Hawaiian Intelligence • Hula & Oli • Cultural Education • ʻĀina Stewardship • Intergenerational Knowledge
Carrying the Teachings Forward
Some knowledge is written in books.
Some is held in the land.
In the movement of water.
In the behavior of plants.
In the cycles of the moon.
In genealogy.
In oli.
In hula.
In generations of observation passed from one person to another until knowing a place becomes inseparable from knowing how to live within it.
The Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation exists to carry that knowledge forward.
Established in Hilo in 1990, the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation — EKF — was created to maintain and perpetuate the teachings, beliefs, practices, philosophies and traditions of the late Luka and Edith Kanakaʻole.
Its mission is both simple and profound:
To elevate Hawaiian intelligence through cultural education.
That mission reaches across hula and oli, Hawaiian language, genealogy, traditional ecological knowledge, cultural protocol, research, education and the restoration and stewardship of culturally significant places.
It lives through children learning.
Through practitioners practicing.
Through kumu teaching.
Through ʻāina being observed and cared for.
And through generations of the Kanakaʻole family continuing a kuleana inherited from those who came before them.
For more than three decades of carrying the teachings of Luka and Edith Kanakaʻole into living practice, and for ensuring that Hawaiian knowledge continues to inform how people understand culture, community and ʻāina today, Support Local Hawaiʻi is deeply honored to recognize the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation as a ♦ Legacy Steward.
What Is a Legacy Steward?
A Steward serves Hawaiʻi through their actions.
A Legacy Steward carries something further.
It is a person — or in this case an institution — whose work ensures that knowledge, values and service entrusted to one generation continue serving generations that follow.
Legacy is not simply remembering someone’s name.
It is continuing the work.
That distinction is especially important here.
Edith Kanakaʻole passed in 1979.
But her teachings did not.
Her ʻohana carried them.
Her haumāna carried them.
Hālau o Kekuhi carried them.
And in 1990, her descendants established the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation so that the teachings and practices of both Edith and Luka Kanakaʻole could continue to grow, educate and serve.
This is legacy made active.
Aunty Edith
Edith Kekuhikuhipuʻuoneonaʻāliʻiōkohala Kanakaʻole — widely remembered as Aunty Edith — was a Native Hawaiian composer, chanter, dancer, kumu hula, educator and cultural practitioner.
Her life’s work reached across Hawaiian language, hula, oli, moʻolelo, genealogy, education and an understanding of the natural world rooted in generations of Hawaiian observation.
She helped develop an early Hawaiian-language program for public-school students at Keaukaha and later created college courses and seminars in Hawaiian language, history, genealogy, chant and mythology.
But perhaps one principle captures her legacy particularly well.
“Teach all who come.”
The U.S. Mint highlighted those words when honoring Aunty Edith in 2023.
They also describe what happened next.
Her knowledge did not end with her.
It moved outward.
Hālau o Kekuhi
At the center of EKF’s cultural knowledge is Hālau o Kekuhi.
Its traditions reach across eight generations of kumu hula.
The hālau is renowned for its mastery of ʻaihaʻa, a low-postured and vigorous form of hula and oli associated with the volcanic forces of Pele and Hiʻiaka and deeply rooted in Hawaiʻi Island.
After Edith’s passing, leadership continued through her daughters Pualani Kanakaʻole Kanahele and Nālani Kanakaʻole. Later generations assumed further responsibility, and today the hālau is directed by Nālani and Huihui Kanahele-Mossman.
That succession is important.
Because Hālau o Kekuhi is not simply preserving dances created in the past.
It is carrying a system of knowledge.
Genealogy.
Language.
Protocol.
Plants.
Chant.
History.
Place.
Movement.
Discipline.
Relationship.
In 1996, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs recognized Hālau o Kekuhi and its teachers as Living Hawaiian Treasures, acknowledging the depth of knowledge required to properly carry this tradition.
This is what intergenerational stewardship looks like when it remains alive.
Hawaiian Intelligence
One phrase appears again and again in the Foundation’s work:
Hawaiian intelligence.
It is worth understanding what that means.
Hawaiian knowledge did not emerge separately from the environment in which Hawaiian people lived.
Generations watched.
They named.
Compared.
Chanted.
Navigated.
Cultivated.
Fished.
Observed weather.
Studied celestial movement.
Recognized patterns.
Remembered relationships.
And organized those observations into sophisticated systems of knowledge.
EKF works to ensure those systems are not treated merely as artifacts from Hawaiʻi’s past.
They remain ways of understanding Hawaiʻi now.
Papakū Makawalu
One of the clearest expressions of that work is Papakū Makawalu.
EKF describes it as a system through which kūpuna categorized and organized the natural world and the systems of existence within it.
Its framework brings together three major houses of knowledge—Papahulilani, Papahulihonua and Papahānaumoku—creating a Hawaiian framework for observing, understanding and engaging with the environment.
This isn’t knowledge confined to a classroom.
EKF uses Papakū Makawalu in research and works with practitioners, educators, resource managers and others to understand how ancestral methodologies can inform contemporary stewardship and land-management decisions.
There is something powerful in that.
The past is not being asked merely to explain where Hawaiʻi has been.
It is helping Hawaiʻi decide how to move forward.
The ʻĀina Is a Teacher
EKF’s work also happens in place.
At Haleolono, a culturally significant site associated with Kalaninuiʻīamamao, students can learn traditional mahi iʻa through fishpond maintenance, wall building and repair, fish propagation and limu propagation.
This is education that cannot be separated from ʻāina.
