When D. Kauwila Mahi and Léopold met in Dene Country in June 2024, Kauwila looked at The Funambulist’s logo and its constellation of geographies in solidarity and remarked that some of the constellations match some actual ones, while others did not. From this remark came this commission of a text about the relationality of constellations that made itself evident during nighttime, and the various forms of guidance through space and time they provide, in particular in Hawaiian cosmology and political history.
“Na ka pō ke aʻo, ʻaʻole na ke ao, na ka pō,” interpreted from ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi [Hawaiian language], meaning “Night is where learning commences, not the day, from the night.” In a talk-story on October 21, 1973, Aunty Hattie Ah Kuk of Kauaʻula, Maui, recalls site-specific traditional knowledge and cultural practices of Hawaiʻi yesteryears, which were maintained and tended to in secrecy because missionaries politics encroached into the law of Hawaiʻi for over a century. Throughout the talk-story Aunty Ah Kuk recalls daily life and practices in Lahaina and concludes the conversation by ensuring that her message about pō is transferred to future generations.
Pō, interpreted earlier as night, is also defined in Pukui’s dictionary as: “the realm of the gods; pertaining to or of the gods, chaos, or hell; dark, obscure, benighted; formerly the period of 24 hours beginning with nightfall.” The multiplicity of nuances within a single meaning of pō exemplifies the polysemic nature of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. Terms and phrases are often intentionally encoded within speech and writing, which binds some people and terminology into a tapestry of relationships and excluding (at least temporarily) others.