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Overview
How does a Philadelphia debutant, refined in manners of high society, overcome great personal storms, follow her spiritual path, and find the love of her life (the great, great, great grandson of King Kamehameha III) in Molokai, Hawaii? He knew her spirit even if he could hardly speak her language and had been 'raised up' in a grass shack on the beaches of Oahu, diving off cliff s, living off the ocean, warding off environmental off enders as a political activist protecting the islands and guarding the ways of his people only as a Kahuna can. They wove a rich fabric of diverse colors throughout their marriage by searching out ways to blend their two cultures through their mutual respect and love for one another. They shared and practiced their spiritual knowledge, lived a traditional Hawaiian lifestyle and fought off , like in a "Melagro Bean Field War," a Singapore global conglomerate that wanted to develop 200 pristine acres of shoreline that would change the subsistence way of living on this small Hawaiian island. This is their true Hawaiian story.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781452548913 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Balboa Press |
| Publication date: | 04/25/2012 |
| Pages: | 264 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Prior to attending Law School, Victoria taught pottery at the University of Wyoming. After retiring from the practice of Law, she returned to clay; selling her art pieces at shows and several galleries throughout four states.
After her first visit to Hawaii in 1981, her goal was to retire in Hawaii where she presently resides with her two German Shepards: Hoku and Loke. She is also a certified healer at Kapiolani Medical Center for cancer patients.
Read an Excerpt
The Kahuna and I
A Remarkable True Hawaiian StoryBy Victoria Kapuni
Balboa Press
Copyright © 2012 Victoria KapuniAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-4891-3
Chapter One
How does a Philadelphia debutante, schooled, groomed and taught all the refined and courteous manners of high society end up in Kaunakakai, Molokai, married to an almost full-blooded Hawaiian, the love of her life? In the autumn of my journey, after years of broken relationships, and heartache, I found my twin soul in a man who knew my spirit even if he could hardly speak my language. My life had been debutante balls, three marriages and a law practice. His had been 'raising up' in a grass shack on the beaches of Oahu, diving off cliffs, catching fish and game from the ocean and aina (land) and guarding the sacred ways of his people.Although Ke Akua (God) gave us a relatively short time on this plane, I know that we looked for each other our whole lives. We always knew we were blessed to find each other, and never took the treasure we had found for granted. We taught each other some of the most important mysteries of this beautiful planet and Island I now call my home. Through our love I now continue my journey and pass the torch of his Mana to you. This is our story.
As a young girl I never went anywhere without heels and hose, a hat, white gloves and maybe a string of pearls. My clothes were tailored from the Sports and Specialty or Nana's shop. I was from "old moneyed" Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania and there were rules that were simply not to be broken.
Breeding they called it. We girls were taught all those special ways of doing things like setting a place at a table with three or four drinking glasses, two or three spoons, two or three knives and three or four forks depending on what was to be served; or how to wipe our napkins at either corner of our mouths or stand and courtesy when an elder walked into the room. We learned the subjects you 'did not speak about in public' as well as the subjects suitable for dinner conversation. We took ballet lessons, music lessons, and ball room dancing lessons learning not only the steps but how to maneuver big skirts with hoop undergarments underneath, so our skirts wouldn't fly up over our heads when we sat down. Then, of course, for school and everywhere else we wore full skirts with from 5 to 8 crinolines worn underneath depending on the fullness of the skirt.
We were taught to appreciate finely carved mahogany furniture, Waterford crystal, English bone china, Irish linens, oriental rugs from Turkey or China, English Tudor grey, granite stone mansions with ten bedrooms in them like the one I grew up in. We were groomed to appreciate all the finer 'things' money can buy and the gentlemen husbands to go along with the money.... the ones who played golf or tennis on grass courts at the country clubs. Everyone belonged to a country club and it 'mattered' which one that was. The old money country club was the Philadelphia Cricket Club (the one my family belonged to), which was the best, because the old moneyed families believed it to be.
An old moneyed family husband was a much better trophy than that of a new money family. The new money people, someone like Bill Gates, would not have the breeding and pedigree to go along with the money. This was never so apparent as during Debutante season.
Debutante season began during your senior year of High School. The actual parties were scheduled for June, but the acceptance process to the June Ball began during the preceding fall and was completed by January.
To be accepted by the Philadelphia Social Society Committee your parents had to submit "pedigree" information to show how far back your ancestors went as far as living in America. I was a Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR) meaning that my ancestors were traced back to living in America before the American Revolution. My maternal Grandfather's ancestors came over on the second wave of ships from England to Plymouth Rock; and my paternal Grandmother's ancestors traced back to before the early 1700s from England. She is one of the two DAR connections I have in my early eastern United States societal background.
