knew of. Where the state insisted on complicated and onerous work rules, volunteer labor sometimes evaporated like water on hot lava. Where the menehune saw something really needed to be done, and the officials were oblivious, it would sometimes mysteriously happen. Some of these officials knew exactly what was happening, their blindness was really just a long wink at their menehune partners.

Like the city guy who said take the wood. No City Official will say in print that people can come with saws and wedges and work in a right of way, but plenty of city workers know the deal, and wink or turn the other way as they drive past our own northwest menehune, cleaning the land and getting firewood.

The subject is rich, and I could go on, but it seems like now is a good time to go get some wood. The chiefs don't often work on Sundays, so I won't be bothered. I suspect that they'll be happy on Monday, judging from the number of other menehune I've seen this weekend.

building

Road Warrior/Gatherer

One of the things that stops my shiftless eyes n their tracks is the sight of something useful and free. Ergo my affinity for slash piles yet unburnt, source of rounds (that being firewood length pieces, yet unsplit) and sometimes chunks of wood yearning to be carved. Or plants that would fare better in my yard than in the road cut about to happen.

This deep memory I have is of being a student in an anthro class, being told that 'primitive' as they are ascribed to be, the !Kung (or the "Bushmen," to use the politically incorrect but far more recognized term) had a high degree o fknowledge about their environment, being aware, for instance, that a twenty minute walk up a dry creek bed led to a spot with numerous water-bearing roots. Even at the time, my internal reaction was that the smart humans in any environment know their resources. At the time, that meant that I knew where the best beer sales were, and how to harvest imperishable commodities from the meal hall for later use.

Along those lines, in my alleged adult life traveling the rough rectangle of a western state, spending days in the wilds and nights in hotels near freeway exits, one of the main foraging venues is the hotel itself. I have not bought soap in a couple of years, because they give it away. Likewise, the continental breakfast that does not count as "breakfast included" for purposes of expense reports may yield some fruit for lunch. Some of you will think this is shady, but it is legal, and may help me net a few bucks toward making up the paycut and lessened benefits I must endure as an American forced to make due off of what I earn working, rather than investing.

Then there's the road cuts. Chert for tools, vesicular basalt for the imu I will one day make. On my cross country trek, I spotted the flint hills of Kansas on a map, and made sure to stop and gather some material for my flint-knapping host at the end of the trail. On other occasions, the glimmer of a shiny stone, the allure of a green pebble has been enough to stop me, to set me to gazing and gathering.

Now and then, as I search out some old homestead or make my way through some section long abandoned, I come across flora of yore. The ancient apple tree still bearing, the daffodils straining toward light in succession's closing canopy. Sometimes I get a snack (the apples mostly sate thirst, rarely provide enough to soothe hunger), and others it is a plant to bring home, cutting or mystery bulb. My yard sprouts more heritage each spring.

Other times, it is just the memory. Sometimes it spurs a story, a blog entry. Other times, it is just the feeling of discovery, occasionally epiphany. I bring home nothing more than the fading feeling of having been in the ponderosa scented upland, the mossy lowland, the mud-stanky tide-flat. Tangibless, yet blessed. Valuable beyond stuff. Stashed away in memory (or sub-conscious) to be recalled later when I have need of a tidbit, when an older me needs the spaces of the past to escape elderly immobility.

I take what I can when I can.

Repeat Places

Most archaeologists end up caught in a peculiar bind, either working in many places fleetingly, or one place interminably. A lucky few may pull off both, usually in the order I've presented, retiring after a long stint in some national park or such. A bunch see a place twice: once when they experience the wonder of finding sites in the pristine landscape, and again when they come to dig up the sites. A few are cursed with a third visit, reduced to watching heavy machinery lay waste to the remnants, maybe pulling a shard from the backdirt, and praying that no burials emerge.

An infinitesimal few work for states or other entities that manage large, dispersed areas of land. They get to see a lot of places, and get to return to certain ones time and again. When I worked for Hawai`i State Parks, Kona and Kaua`i were such places. West Moloka`i was another, but didn't need any state involvement to reel me back time and again. These are all places I orbit, and though I am far off for the moment, eventual return to perigee or another landing won't seem strange or unexpected.

Now, I've been in my Northwest job long enough that some of the repeaters are emerging. Cypress Island has enough to do to keep me busy for years, and though it has been many months, its scent is in my brain, and one day the call will come and I'll make my way back as surely as the salmon returns to its childhood stream. Badger Mountain, and in particular a spot where traditional root foods grow, demands my attention to understand the plants and help safeguard them for grandmothers who are just being born.

To go back to these and other places, to experience them under different skies and seasons, is a treat. Most I have seen only in daylight, and won't know so well until I can be there for days at a stretch. Most I have walked in solitude (un-distracted aloneness in a landscape is a precursor to understanding, I think), though I have begun to visit some with people who have known them for decades, hearing the stories and feeling their love of the land. Most I have begun to understand, even if it is the understanding of a kid who knows the joys of a place without the responsibility to feed a family from it.

When I used to map sites more often, or plan for their restoration, I ascribed to a friend's thoery that 'gestalt cartography' was best, that the best representations of a place came through immersion, via awareness not readily encapsulated in words, and beyond the ken of a passerby. The best maps I ever made took many days, weeks even: flows of points shot and rocks drawn, punctuations of equilibrium in which mapper stood still watching and listening amid the silent stones.

Also: the places I've felt most attached to have the dried iron of my blood and the faintest scent of my sweat in their dust. The joy of being in a beautiful place has always counted high, but has never been more than pencilled in on the tally without some sacrifice, some trial, some critical question left hanging for an uncomfrotably long spell and answered with epiphany. Places where thorns ripped and machetes slipped, where scorpions stung or ears rung with exertion, where eyes burned from staring in blazing sun or deep into the fading light--these are the places that went beyond my mind and into the soul. A place that is nothing but lovable, that gave and gave without taking a bite, that place is imaginary, maybe devious, but not capable of everlasting bonds or enilghtenment.

So. I wait and wonder which places here will maintain a hold, demand a sacrifice, reel me in time and again. Where will I find this state's Kamaka`ipo, Nu`alolo Kai, Kona?

Or when will they find me?