The Maui News

A new commemorative quarter honoring former UH instructor, legendary kumu hula and award-winning composer Edith Kanaka’ole has been released into circulation by the U.S. Mint, UH announced Monday.

Kanaka’ole is one of the five 2023 honorees who will appear on the coin as part of the American Women Quarters Program. The newly released quarter depicts a portrait of Kanaka’ole, with her hair and lei po’o morphing into the elements of a Hawaiian landscape, symbolizing her life’s work of preserving the natural land and traditional Hawaiian culture. The inscription on the quarter, “E ho mai ka ‘ike,” translates as “granting the wisdom,” a reference to the intertwined role hula and chants play in the preservation of Hawaiian culture.

“It was a joy to become aware of Edith Kanaka’ole’s legacy as I developed a design for her quarter,” Artistic Infusion Program Designer Emily Damstra said in a news release Monday. “I came to understand that her deep connection to the land — her home in Hawai’i near the Mauna Kea volcano — played a large role in her life and work. To best honor the various ways she made an impact, I felt that the design should emphasize her relationship to that environment.”

Born in 1913, Edith Kekuhikuhipu’uone o na ali’i o Kohala Kanaka’ole was an Indigenous Hawaiian composer, chanter, dancer, kumu hula and a venerated cultural icon. She helped to preserve aspects of Hawaiian knowledge, history, culture and traditions that were disappearing due to the cultural bigotry of the time.

Kanaka’ole worked as a teacher at Hawai’i Community College from 1971 to 1974 and at UH-Hilo from 1974 to 1979. At both schools, she created courses and seminars on subjects that included Hawaiian language, ethnobotany, Polynesian history, genealogy and Hawaiian chant and mythology. She believed that oli, or Hawaiian chants, informed the basis of Hawaiian values and history, and she learned the art form and performed all the major styles of delivery, according to UH.

She also worked to preserve the ancient style of hula accompanied by rhythmic instruments done in the style she passed on, which is identified as ‘aiha’a, or low to the ground. Kanaka’ole was a kumu hula, a master instructor for hula and an academic researcher who developed her own chants for cultural preservation and academic work.

Her contributions also have an impact on environmental scientists and universities that teach her philosophies and scientific methods.

The Edith Kanaka’ole Foundation, a Hawaiian cultural-based nonprofit established in 1990, helps carry on her legacy. She will be honored during a celebration at UH-Hilo on May 6.

Other 2023 commemorative quarter honorees include Bessie Coleman, who became the first African American and Native American woman pilot; Jovita Idar, a Mexican American journalist, activist, teacher and suffragist; Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady, author, reformer and leader; and Maria Tallchief, a Native American and America’s first prima ballerina, according to the U.S. Mint.