Namahana accolade awarded to veteran homestead advocate
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The Maui News
KAPALUA--Kekoa Enomota, a 30-year Hawaiian homelands leader and advocate was honored recently at the annual Celebration of the Arts. Enomoto received the Namahana Award of Excellence at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua resort on March 29.
The distinction salutes "kupuna (elders) who have served the culture with a zest for life."
The Waiohuli native Hawaiian homesteader is a kahuna kakalaleo, or chanter of prayer. She serves as a charter director of two Valley Isle nonprofits: Pa'upena Community Development Inc. that works for Hawaiian homesteaders, and the disaster-relief organization, Na Kia'i O Maui, founded in the wake of the Aug. 8 Maui wildfires.
The career journalist retired as a staff writer, copy editor and columnist for two daily newspapers: the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and The Maui News. A cultural practitioner of hula and outrigger-canoe paddling, she medaled at outrigger World Sprints in Australia in 2016 and England in 2022.
Organizers named the award for the late Aunty Lydia Namahana Maioho, the longtime kahu, or caretaker, of the Mauna 'Ala--Royal Mausoleum State Monument on O'ahu. Aunty Namahana was lauded as a zesty ambassadress at the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua. At the citation ceremonies, Enomoto noted she herself is a Kamehameha Schools Kapālama classmate of the award namesake's son, Abraham Maioho.