(flame crackling) (soft music)
(volcano rumbling)
- [Hoaka] Stone is the foundation of Hawaii.
(tools rasping)
We use stone to make our food.
And we use it in battle.
This method of traditional stone carving
cannot be forgotten.
I am the last stone carver
that carve these stones from Hawaii.
(soft music)
(light music)
I've been carving stone for 40 years.
I can carve from a small, one-pound stone
to four tons, using neolithic methods,
which is so essential in Hawaiian people's lives.
To do the carvings, I have managed to replicate stone tools
that were used by my ancestors.
It requires you to have endurance.
It requires you to have patience.
Once a piece breaks off, it's not the same.
It's either you give it your best
or you don't do it at all.
(waves roaring faintly)
(singing in foreign language)
Before I go about pickin' up the stone,
I do a prayer; I pray before I take.
(singing in foreign language)
(light music)
When you're down at the ocean and you notice
all different size and shapes,
that's called (speaks foreign language).
(speaks foreign language) is the scouring
of stone from water.
Water cuts the pathways of these gulches and rivers
and shapes the stones into what you see
when it's down at the beach.
There are days when I don't find any stone.
I'll be walkin' all day,
but it tells me it's not time; it finds me.
As I look at it and I touch it,
it reveals to me what it's going to be shaped into.
It's a knowing; it's so strong
that I just can't walk away from it.
This rock, I know, will make a great poi pounder.
I will pick it up, bring it home and start the process
of chipping and grinding stone on stone.
(tool banging)
It's countless strikes,
in order to bring about what's inside.
(orchestral music)
If you force yourself upon it, it will resist.
I hear and I start to feel the direction it wants to go in.
And you realize it's not you who shape the stone,
it's the stone who shapes you.
After completing it, you feel good that you have been able
to take something so large and shape it
to bring about a form that will give life.
(soft music)
(waves roaring)
The smaller stone taught me how to do the big stone.
One of the most important pieces for me is situated
at an ancient burial ground at the western end of Maui.
(singing in foreign language)
The stone sculpture has a story.
There are two figures: one coming down and one goin' up.
And there's a hole on the top of the sculpture,
which is a portal; it's the cycle of life.
When I am gone, that story in the stone will live on
because stones are forever.
(soft music)
(electronic music)