*Review* **I Ke Ewe ' ¯ Aina o Ke Kupuna: Hawaiian Ancestral ¯ Crops in Perspective**

**Aurora Kagawa-Viviani 1, Penny Levin 2,\*, Edward Johnston 3,4, Jeri Ooka 4, Jonathan Baker 4,5, Michael Kantar <sup>6</sup> and Noa Kekuewa Lincoln 6,\***


Received: 19 August 2018; Accepted: 28 November 2018; Published: 5 December 2018

**Abstract:** Indigenous crops, tremendously valuable both for food security and cultural survival, are experiencing a resurgence in Hawai'i. These crops have been historically valued by agricultural researchers as genetic resources for breeding, while cultural knowledge, names, stories and practices persisted outside of formal educational and governmental institutions. In recent years, and following conflicts ignited over university research on and patenting of kalo (Haloa, ¯ *Colocasia esculenta*), a wave of restoration activities around indigenous crop diversity, cultivation, and use has occurred through largely grassroots efforts. We situate four crops in Hawaiian cosmologies, review and compare the loss and recovery of names and cultivars, and describe present efforts to restore traditional crop biodiversity focusing on kalo, 'uala (*Ipomoea batatas*), ko ( ¯ *Saccharum officinarum*), and 'awa (*Piper methysticum*). The cases together and particularly the challenges of kalo and 'awa suggest that explicitly recognizing the sacred role such plants hold in indigenous worldviews, centering the crops' biocultural significance, provides a foundation for better collaboration across multiple communities and institutions who work with these species. Furthermore, a research agenda that pursues a decolonizing approach and draws from more participatory methods can provide a path forward towards mutually beneficial exchange among research, indigenous, and farmer communities. We outline individual and institutional responsibilities relevant to work with indigenous crops and communities and offer this as a step towards reconciliation, understanding, and reciprocity that can ultimately work to create abundance through the restoration of ancestral crop cultivar diversity.

**Keywords:** cultural revitalization; indigenous knowledge; taro; sweet potato; kava; sugarcane; research ethics; restoration

#### **1. Introduction**

Agriculture throughout the world emerged as communities managed and selected wild crop relatives to produce dependable staple food resources. Over time, thousands of crop cultivars were developed, unique to the complex geographies of place and culture, evolving multi-layered, inseparable biocultural relationships between plants and people, woven together through cosmologies and genealogies that name core crop plants as ancestors and gods (e.g., [1–3]). Within this

ethno-biological context, intricate agricultural systems emerged, hefted and slipped into ecological flows and topographical and geological boundaries [4–6]. As people migrated across the world, their accompanying plants and cultural practices both diversified and narrowed dietary choices [7–9]. Within the Pacific, the journeys of core crops such as kalo (taro; *Colocasia esculenta*), 'uala (sweet potato; *Ipomoea batatas*), mai'a (banana, *Musa spp*.), 'awa (kava, *Piper methysticum*), ko (sugarcane, ¯ *Saccharum officinarum*), uhi (yam, *Dioscorea alata*), 'ulu (breadfruit, *Artocarpus altilis*) and niu (coconut, *Cocos nucifera*) illuminate connections among culturally related groups.

Commencing in the 15th century, colonial institutions shaped by European epistemologies launched fleets of "discovery" into indigenous territories in part to better understand the world through inventory and inquiry and to identify natural resources for markets at home [10]. Prominent among extracted resources were wild and cultivated plants valued for foods, pharmaceuticals, and spices and resources; indigenous cultivars provided useful new crops or traits to improve existing crop production, which continues to the present day. The collection of indigenous crop cultivars has long played a vital role in their preservation in Hawai'i and elsewhere, where they are maintained in ex situ (off-farm) collections, often for the purposes of breeding (e.g., Secretariat of the Pacific Community Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees in Fiji, University of Hawai'i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, UH CTAHR). Yet introductions of these crops to new localities and their use in breeding and "crop improvement" programs has had, in some cases, unforeseen consequences, including contributing to the decline of local indigenous crop cultivar diversity [11] or the rise of traits conferring invasiveness [12].

