Archive for June 23rd, 2012
» posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 by Linda Lou Burton
Pass It Forward
Linda Burton posting from Honolulu, Hawaii – “My 10-year-old son can recite our family genealogy for 17 generations back,” said our narrator. They’d found a place for Kayla and me on the back row of the jam-packed Fiji hut, and there we sat, bamboo sticks in hand, learning to chant and sing Fiji style. And, learning how to remember. The presentation at the Fiji settlement in the Polynesian Cultural Center was titled “History through Chants & Dance” and we’d just been taught how, as a group, to beat out rhythms, “one-two one-two-three” then “one-two-three-four” fast and slow, stop; then a call to us, “moo-oo” then our response “mai-ii” and repeat; somehow the roomful of us managed to do this together; and somehow, the feel of it began to stick in our memories. I know there’s a scientific explanation for what happens in the brain when rhythms and sounds take on a consistent pattern; but overall, it seemed to be the joy of it that took hold. Yet I was startled by that last remark. Seventeen generations? » read more
» posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 by Linda Lou Burton
Want Me To Jump?
Kayla Shumate, age 10, traveling with grandmother, posting from Honolulu, Hawaii—G mom and I are at the Polynesian Cultural Center, sitting on a wooden bench watching the Samoa tribe show us clapping differences. A new man comes up and is making us laugh already. I knew I was going to enjoy this. He first shows us how to crack a coconut. He rips it open with his bare hands. He shows us the tiny face inside. He picked up a rock and banged it on the coconut. It cracked in two. He called up a kid in a red shirt, and shared the coconut with him. The host said “ugh disgusting.” We all laugh with tears in our eyes. After the laughter calmed down he showed us how to make fire. He got a long thin stick. He broke it in ¾ and ¼. He scraped the two sticks together and smoke came up from the two. He picked up dry grass and put it up against the two sticks. Then fire rose from the burning dry grass. He pointed to a man standing next to a tree and said “This man will show you how to climb a palm tree.” He climbed up the tree like Spider Man. When he reached the top he asked “Want me to jump?” » read more