The Things I Learned With Uncle George Kahumoku Jr
By Kamakanōweo Kekauoha-Schultz
5-30-23
Aloha mai kākou. My name is Kamakanōweo Kekauoha-Schultz, I am 16 years old and am very immersed in my culture, which is Hawaiian. I am a student of Uncle George, and he has been teaching me all sorts of things, from music to farming, for the past two years. Ho, where do I begin? Unko George has taught me many things, stories, and lessons throughout my two years of knowing him.
It all started when I met Uncle in the summer of 2022 through an Agricultural Internship. I remember the first day going up there. It was the beginning of June. Uncle George was driving me up, and I was nervous because it was my first time with him. The fact that he was a Hawaiian legend never helped any as well. At the farm, we opened up with an oli, played music, then went to work. I was utterly shocked by the vast amount of plants on the farm. It was a biodiverse food forest! I remember my first lunch at the farm. It was after my first day of work, and I was starving! That day, we picked our salads using vegetables from the farm such as Okinawan spinach, kale, string beans… Oh! And can’t forget the red, spicy nasturtium flowers. He mixed the salad with all kinds of dressings, and it was so ‘ono.
I am so grateful to be taught Uncle’s ways of farming. For planting, he taught me how to plant kalo for bigger corm, how to sow without disturbing the soil, and just all-around traditional Hawaiian ways of planting. One of the deeper pieces of knowledge he taught me was Huna. As I remember, this is the manifestation of a good product before whatever it is, produces. For planting, we would use this for a big harvest. We would do this when planting bananas by making grunting noises, referring to how the banana bunch from this plant will be so big that it will make us grunt when harvesting.
Just as important as the planting is the maintenance and the harvesting. Uncle George taught me about fertilizers for plants. He used sheep wool as mulch and a source of calcium, we made macronutrients with the scraps of the cooked kalo, I learned how to mix commercial fertilizers and much more. One of the biggest sources of fertilizer for the farm was the manure. Every morning at the farm, I would rake manure and put it in buckets for the fields. We used the manure from the sheep and horses and put it around every plant on the farm. This would make the soil very rich; and full of microbes. I remember this one time I was digging a hole, I unearthed a worm wider than a Sharpie pen, and longer than a pencil. The funny thing is, that isn’t an uncommon occurrence!
Harvesting was the least hard of all these for sure. The main things we harvested were bananas, papayas, guavas for his famous jam, spinach, and kalo. The smaller things we harvested were chili pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, etc. We always saved harvesting for the end of the day, and most times, Uncle would give us a box with all kinds of products to take home.
Outside of farming, Uncle George also taught me plenty of things about music. Within the first week of knowing Uncle George, he began teaching me to slack key ʻukulele. To this day, I still enjoy playing ʻukulele this way. The biggest thing Uncle taught me was how to get comfortable with my voice. I was always a bit shy to project my voice, so my singing was always soft. But he taught me to be comfortable with singing out loud.
Uncle George also taught me how to perform music in front of an audience. It all started in the late summer of 2022. I got a text from Uncle George asking if I want to do a gig at The Coffee Attic in Wailuku. I immediately said yes, and was very excited, but I did not know what to expect. It was so fun playing with Uncle that night. I would be inspired by how he could entertain the crowd with his many stories, make them fully interested, and make them laugh. During the gig, I was especially surprised by how he would throw a solo, or pāʻani onto me mid-song, but that is just how Uncle rolls. The feeling of pulling off a good pāʻani is the best. The way Uncle George kanikapilaʻs reminds me of how people would jam way back. Just pure fun, aloha, and lots of skill as well. Fast forward to the beginning of 2023, and I was playing consistent gigs with Uncle at all kinds of places, from Tanteʻs, all the way to UHMC.
All of these experiences taught me a little bit about how to run a gig from the big stuff like entertaining, singing, and instrumentals, to the small stuff like setting up the sound system, calibrating the speakers, and so forth. I still have so much to learn, and a lot of growing to do, but I am just so thankful that Uncle George was able to kickstart that in me. I hope to take music well into my future, and hopefully make a career out of it.
Uncle George’s impact on me and ultimately the community is immeasurable. He is so giving and has a big heart. The knowledge he taught me is knowledge to stay, and it truly is a treasure. Uncle’s teachings of farming helped me kick start an ever-expanding food forest behind my house with plants similar to what you would find on his farm, and it helps me with maintaining the plants I have in my backyard garden. His teachings of music helped me get a little more familiar with the gigs, singing, and playing. The stories he has shared are ones that kids ten generations from now will probably still know. The way Uncle George is so welcoming, so generous, and so giving is inspiring to me. I am so thankful for Uncle George, and I’m sure many others would say the same. He will always be one of the best teachers I have ever had.
“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-8