Furthermore, germplasm collection for breeding and genetic manipulation can be experienced by indigenous communities as an ongoing expression of historical injustice, specifically as theft and assault on community-stewarded resources, giving rise to conflicts among researchers, farmers, and indigenous groups [13–15]. In recent decades, explicit concerns have been raised over bioprospecting and biopiracy of traditional plants and their associated knowledge systems, both in Hawai'i and elsewhere. While corporate and institutional appropriation of germplasm and benefits continues, it is also being challenged in several arenas through global treaties and local declarations such as the 1995 Treaty and Related Protocols for a Lifeforms Patent Free Pacific [16], the 2001 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) [17], and the 2003 Paoakalani Declaration [18]. Specifically, Article 9 of the ITPGRFA (which was an outgrowth of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing) outlines farmers' rights, explaining and recognizing the unique contribution of farmers to the conservation and creation of plant types that contribute to local and global food security. While such global treaties present a useful framework, these documents are non-binding, and institutions that outline best practices, such as the United Nations (UN), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the CBD lack the power to enforce them. Complicating this issue is that public funds and institutions continue to support patenting/trademarking and research approaches considered inappropriate by many members of indigenous and farming communities; along with a range of perspectives on crops research among scholars, including indigenous scholars.

The history of indigenous knowledge and crop biodiversity exploitation provides a backdrop for this paper which reviews the process of restoring kalo, 'uala, ko, and 'awa, four Hawaiian crop plants, ¯ to contemporary landscapes and communities across Hawai'i. In our restoration efforts and writing, we find the cases fall within a biocultural approach defined by Gavin et al. (2015) as "actions made in the service of sustaining the biophysical and sociocultural components of dynamic, interacting and interdependent social–ecological systems." [19] In describing the cultural significance of the crops, we base our analyses on the kupuna crops themselves (kupuna refers to ancestor or starting point). Furthermore, we draw on Linda Tuhiwai Smith's articulation of 25 "indigenous projects" [20] to illustrate how restoration efforts may align with decolonizing methodologies. Smith [20] proposes such projects as a way to re-indigenize research focused on cultural knowledge and respect indigenous

boundaries. Twenty years after its publication, it also provides a measure for assessing what, if any, changes have occurred between research institutions, indigenous crops, farmers and Hawaiians over time. Of the 25 projects, we focus on *remembering, returning, revitalizing, restoring, protecting, celebrating, sharing, connecting* and *envisioning*. We add *resilience* and *abundance* to the framework to capture changing perspectives and approaches. Thus, we operationalize the notion of indigenous projects by reviewing the history of ancestral crop development in Hawai'i, exploring the cultural significance and recent resurgence of four kupuna crops with respect to the 'projects,' and analyzing how the cultural significance of these plants can guide ongoing restoration work both ex situ and in situ (on the land).

We begin by first *remembering.* Our first section provides a brief review of Hawaiian agricultural history and context for the current resurgence. We then share examples of four Hawaiian crop plants: kalo, 'uala, ko, and 'awa by first situating each plant in its Hawaiian context of kinship, ¯ relationship, and use. We *remember* specific histories of growth and decline, describe the *return* and *revitalization/regeneration* of names and cultivars themselves through collaborations and the *restoration* of the webs of relationships that accompany these plants, and *celebrate* this restoration (Table 1). We move forward towards resilience and abundance through this re-storying and new planters on the land. In a synthesis of our four cases, we *connect* and compare the cases to each other and lessons from other communities working to restore their biocultural heritage. Finally, we *share* lessons learned as we *envision* future research and agricultural approaches that center biocultural perspectives and employ participatory methods to enable effective collaboration between farmers/indigenous communities and researchers in the work to restore kupuna crops.

In focusing this paper on the need to respect and restore these crops in alignment with cultural values, we pay specific attention to the role of public research institutions in conducting pono (ethical, balanced) decision-making and research and extension initiatives as they intersect with biocultural resources and indigenous and local communities. Our examples bring forward an alternative paradigm of partnership. Thus, we suggest new, specific, and focused frames are needed to guide work on indigenous crops, informed by better understanding where indigenous, farmer, and researcher objectives collide or overlap constructively at the contact zone of indigenous crops research.

