The culture of these islands we call home never fails to impress us, especially when it’s something new to learn about, like Hawaiian Rain Names, or Hanau Ka Ua.
This new book, available from Kamehameha Publishing is a collection of Hawaiian rain names, gathered from our islands rich traditions. But what are rain names? Well quite simply they are names for all the different types of rain that our Kupuna collected. By understanding nature, and observing the world around them and the different types of rain that fell. This taught them when a certain type of rain would fall, for how long, and more importantly its effects on the land and its people. That these were recorded so, shows the importance to people before the Weather Channel handed us this information so easily.
The authors of these books Collette Leimomi Akana and her daughter-collaborator, Kiele Gonzalez will be giving a talk, and cultural presentation on Tuesday, December 6, 6:30 pm at Kapaa Public Library, where they will discuss how they researched their book, and share descriptions of winds and rains from early nineteenth and twentieth century Hawaiian language newspapers, and perform hula and mele which mention various winds and rains. This free event will have copies of the book for sale.
If you’d like to find out more, call the library at 821-4422
