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What is Kapu Aloha?
Kapu aloha is an evolving philosophical code of conduct that is culturally informed by Kanaka Maoli epistemes and is expressed politically through non-violent direct action, and ceremonially through behavioral conducts that align with Kanaka Maoli cultural practices and notions of the sacred.

The term kapu aloha comes from the merging of two foundational Hawaiian language words kapu (to set apart; to prohibit; to make sacred or holy), and aloha (to love; show mercy; to have compassion upon). Kanaka Maoli cultural practitioners maintain that kapu aloha evolved from an unspoken cultural edict surrounding ceremony. As the practice of kapu aloha started to infiltrate the political realm, its ethos and praxes spread to include non-Kanaka Maoli settler-allies or those unfamiliar with Native Hawaiian culture. From the 1990s to the present, kapu aloha began to take shape and a term was adopted that replicated its evolution from a strictly Kanaka Maoli, cultural, social, spiritual, and ceremonial edict to a political practice that incorporated all of these frames. In 2015, kapu aloha was introduced to a wider audience when kia’i mauna (Kanaka Maoli and non-native allies) took to protecting Mauna Kea/Mauna a Wākea from the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). The philosophy of kapu aloha is seen as the driving force for social and political change in Hawaii, having been reinvigorated when Hawaiʻi State officials announced that the construction of the TMT would start again on July 15, 2019. Kiaʻi have been successful in delaying the development of the TMT establishing a puʻuhonua (place of refuge) at the Kīpuka Puʻuhuluhulu. Kapu aloha is the code of conduct employed by the community at the Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu and has spread throughout the State of Hawaiʻi extending itself to the Save Sherwood Forest and Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku movements. In an interview at the Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu, two Kanaka Maoli kumu hula, elders and educators Hōkūlani Holt and Pualani Kanahele Kanakaʻole articulated that kapu aloha unites those who practice it to place/space, to each-other, to speaking the truth and to reciprocal relationships. Kapu aloha serves as an elevated mode of conduct that represents the collectives’ will to protect wahi pana (storied places) and wahi kapu (sacred spaces).

Kapu Aloha: Edict and Onto-genealogical-ethos
Kapu aloha is seen by kia'i as a commitment to maintaining peaceful dissent and culturally informed interaction with the opposition while traversing highly emotional situations on Mauna Kea, Kahuku, and Sherwood Forrest. Many Kanaka Maoli relate to Mauna Kea ancestrally through cosmogonic oral histories. Mauna Kea is home to multiple elemental and ancestrally venerated water deities called akua, e.g. Poliʻahu, Waiau, Lilinoe, Kahoupokāne and Kalauakolea. It is for these reasons that many Kanaka Maoli activists and members of the lāhui Hawaiʻi (community/nation) understand Mauna Kea to be sacred and feel a deep obligation to protect Mauna Kea from the development of the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope). This ancestral and relational connection to place is bound by the ʻaha hoʻowili moʻo (ancestral umbilicus). Native Hawaiian scholar Iokepa Salazar states that:"“It is, at once, an ancestor, a portal to the Akua, an elder sibling, a primary source of water for the people, and a place of spiritual being and reflection for Kanaka ʻŌiwi. This body of thought and way of relating to the natural world is part of a deeply held ethical positonality common to many ʻŌiwi, what are describes as an onto-genealogical ethos: that is, to care for the land, water and other natural beings.”"Kapu aloha is a philosophical, active, non-violent, culturally maintained, and evolving code of conduct aligned with Kanaka Maoli notions of the sacred. Its ethos is expressed through but isn't limited to:


 * ʻAha (Ceremony) are held three times daily at both the Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's John Henry Wise Field and are facilitate by kia'i and students.


 * Codes of conduct at Puʻuhonu o Puʻuhuluhulu
 * Aloha/mālama ʻāina (love, reverence, loyalty, protection, and care for the land)
 * Aloha kekahi i kekahi (respect for one another)
 * Politics and media interaction
 * Non-violent direct action
 * Dignified and disciplined kūʻē
 * Regulation, guidance, and teaching

== Codes of Conduct At the Puʻuhonua o Puʻhuluhulu == 1. Kapu Aloha Always.

2. NO weapons, NO smoking of any kind and NO alcohol.

3. MĀLAMA (care for) each other.

4. Ask consent for any pictures or video.

5. Pick up ʻōpala (trash) you see.

6. BE PONO.

* These codes of conduct have been employed and implemented in other Kiaʻi (protector) movements throughout Hawaiʻi, e.g. Save Sherwood Forest and Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku.

Kapu Aloha's Materialization:
Pua Case, a kumu hula, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner, and kiaʻi mauna (protector of Mauna Kea), articulates that kapu aloha is a way of embodying the sacred, and a sense that one must act in reverence and respect in spaces considered sacred. Case maintains that the philosophy of kapu aloha has always been represented through an unspoken Hawaiian cultural edict that frames cultural practices and ceremonies. According to Case, as Kanaka Maoli spaces opened up to settler-allies and those unfamiliar with the conduct of kapu aloha, developing a term that embodied its ethos became necessary for its continuity on a broader scale. Kapu aloha is believed to have evolved from ceremony to a political form in the 1990s with marches like the 125th anniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1993 and through the Mālama Mākua movement in 1996. Case states that "We lucky that we had ceremony enough since the 1990s that brought that term to us, that term is in full bloom right now and is guiding us so when we close our eyes at night and we have said remember, 'sacred mountain sacred conduct, kapu aloha.' We are assured that we are going to be able to do that much more than had we not had that term. We'd be sleeping with two eyes open. But now we sleep...thats kapu aloha. Kapu aloha is the magic, it's the magnet, it is the magnificence coming from the mauna right to this ala and saying this is the reminder of how we conduct ourselves. Sacred mountain, sacred conduct." (11:11-12:14)

According to Joshua Lanakila Mangauil, co-founder of the Hawaiian Cultural Center of Hamākua, kapu aloha was a practice embraced by Hawaiian immersion/charter schools when he attended Kanu o Ka ʻĀina. Author and scholar Dr. Manulani Meyer argues that when Kanaka Maoli elders and leaders are questioned as to the authenticity of kapu aloha, they will often reference traditional cultural epistemes drawing on the practicality of kapu aloha's evolution as a continual cultural praxis.