by Irminsul

We Islanders

Originally published in “Mystic Hawai’i” magazine.

Let’s get this out there right off the top. Tartan and sand really don’t mix.

Neither do ghille socks and salt water. Or scotch and poke (some people might argue with me on that). The surface things that really matter little when it comes to the big picture. But one thing that has truly struck me as a now 12 year Kamaaina (resident) of Celtic lineage on Hawai’i Island: We are sure more alike than we are different.

You can often see it in the simple things. A couple of years ago I was finishing up a grueling set of on fire Irish rebel music at a St. Patrick’s day event, with the Big Island pub group “Craiceáilte Celtic”. Soaked in sweat and savoring my first mouthful of Bushmill, I feel a hand on my shoulder. It was my good friend and well known musician Panchoman Kuanoni. He was on stage right before us, and this guy is 100% Hawaiian from the top of his curly hair down to his sandy toes. And he can rattle off his family lineage to prove it. Now, he was warm and teary. He looked at me and said “Brah, I haven’t talked with you in a while, do you know something?”

I didn’t know what was coming next. Panchoman is a guy not only of great talent, but savage wit. Maybe a filthy joke was on it’s way.

“I’m as Hawaiian as it gets. I can tell you my mom’s ohana (family) down through three hundred years. But you, you are ohana too. You belong here.” I started, my softy self, to tear up a bit also. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you what dey call a Rainbow Person. We Hawaiians are Rainbow People too. Rainbow has all da colors known, dey not all separate but togeda in one. No matta what clothes you wear or what color your skin.”

Needless to say I was touched and the water works started. I remember my maternal grandfather was kinda the same way, tell him a good story or sing him a moving song and he was in a puddle of tears. But more than that, it got me thinking about the unlikely connection between the hard headed, wild folks in my ancestry and the people who are from what is now our home.

The connections are many, and can easily come to mind.

Celts and Hawaiians are deeply spiritual people, no matter what masks or temperaments their Deities have. Somehow our connection to Source, to the Divine, is intensified on the islands. We feel so close to it that we can feel Their breath on the back of our necks.

Another thing is the strength and sustenance we have in family, what the Hawaiians call Ohana. The neat thing about Ohana is how eerily close it is in philosophy to the Clan structure of my Scottish lineage. Both Ohana and Clan revered actual service, actual closeness more than they valued a blood line. You may be related by genes, you may not be — but if you demonstrated your love and loyalty, if you make yourself available, you are Ohana/Clan.

Another similarity was experience. Both Celts and Hawaiians know the sting of struggle, of being invaded, conquered and dominated by foreign powers. Of being dispossessed of lands, of relations, of identity. We know what it’s like to bitterly lose. We also know how to retrain our minds and our actions, so that we hang on. We are survivors. We dance and sing when our oppressors expect us to sit in conquered silence.

We also know the frightening challenges of living on an island. The storms, the tsunamis, the earthquakes, the unique peril of living on or near active volcanoes. We know about war. We know about isolation in the Giant Blue, which paradoxically gives us a freedom that non-islanders can’t know.

Oh, and we have hard shells. We know how to adapt and roll with the wind. To see your culture and history parodied, laughed at from tourists who smile and take pictures of hula dancers with coconut shell bras, or watch some guy in a kilt play golf and then fall over drunk. Yeah. we’re used to it. We can even make a little money at it if we apply ourselves, but mostly it’s just an annoying curiosity as we are so, so much more than that.

In the end, we have our aspirations and our peace of mind. I remember the first time I visited the UK, and the plane was coming in for a landing at Heathrow. Looking out over all those green trees and clay colored houses looming up beneath me, I was seized by a nearly frightening feeling that this was not foreign at all. That this was, in a freaky way, almost like coming home.

I feel the same way now when coming in on a flight to Kona Airport. Watching the sea come to meet me, then the black lava rock shores and the mighty Mount Hualalai dominate the windows on my left. I know I’ve arrived on Alba (Scotland) again. On my dear Hawai’i Nei again.

That I’ve come home.