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Protecting Maunakea Is a Mission Grounded in Tradition
The womxn and nonbinary folx of Hawai’i are protecting this sacred space against police forces and governmental influences
By Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua and Yvonne Mahelona
On July 17, 2019, hundreds stood and watched in tortured silence as police arrested three dozen kūpuna (elders), who refused to allow construction vehicles up to the sacred summit of Maunakea. Maunakea is the tallest mountain in the Hawaiian Islands and an ancestor to Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians). Rows of law enforcement officers from multiple state and county divisions lined the access road. In a hypermasculine spectacle of the settler stateʻs capacity for violence, riot police were fully armed as they prepared to face off with peaceful protectors who were outfitted with rain jackets, hats, lei, and sunscreen. The kūpuna asked us to be quiet. They wanted to be the first to face arrest, and we would give law enforcement no excuse to use violence.
We cried. We bit our tongues. We raised our hands to signal our love for our elders: artists, teachers, business owners, university professors, community leaders, knowledge keepers.
A majority of those arrested were womxn. Eighty-one-year old veteran land defender, Maxine Kahaulelio described her stance, “As a wahine koa [woman warrior/courageous woman], I’m gonna stand firm. You wanna arrest me? Arrest me!” Kahaulelio was arrested along with 32 other elders that day.
The struggle to protect Maunakea against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), an 18-story building occupying over five acres of conservation land, takes place amidst the backdrop of a crowded field of existing astronomy observatories, built on the mountain over the past 55 years. The TMT’s own environmental impact statement acknowledges that the cumulative harm of this development has been and will continue to be “substantial, significant, and adverse” with the addition of the new facility. The struggle has also been filled with profound expressions of mana wahine and mana māhū: the power of womxn and nonbinary folx.
Wāhine (womxn) have been protecting Mauna a Wākea, also known as Maunakea, since time immemorial. Many deities…
