The objects I brought for my post-trip testimony are some Hawaiian rocks, some black and white pebbles, and I want to talk about the weight of an invitation.

 

When you fly to Hawai’i, the airlines make you sign a document, promising that you won’t import or export any livestock or vegetation that could prove invasive and catastrophic to the island biome. You also have to promise not to bring back any pohaku, any lava rocks,with you from Hawai’i. In fact, it’s illegal to do so. More than that, there’s this story – Pele’s Curse. The gist is that the Hawaiian volcano deity, Pele, will curse you with misfortune and bad luck if you take rock, sand, dirt – pebbles – from Hawai’i. Why? Well, we were told at Paepae o Heeia that Papahānaumokuākea (Pa-pa-hah-now-mo-koo-ah-keh-ah), Earth Mother, is believed to receive Hawaiian ancestors back into her when they pass. And so, the stones have souls. They live alongside us, just more slowly. So, when we cradle them in rope nets and lower them into the mud of Paepae’s fish pond, they are home. And, when we take them five thousand miles away to New Haven, CT, they are not. And yet, I’m holding some Hawaiian pebbles.

 

These pebbles are pieces in an ancient Hawai’ian board game called Kōnane. It’s played like Checkers with diagonal hops to remove pieces, and it looks like Go with its black and white tiles. However, unlike Checkers and Go, the goal in Kōnane is not about capturing the most pieces or controlling the most territory. You win by being the last player to make a move. It is a game that tempts consumption but rewards conservation.

 

I have these pebbles because I bought a handmade Kōnane set in Kahili Valley – the

place where Sky Father and Earth Mother built their home and Hawai’i was born out of the kalo leaf. I was, we were, invited to Kahili Valley by an indigenous-run, community-based health center in the valley to help pull invasive, vining weeds from the dirt, freeing the native species to breathe the island air again. And, at the end of our time there, we were also invited to purchase items in their gift shop, the proceeds going directly into the organization’s work.

 

I asked our instructor about the selling of Kōnane pebbles and how that’s spiritually navigated. He responded that, “traditionally, if [they] were going to take a rock from where it lived, for personal use, or to make an implement, or anything like that, [they] have protocols in place. Essentially, the protocol would be telling the spirit, ‘Hey, I see you, I acknowledge you, and I would love to use your rock for this specific purpose.’ Then, part of the protocol is deep listening. Is the spirit okay with that? The answer will come via environment, internal feeling, dreams (especially dreams), or for a special few individuals, they would literally be able to see and talk to the spirit.”*

 

This protocol for the pohaku in Kōnane sets, then, is an exchange of invitations. The spirits are invited to play with us, and the Kōnane players are invited to play with the spirits. These pebbles were not only asked if they were willing to make the journey, they also asked us to journey with them.

 

Of course, there are complicating cultural factors to this consent protocol like transactionalism, materialism, language barriers, etc. But when we talk about missions work in a post-colonial period, we have to be willing to sit in the complexity of these concepts without tending too quickly toward a neo-colonial reversal. That is, we must be wary of refusing an invitation because we feel that we have the moral superiority to 1) adjudicate, on their behalf, the severity of our own historical complicity or 2) that we have the superior wisdom to decide right action above and against the other’s explicit invitation.

 

The missional life involves not only a serenity to leave behind stones who say, “No,” it also involves a gratitude and a courage to walk with and alongside those pohaku who invite us to join them, to play in new lands, to learn how to live slowly, to approach the ‘Āina, the land and the waterways, with a mind toward longevity over consumption. Mahalo. 

 

*Quoted text is an excerpted response from Kanoa O’Connor at Kōkua Kalihi Valley to a text inquiry regarding the Kōnane stones. As a biracial Asian American raised in Texas, these stories are not my own, but they have been shared with me and inform my story, so I hope I have held them with mālama.