My dad was born in Altoona Pennsylvania; but his father, a medical doctor, moved to Philadelphia when he was quite young. I never knew my paternal grandfather, who was apparently a benevolent care giving physician (7th generation of first son physicians), who went to patient's homes when they were sick. During the flu epidemic of the 1920s he worked tirelessly caring for the sick but eventually died of the disease. My father grew up without a dad and his mother was so bitter over her husband's death, she did not allow either of her two sons to go to medical school and take a chance they would also die while tending to the sick like their father had done.
Both my paternal grandparents came from a long lineage of early settlers to America. My paternal grandfather's family migrated to America from Aberdeen, Scotland at least ten generations ago. His ancestors had acquired Scottish family lands from the King in the 1100's. On a visit to Scotland, I discovered the family name is everywhere in Edinburgh - streets, schools, shops etc.
My maternal grandfather, whom I knew, had relatives fighting and dying on both sides of the Civil War (one dying in Andersonville prison camp). He was a learned man who taught Greek and Latin in a university before becoming a Methodist minister and eventually changing his religion to Christian Science with my grandmother.
My grandmother was a school teacher living in Minnesota when she met my grandfather. She was four years older than my grandfather, which my mother only discovered after she died. It would have been very unusual at the turn of the century for a wife to be older then her husband.
Her lineage was three quarter English and one quarter German. She was a relative newcomer, as far as my ancestors were concerned, coming to America; but she liked to tell a story of her girlhood when a band of Indians in war paint came to her family's Minnesota homestead while her father was away, and her mother went out to them carrying food. After she gave them the food, they left.
My grandmother influenced my non-violent peaceful attitude towards animals particularly, but people and the world as well. My lesson occurred one Christmas after I had purchased (with my own saved up money and gave to her) a silk scarf with fringe on it. I thought it was beautiful because it was embroidered with mallards on a lake with lake plants all around. The problem was there was a man with a rifle in his hand in the embroidery- apparently a hunter. She then took stitch by stitch out, the rifle, removing it from the picture.
She was also my introduction to the sanctity of nature and the expansive beauty of the earth and sky and respect for all living things. My grandparents took me out to fields of wild flowers and grassy hills and woods with them. They introduced me to nature when I was very young. I remember as a little girl, four or five, sitting in a field of grass holding yellow buttercups in my hands shaped as a bowl for the flowers to lay in. They opened my eyes to the natural beauty of the world and how it is a living life force all around us.
They gave me a sense of nature, but they also gave me my pedigree. And once you passed the pedigree test, the money test was next.
It was then and probably is now very expensive to become a debutante. The cost of the June Ball, the largest debutante party in Philadelphia at the time could be the equivalent of one half a year at college for a few hours out of one evening in June. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was one of the happiest times I ever had with my mother. My mother had the pedigree, but her family did not have the money. My mother had the proper, reserved, provincial and puritanical ways of a pedigreed WASP woman, but even she couldn't help getting swept up in the excitement.
Once accepted, each of us had a set period of time to make out our guest lists to be submitted to the committee for approval. We each could invite 100 guests who could bring their escorts. There were approximately sixteen senior young ladies from Philadelphia chosen for this event, which signified the announcement by their parents that they were eligible for dating and marriage. The phrase was their "coming out," party. We were now to officially take our places among the members of society. We were also sending out a message to the society boys that we were the ladies society would deem worthy for them and their standing in the community. What I didn't realize at the time was, it was a way to keep the wealth among the wealthy.
I went to a prestigious private girls' school at the time called Springside. There were three of us chosen to be debutantes from Springside that year so we divided up the class to make sure everyone was invited to the ball between us. I remember there was a discussion about the two Jewish girls in our class, but at the time I didn't understand why. I never saw them as any different from me. We were all friends at school so I didn't understand the muffled whispers about whether or not they should be excluded from the Ball. I made sure they were invited on my list and my parents didn't seem to question it.
Looking back, I think my parents had a bigger problem with Catholics then Jews. I remember heated comments about the new catholic President. I played golf at the Cricket Club, and there were not many young women playing at the time. I was also athletically talented and could keep up almost stroke for stroke with most of the boys so I played with them. I was junior girls' champion of the Philadelphia Cricket Club two years in a row. But the real advantage of my playing with the boys was I played better golf trying to keep up with them. Some were Catholic boys from Villanova. One asked me out and when I asked my parents if I could go and told them he was Catholic, I was told flatly, "You cannot go out with him." I tried to object but no discussion was allowed.
It seemed like such an arbitrary decision that I complained to my friends about it. One friend thought of a plan that I would go to her house for the night and the boy could pick me up from and bring me back to her house for a date. I went out with him but because I felt uneasy throughout the date, having disobeyed my parents' wishes, I never saw him again. I didn't know why I wasn't supposed to go out with him, but I certainly didn't like disobeying my parents, and I never tried it again.
