ASWM Scholar Salon with Dr. Kim Duckett, "The Wheel of the Year is usually associated with earth-based spiritualities. My work shifts the focus of the Wheel to being a transpersonal and spiritual psychology that can be used to recognize, understand, and respond to experiences and processes that occur over the course of women’s lives."
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We are pleased to be able to offer this Salon again following technical failures during the original event.
Moku’ula by Janet Spreiter
Following the devastating fires on August 8, 2023, in Lāhainā, Maui, there has been a call for a restoration of the sacred lands of Mokuʻula, once the seat of Hawaiian government and home to the great akua moʻo (reptilian water deity) Kihawahine. In this kairotic moment, my dissertation research entitled “Shapeshifting Hawaiian Biography: The Life and Afterlives of Kihawahine” intends to share a longer and richer story than tourist and colonial myths have perpetuated of this famous site. My project is an Indigenous Hawaiian biography centering Kihawahine —daughter of 16th century Maui high chief Piʻilani— who was ritually deified into a guardian akua moʻo and later elevated to island-wide worship under Kamehameha. Shapeshifting moʻo are kiaʻi wai, the most revered and feared water protectors. The study of Kihawahine’s life, afterlife, and multiple body forms—giant lizard, white dog, spider—invites deep examination of Hawaiian history, religion, politics, culture, art, and language.
“Kihawahine” by R.C. Barnfield
By historicizing various re-tellings and interpretations of her story across time and region, I map the meanings and intentions behind keeping her image alive for each successive generation. The story of Kihawahine is found in many sources including Hawaiian-language newspapers, missionary journals, ship logs, archaeological reports, oli (chant) and hula (dance). Her kiʻi (ritually carved wooden image) is currently sailing around the world aboard the Hōkūleʻa voyaging canoe. Unfortunately, another kiʻi sits behind glass in the Berlin Ethnological Museum. By sharing these stories, Kānaka ʻŌiwi hope our voices will aid in the repatriation of our ancestral kiʻi, restoration of sacred Mokuʻula, and return of our life-giving waters.
Mahealani Ahia
Māhealani Ahia is a Los Angeles-born Kanaka ʻŌiwi artist, scholar, activist, songcatcher and storykeeper with lineal ties to Lāhainā, Maui. With a background in theatre arts, writing and performance from U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Irvine, Māhea is committed to creating artistic and academic projects that empower Indigenous feminist decolonial research. Her Master’s Degree in Mythology and Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute focused on cultural trauma and the power of stories and chanting to heal. As a PhD candidate in English (Hawaiian Literature) and a graduate certificate student in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, her dissertation research “Shapeshifting Hawaiian Biography: The Life and Afterlives of Kihawahine” inundates biography’s genre boundaries as it theorizes feminist power and leadership within the moʻo (reptilian water deity) clan. Māhea teaches courses like Indigenous Feminisms, Island Feminisms, Creative Writing for Healing. She serves as editor for Hawaiʻi Review and ʻŌiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal and is co-organizer of the Mauna Kea Syllabus Project.
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Save the date for this upcoming ASWM Salon:
January 11, 2024 NOON Eastern Time
“Matriarchal Societies of the Past and the Rise of Patriarchy”
with Dr. heide Goettner-Abendroth
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
Filmmaker Steph Smith reflects on the journey of meeting and listening to indigenous midwives around the world, and of creating and funding the film that honors the work of these inspiring practitioners: "Give Light: Stories of Indigenous Midwives.:
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Dr. Glenys Livingstone presents PaGaian Cosmology, a religious practice of seasonal ceremony based in a synthesis of Western scientific understanding of the unfolding Cosmos with female metaphor or the sacred.
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Grace Nono, Ph.D., an ethnomusicologist and scholar of Philippine shamanism, explores the embodied voices of Native Philippine ritual specialists popularly known as babaylan, including as special guests women practitioners whose work preserves traditional culture.
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