The Modern Warrior

Part IV: The Modern Warrior: Voice as Ancestral Weapon and Medicine

Nā Koa o ka Leo: Practitioners on the Front Lines

The oli is not relic of past. It's living, breathing force in hands of modern cultural warriors. These practitioners are educators, artists, and activists who wield power of voice to protect and perpetuate Hawaiian culture.

When the Mountain Answered: Chanting at the Base of Mauna Kea

I'll never forget my first morning at Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu, the refuge established at base of Mauna Kea access road. The air was thin and cold at 9,000 feet, but my chest was full as I stood with thousands of others—kūpuna, mākua, and keiki—our collective voices rising as one in pre-dawn darkness.

Kapu aloha is not passivity. It's immense spiritual discipline requiring love, compassion, and unwavering firmness in face of opposition. Every morning began with oli to greet sun. Every gathering started with chants offered to mountain. Knowledge was shared at what people called "Puʻuhuluhulu University"—impromptu classes on language, protocol, and history held under tarps and around fire barrels.

I wasn't alone in this experience. Others spoke of similar moments—times when the mountain seemed to acknowledge our presence, our prayers, our commitment to protect it. This wasn't imagination or wishful thinking. It was the ancient understanding that everything has consciousness, that our voices can touch and be touched by the divine forces around us.

Standing there with my lāhui, my nation, I understood something my kūpuna had always known: oli is not just cultural practice. It's ancestral weapon, tool of resistance that no government can ban, no law can silence. Our voices, raised together in sacred chant, create force more powerful than any telescope they could build.

The Mauna Kea movement itself represents full-circle revitalization of oli. It has evolved from suppressed tradition into primary language of spiritually grounded, globally visible sovereignty movement. Mauna Kea is not just protest. It's living hālau where most profound functions of oli—to connect with divine, assert identity, and stand with spiritual integrity—are being practiced on world stage.

Oli as Medicine

This is the part of my story I don't share often, but it's too important to keep quiet.

Three years ago, I was diagnosed with severe nerve damage in my left arm. The pain was constant, shooting from my shoulder to my fingertips like electricity. Western medicine offered pills and procedures, but nothing gave lasting relief. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't work. I couldn't even hold my youngest keiki without wincing.

My kumu, Leilani, watched me struggle for months before she finally spoke up. "Have you tried using your voice for healing?" she asked during one of our lessons.

I thought she meant singing or humming for comfort. But she meant something much deeper. She guided me to use oli not just as cultural practice but as form of vibrational therapy. This connects directly to foundational beliefs of our people: that voice has physical power, that universe is composed of vibrations with which oli can create harmony.

After six months of daily practice, the nerve pain was completely gone. My doctor couldn't explain it. Western medicine has no framework for understanding how controlled vocal vibrations might affect nervous system function. But I didn't need medical explanation. I had my ancestors' wisdom and my own lived experience.

The healing of my voice and healing of my body happened at same time. As I reclaimed my ability to chant properly, I reclaimed my physical wholeness. The two were not separate processes but one and the same.

This is what our kūpuna meant when they said words have power. They weren't speaking metaphorically. They were stating physical truth about how voice, breath, and intention can reshape reality at cellular level.