That senior year was a whirlwind of activity. My mother and I got along and she seemed happy as she shopped for and chose the many beautiful dresses I wore for the special parties. Before she had married my dad, she had been a model and dress buyer for a Philadelphia Department store. Every few days I would come home from school and find a new dress my mother had bought for me lying on my bed. She enjoyed surprising me, and I enjoyed her attention. I never felt good enough in her presence. She had typically been critical of many things about me and about many things in life period. She was now completely in her element – parties and dresses. I loved seeing myself wearing the new dresses in the mirror. We had a happy time together.
There were so many different types of parties to go to that year. There were brunches, lunches, teas, dinners and dances all leading up to the June Ball. One of the dresses my mother bought me she referred to as "French." All I know is that it made me feel uneasy, because it had small white lace ruffles sewed across the scooped neck in a way to enhance the curve of your bust. I had never worn anything like that, but noticed a lot more attention from boys. Even though I liked that it had a blue taffeta mid-calf length skirt that swirled, I wasn't quite ready for the gawking attention from the boys.
My favorite evening dress was a strapless pink chiffon trimmed with pink embroidered roses around the bust. For brunch or an informal dance I had the most beautiful dress that was like poetry in motion. It held my small 21" waist in with a cumber bund, reached just below the knees and had a ruffle that now reminds me of a fat Hawaiian lei. It provided just enough weight that the skirt swayed beautifully whenever I walked and moved. It was such a difference from the tom boy way I would usually dress and feel. I was shy and often felt invisible in a room. But with these dresses I felt pretty.
These parties were a test of our breeding and we were observed throughout them all. The Teas especially had expectations that we would dress and comport ourselves as proper ladies. Dresses for teas covered your shoulders with sleeves and had conservative necklines over which you wore pearls or some other conservative classic necklace. If a jacket was worn over the dress, a pin was worn on the lapel. The afternoon dresses could have jackets to cover a sleeveless dress or they could be suits. All ensembles demanded stockings and appropriate footwear. This meant no spiked heels. Two inch heeled shoes with matching bags were fine. If the parties were after Memorial Day white heels were appropriate. After Labor Day white heels were completely inappropriate. Handbags were beaded for eveningwear and white leather, linen or other appropriate material for day parties ... no straw or shoulder bags.
My schedule that June was hectic. There were times when there were four parties scheduled in one day. There might be a brunch, tea, dinner and then a dance. The day of the June Ball was extraordinary. My mother and I went to the hairdresser together to get our hair washed and set in the style of the times. My father took my ball gown and accoutrement to the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in downtown Philadelphia where the ball was to be held at ten that evening. I primped and dressed with one of my girlfriends, who would be staying with me at the hotel for the night after the ball. Then I went to the preparatory room for the debs where we lined up to get our flower fans that we would be holding and dancing with and to get our instructions for how we would make our grand entrance. There were sixteen of us being presented to society that evening and each one of us were going to have to singularly descend a very steep marble set of stairs with a spotlight upon us as they announced how proud our parents were to introduce us to them. I know each of us were focused on keeping our footing because the two storied marble stairs (starting at the balcony of the ballroom) were curved and were smaller at one end than the other.
At the bottom of the stairs as the twenty-five piece band played, our fathers would approach us and dance with us. My Dad and I had practiced dancing together a lot and it was a very loving and proud moment for us. The protocol was then that your primary escort would cut in and dance with you and then your secondary escort would cut in. Then the next Deb would do the same thing and we wouldn't exhale until she was safely on the ground.
After the Debs were safe everyone could dance together and everyone could have fun, including family members such as Aunts, Uncles and Cousins who had all come out to share the occasion. As I look back, I remember my grandmother, who sat in the balcony with my family for my coming out party, listened to all of my excitement about all the parties and the festivities. I wanted to share with her all of it. Her only comment was, "the higher you ride, the greater the fall".
* * *
My younger days at private school were not all parties and joy. I couldn't read! I had a high IQ so I was able to learn most of what I needed. People didn't know much about dyslexia in those days. I know my mother (when I was a baby) made me change from being left handed to being right handed so I would "fit in" better. I always wondered if it crossed my circuits to interfere with nature that way, but I would likely have been dyslexic without her interference.
I didn't learn how to read until 8th grade. My fifth grade teacher figured out something was wrong with my reading capabilities; but she thought I was retarded. When the IQ tests proved otherwise my parents looked for people who could help me read.
They finally found a psychologist, at Chestnut Hill Academy, my brother's boy's school, who had just discovered the existence of dyslexia and was running summer reading camps for children to teach them how to read. I acquired some self esteem knowing what was 'wrong' with me and seeing that there were others struggling with the same thing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Kahuna and I by Victoria Kapuni Copyright © 2012 by Victoria Kapuni. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
PART I....................1PART II....................83
PART III....................143
PART IV....................207