In our moʻokūauhau, the name kamanuʻailehua appears across generations — a name that honors the birds that feed from the lehua. It is a name rooted in relationship and reciprocity, and it is part of why this piece means so much to us.
Our newest artwork, a collaboration with Sugar Caddy, features the ʻiʻiwi and the lehua — two beings bound together not just ecologically, but spiritually.
The ʻiʻiwi (Drepanis coccinea) is a scarlet honeycreeper with a long, curved bill and striking black wings, once one of the most common forest birds across Hawaiʻi.¹ Today, avian malaria carried by invasive mosquitoes has devastated their population — with a fatality rate as high as 90% from a single infected bite.²
And the threat does not stop with the bird. The ʻōhiʻa lehua — the tree the ʻiʻiwi depends on for food and shelter — is itself under siege. Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death, a fungal disease, has already killed hundreds of thousands of ʻōhiʻa trees across the islands.³ This matters deeply to all of us who live here. The leaves and canopy of the ʻōhiʻa catch fog, mist, and rain, filtering that water slowly into the ground and recharging the aquifers that give us our drinking water.⁴ Its root system anchors the soil, preventing erosion and flooding.¹ When the ʻōhiʻa disappears, so does the water. The ʻiʻiwi and the lehua are falling together — and so is something that sustains every person on these islands.
This piece is also a dedication to the Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative, a nonprofit working to preserve, protect, and restore native Hawaiian dry forest through land management, education, and grassroots advocacy.⁵ Their work — including stewardship of nearly 300 acres of lowland dry forest — is the kind of aloha ʻāina we want to stand beside.⁶
This artwork will also be featured at Merrie Monarch — a week-long festival honoring King David Kalākaua's vision for perpetuating Hawaiian traditions, language, and arts.⁷ To be present there is to be part of something larger than ourselves.
When you hold this piece, you hold the name kamanuʻailehua. We hope it reminds you — as it reminds us — that we are always in relationship with the land, the birds, and one another.
E mālama i ka ʻāina.
References
- Hawaiʻi DLNR, Division of Wildlife & Division of Forestry — ʻIʻiwi / ʻŌhiʻa Lehua
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — Hawaiʻi's Magnificent Forest Birds
- Biodiversity for a Livable Climate — Featured Creature: ʻŌhiʻa Lehua
- Hawaii Business Magazine — Rapid Ohia Death: Threat to Hawaiʻi's Water
- Waikoloa Dry Forest Initiative — About
- CTAHR — Restoring the Wiliwili Forest of Waikoloa
- Merrie Monarch Festival — Official Site