You learn by observing.
By listening.
By working.
By understanding what happened there before you arrived.
And by recognizing that entering a place comes with responsibilities.
That philosophy also informs EKF’s work with land managers, government agencies, organizations and the visitor industry.
Through programs such as KIPA, the Foundation has developed approaches intended to help people engage Hawaii’s wahi pana, communities, host culture, language and natural resources with greater knowledge, protocol and reciprocity.
It is another form of stewardship:
Teaching people how to enter a place with respect.
Teaching the Next Generation
Legacy requires somewhere for knowledge to go.
For EKF, that includes the youngest generation.
Kula Kamaliʻi o Hiʻikeakaikamālama provides culturally based early education rooted in a holistic understanding that students, parents and community all participate in learning. Its programming incorporates Hawaiian songs and chants, ʻōlelo noʻeau and other cultural learning alongside children’s broader development.
EKF also provides scholarships supporting Native Hawaiian students, while the Hale Kanakaʻole Fund supports students throughout the University of Hawaiʻi system, with preference given to students of Native Hawaiian ancestry.
From kamaliʻi to university students, the principle remains remarkably consistent.
Teach.
Give knowledge somewhere to travel.
When Aunty Edith Entered America’s Pockets
In 2023, something extraordinary happened.
Aunty Edith’s face began traveling through millions of hands across the United States.
The U.S. Mint selected Edith Kanakaʻole for the American Women Quarters Program, recognizing her as an Indigenous Hawaiian composer, chanter, dancer, teacher and custodian of Native Hawaiian culture and traditions.
The quarter’s design intentionally connects her image with the Hawaiian landscape.
And beside her appears a phrase:
E hō mai ka ʻike.
A request for wisdom.
By May 2023, more than 209 million Edith Kanakaʻole quarters had already been shipped to the Federal Reserve.
Think about that for a moment.
A woman whose life was devoted to teaching Hawaiian knowledge now travels through communities thousands of miles from Hawaiʻi.
Someone notices the name.
Someone becomes curious.
Someone searches.
And a door opens.
Behind that door is not merely the story of one remarkable woman.
There is hula.
Oli.
ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi.
Kumulipo.
Pele.
Hiʻiaka.
Hawaiʻi Island.
ʻĀina.
And generations of Hawaiian knowledge waiting to be understood more deeply.
That is what legacy can do.
Why Support Local Hawaiʻi Recognizes the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation
Support Local Hawaii recognizes stewardship through action.
And Legacy Stewardship asks an additional question:
What continues because someone was here?
In the case of Edith and Luka Kanakaʻole, the answer is extraordinary.
A hālau continues.
Oli continue.
Hula continues.
Children learn.
Students receive support.
Cultural practitioners deepen their knowledge.
Wahi pana are cared for.
Traditional ecological understanding informs contemporary research and land stewardship.
And descendants continue carrying responsibilities entrusted to their family generations ago.
The Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation does not simply preserve a legacy.
It practices it.
It teaches it.
It applies it.
It allows it to encounter new questions.
And it prepares others to carry it further.
For maintaining and perpetuating the teachings of Luka and Edith Kanakaʻole, elevating Hawaiian intelligence, strengthening intergenerational cultural knowledge and bringing ancestral understanding into active relationship with Hawaiʻi today, Support Local Hawaii proudly recognizes the Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation as a ♦ Legacy Steward.
Legacy Stewardship in Action
Hula & Oli
Through Hālau o Kekuhi, generations continue a lineage of hula, chant, genealogy, language and cultural protocol extending across eight generations of kumu hula.
Hawaiian Intelligence
Papakū Makawalu carries kūpuna methodologies for observing, organizing and understanding the natural world into contemporary education, research and resource stewardship.
ʻĀina & Wahi Pana
EKF restores and cares for culturally significant places while creating opportunities to learn practices such as traditional fishpond stewardship.
Education
Cultural immersion, early childhood education, workshops, curriculum development and scholarships create pathways for knowledge to continue across generations.
Research & Contemporary Application
EKF works with government, nonprofit and private partners to bring Hawaiian knowledge into contemporary questions of land, resources, culture and stewardship.
What Remains
A legacy is not what sits behind us.
It is what reaches us from behind—
and what we choose to carry forward.
A chant remembered.
A movement practiced.
A child taught.
A fishpond restored.
A place approached differently because someone taught us how to see it.
A question answered not only by looking ahead, but by listening to generations who observed the same winds, waters, mountains and stars long before us.
Edith Kanakaʻole once taught those who came.
Then others began teaching.
And others after them.
That is why her legacy cannot be contained on a quarter.
Or inside a museum.
Or even within the walls of a hālau.
It lives wherever the knowledge is practiced.
The Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation carries that kuleana today.
And somewhere, another generation is listening.
Learning.
Observing.
Preparing.
One day, it will be their turn to teach.
That is legacy.
That is cultural stewardship.
That is Aloha in action — across generations.
Learn, Support & Discover
Organization: Edith Kanakaʻole Foundation
Established: 1990
Location: Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island
Legacy: Luka & Edith Kanakaʻole
Mission: Elevating Hawaiian intelligence through cultural education
Stewardship Areas: Hawaiian Culture • Hula • Oli • ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi • ʻĀina • Traditional Ecological Knowledge • Education • Wahi Pana • Intergenerational Knowledge
Recognition: ♦ Legacy Steward
Address: 1500 Kalanianaʻole Street, Hilo, HI 96720-4914
Phone: (808) 961-5242
Email: ekf@edithkanakaolefoundation.org
