Salvage...

You desperately search through the scorched and ripped cultural landscape of your ancestors. Your beloved kupuna. No records. Passed from mouth to ear, mouth to ear, mouth to ear. Over a thousand years. No documentation. Burnt in the church fire. No documentation. Long misfiled and misplaced through ambivalent acts. No documentation. Intentionally discarded in acts of selfish greed. Now you desperately search for tiny bits and pieces of skeletal humanity to show your eternal love. To establish proof of existence. They were here. They lived here. They laughed here. They cried here. They loved here thus giving you life. They died here. All erased. Your kulaiwi now cleansed of the evidence of your bonds to the land. When you die. You will end up burnt to ashes. Cremated in the traditions of the West and East. Pukui said "iwi is the most cherished possession." When did that change? Now when you pass my friend. It will be as if none of you ever existed...