#### **2. Background: Ancestral Crops in the Hawaiian Landscape**

#### *2.1. Early Hawaiian Agriculture and Crop Trajectories*

Polynesians settled in the Hawaiian Islands an estimated 1000 years ago likely from within the Society Islands [21,22] arriving with a group of ~25 plants for food and other uses [23,24] including some that remained essential staples in the Hawaiian diet—kalo, mai'a, niu, 'awa and ko. Evidence ¯ suggests 'ulu and 'uala arrived in the islands with later oceanic migrations perhaps around the time of Pa'ao (circa 1300 CE) [25–29] while less is known about the arrival and role of uhi (yam) in early Hawaiian food security. From a limited number of Polynesian founder cultivars, Hawaiians developed an estimated 300-400 varieties of kalo, ~250 'uala, 40 mai'a, 35 'awa and 50 ko, numbers based on ¯ recovered germplasm and collected names and accounting for various sources of duplication [30–38]. Just nine cultivar names for uhi and two for niu are recorded by Handy and Pukui [33,39], while 'ulu is represented by only a single Hawaiian cultivar [28]. The primarily vegetative propagation of most these plants implies that Hawaiian cultivars persisting today carry much of the same genetic material as the plants that first arrived in the islands [40].

Archaeological fieldwork and geographic information system (GIS)-based models of the extent and trajectory of traditional agriculture reveal a rich landscape of highly productive farming covering at least 250,000 acres, including immense dryland and wetland agricultural terrace systems at the likely peak of the Hawaiian population in the 1700s [41–43]. These were sustained by diverse Hawaiian soil fertility management strategies [39,44,45] and cultivated according to celestial/seasonal and lunar cycles [46–48]. Water and nutrient flows and topography connected irrigated inland agricultural fields and nearshore fishponds within a cohesive traditional ahupua'a and land tenure system [6,39]. By some estimates, these landscapes supported between 300,000 and 800,000 people [49,50] prior to foreign contact.

Between 1778 and 1900, hundreds of thousands of Hawaiians died from foreign diseases taking with them many of the masterful agriculturalists of their time [50,51]. Wetland taro production declined from ~50,000 acres to ~30,000 acres by the end of the 19th century [41], while expansive dryland field systems were abandoned or became cattle lands [52]. Sugar plantations consumed agricultural lands on each island, securing crop growth through vast amounts of surface and ground water diverted from streams, taro fields and fishpond systems [53–55]. The 1893 overthrow shifted de facto governance of the Hawaiian Kingdom and its lands and people into the hands of American business interests and eventually the United States government [56]. The ensuing changes accelerated the erosion of the traditional Hawaiian land tenure system, making the conversion of agricultural lands and waters seemingly permanent [57–60]. The fight to return water to streams and taro systems has persisted for 150 years [61].

Agricultural systems not supplanted by commercial sugarcane shifted from kalo to rice, from 'uala to vegetable crops, and from local to distant markets. By 1939, barely 1200 acres remained in wetland taro [62]; commercial acreage has hovered around 400 acres since 1965 [63] (HASS/NASS data 1946–2016). Handy [33,39] reported widespread but declining subsistence 'uala cultivation during his surveys in the 1930s, and today, the 500 acres of commercial sweet potato production include few if any Hawaiian cultivars [64,65]. Hawaiian bananas' role as a staple starch was almost completely lost, while uhi, niu, and 'awa remained in the shadows, and the extensive 'ulu agroforests that once banded areas of Maunaloa on Hawai'i Island and covered large swaths of the southern coasts of West Maui were reduced to bare remnants [54,66]. Despite 200,000 acres at the peak of sugar [67], native ko cultivars survived almost exclusively in germplasm collections and botanical gardens. Further ¯ influencing this once abundant landscape was a demographic shift from predominantly Hawaiian farmers to other ethnic groups descended from plantation laborers. Through the end of WWII, Hawai'i maintained its ability to feed itself. Today, 90 percent of food consumed in the Hawaiian Islands is imported [68].

The complex influences that altered Hawai'i's endemic ecosystems, Hawaiian society, and its fine-tuned agricultural systems over the last 200 years are well-described [43,69]. Yet through the memories of kupuna (elders) raised in the language and traditions of Hawaiian agriculture, the land that holds onto the remnants of terraces and crop cultivars, and through acts of intentional restoration, ancestral gifts and knowledge endure [70,71].

#### *2.2. A Renaissance of Hawaiian Agricultural Crops*

The Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s precipitated a movement to reclaim identity, language, navigation skills [72], cultural practices, health, education [73], and resource governance. Struggles over sovereignty, burial grounds [74], military occupation [70], and land and water rights [75] fueled a return to traditional foods through restoration of lo'i (wetland taro fields) [76], loko i'a (fishponds) [77], and the practice of making poi (the staple Hawaiian food made from cooked kalo), including at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UH M ¯ anoa). The era birthed a new generation of taro farmers and ¯ students who returned to the land [78–80].

