Interview with Dr. Kalawaia Moore

Since IG has just a clip of a conversation I wanted to make the full answer to this question available to all of you. Here it is in transcript form:

Question: What do you wish every Hawaiian knew in regards to the Great Mahele and the Hawaiian Kingdom?

"If every Hawaiian knew what the Hawaiian kingdom, what it means to be an advocate for the Hawaiian kingdom is it means access to land for every Hawaiian upon hitting the age of 21 from the Minister of Interior. Right? That was the way the Mahele process worked. When you hit the age of 21, the age a majority in the kingdom, you could go down to the Ministry of Interior and get a plot of land on which to build a house and grow food. Or you could stay in a traditional relationship as a makaainana on the land, giving labor tax to the konohiki and the government.

Thousands of us, Hawaiians from the 1850s, all the way through till 1893, where it ends had access to what are called our native tenant rights and got plots of land for themselves or their family. It's very different than the land system we're in right now, where you got to scrap for money to try to get a down payment.
 
That's the American system of land, right? One person, your family dies. Everybody's fighting for that one house. You don't have to fight for that one house. You go get your own plot of land. Right? That's the Hawaiian system. The [Hawaiian] Constitution guarantees all Hawaiians rights to the land rights in the land.

The Mahele is the policy process by which those rights are actualized."

To learn more listen to our podcast episode interviewing Dr. Peter Kalawaia Moore.