Now my approach to protecting our forest is somewhat less brutal (although my mom still has me dig ginger roots). Doing this service for the forest provided us with a great sense of satisfaction, and Mom paid us for the dug-up tubers. We would slaughter thickets of ginger with hard wooden sticks, then dig up the huge, potato-like roots. The eradication of this noxious weed provided much entertainment and pocket money for Naupaka and me. Kahili ginger has the potential to destroy the forest by choking out the native vegetation and replacing it with dense thickets of impenetrable ginger. We also learned about the horrible "kahili ginger," a fast-spreading broad-leafed exotic plant. If we accidentally cut one, my mom taught us to stand next to the hapu'u and silently apologize to the spirit of the hapu'u for the loss. When we trimmed the hapu'u around our house, my brother and I had to be very careful of the new shoots (the keiki, or children of the hapu'u) coming up. We were taught from a very young age to respect the hapu'u and the other native plants of our forest. These fond childhood memories always included being respectful of all the native plants in the forest. We slid in the mud, balanced precariously on fallen trees, looked at plants, and watched birds. On our adventures we would build forts from the dried-up, crinkly-brown hapu'u fronds and pretend we lived there. Much to our mother's constant worry, we explored the lava tubes, holes, and cracks that were the products of ancient lava flows. Each time we would go a little deeper, a little farther away from our house. My brother and I made a habit of exploring the forest. At the time (10 years ago), I was only interested in exploring the vastness of the dark, mysterious rain forest that surrounds our house. Later I learned that this raised geological formation is called a tumulus. We were on our way to "the island," as we called it, a densely vegetated hill bisected by a 10-foot-deep fault that had a cave on one side. Faithfully I followed my older brother into the forest. Large, lush hapu'u ferns dominate the mid-level canopy of the rain forest.
0 kommentar(er)