Several decades later, within the context of growing Hawaiian and farmer empowerment, clashes over kalo patenting and genetic manipulation by UH Manoa researchers opened a wide gap between ¯ the institution, Native Hawaiians and farmers while simultaneously fueling a community-based renaissance in traditional Hawaiian agriculture [81], thereby forcing the University to consider the significance of native crops in Hawai'i. Thus, kalo has been at the center of conflict and the stimulus of new growth, especially among small-scale commercial and subsistence taro farmers.

We explore this renaissance through four indigenous crop examples that center a biocultural perspective and review key events in each crop's recovery and restoration that provide lessons for all indigenous crop recovery efforts. We begin with kalo given its tremendous significance in Hawai'i; it also provides a perspective on the revival of 'uala, ko and 'awa. In each case, the cultural value of these ¯ crops extends far beyond their monetized value as market commodities. Each example demonstrates the proliferation of work to restore crop biodiversity, both in collections and on farm, and suggests new directions for inquiry.

#### **3. Na K¯ upuna: Kalo, 'Uala, K ¯ o, and 'Awa—Four Ancestral Hawaiian Crops ¯**

#### *3.1. Kalo–A Return to the Source and the Societal Role of a Staple Food*

#### 3.1.1. Guardians on the Land

Kalo (taro, *Colocasia esculenta*) is grown throughout much of the world as a staple starch root crop and a vegetable green and considered one of the oldest cultivated food crops (ca 10,000 cal BP, [82,83]). Molecular evidence indicates *Colocasia esculenta* was domesticated separately in both Asia and the Pacific [84,85] with the highest genetic diversity (DNA) found in India and the highest clonal diversity (cultivars) in Southeast Asia and the Pacific [86]. Predominantly diploid cultivars from this region provide the basis for Hawaiian kalo cultivar diversity [87,88]. This botanical lineage is recognized in some of the most important genealogical chants of the Hawaiian Islands, together with the plant's cultural significance which begins side by side with the birth of man.

There are several cosmological stories, such as the Kumuhonua, Mele a Pakui and the Kumulipo, ¯ a more than 2000 line chant, [3,25] that parallels scientific theory in the primordial birthing of the organisms, the creation of the world, the islands, and the birth of Haloa. In the very first w ¯ a (era) of ¯ the *Kumulipo*, the distant red Kalo Manauea, a reference to a South Pacific taro, appears as a kia'i, a guardian on the land, to the manauea of the sea (a smoky red seaweed) [3,25]. The "dusky black 'Ape" appears in the fourth wa, another important food crop member of the Aroid family to which ¯ *Colocasia esculenta* belongs. Here, 'Ape is the kapu (taboo) chiefly progenitor, setting the stage for the birth of Haloa (the kalo) into Hawai'i and a symbolic link to Kahiki (the ancient past; Tahiti) [ ¯ 89].

Haloa-naka-lau-kapalili, the plant, is born in the 13th w ¯ a of the ¯ *Kumulipo*, emerging from the burial place of the stillborn child of the gods Wakea and Ho'oh ¯ ok¯ ukalani [ ¯ 25]. Haloa, the man, is ¯ born, and the chiefly ancestors from which Hawaiians descend follow; the two (kalo and man) are bound together as brothers through parentage and a profound reciprocal kia'i relationship. Each feeds the other; both survive. Out of this cosmology emerges the sacred trust that is the foundation of Hawaiian agriculture and cultural identity. Hawaiian oral traditions and written literature link kalo to the principal gods Kane and Lono, associated with fresh water and agriculture, and the demi-god, ¯ Kanepua'a [ ¯ 25,33,90–92]. The plant is food, medicine, dye, feed for nearshore fish, tax payments to the chiefs, and offerings for the gods [25,46,62,93,94]. Kalo is also replete with symbolism. From the structure of the parent corm and side shoots (na 'oh ¯ a) comes the word, 'ohana (family) [ ¯ 95]; from its lineage, hardiness and its waving leaves have come a flag of resistance, especially among taro farmers for the return of water to their steams [96]; the sap of the kalo is referred to as koko (blood) reminding us of the sibling connection [89].
