Kumu Paul Neves: Peaceful Warrior and Ambassador of Aloha

By Marcia Timboy

Kumu Hula Paul Neves is a familiar and esteemed presence to many on Hawai‘i Island: a cultural practitioner, community organizer, vocal proponent of Native Hawaiian rights and sovereignty, and a high chief in the Royal Order of Kamehameha I. He has created hālau hula communities on a foundation of aloha with the intent of making a difference in the world, through the practice of Hawaiian cultural arts and values.

Paul was born in San Francisco, California on September 27, 1953, the 13th child of Manuel “Red” Neves and Agnes Kaina Kea. His father, Red, was from Kīlauea, Kaua‘i. Paul’s grandparents, Joao Neves and Maria Rodrigues-De Pao, migrated from Madeira, Portugal to Kaua‘i as plantation laborers in 1907. Red moved to O‘ahu for better employment opportunities soon after high school. He eventually found work with the federal government.

“Papa was a civil service crane operator at Pearl Harbor, in charge of putting fresh water on the battleships. He narrowly escaped death during the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941.”

Paul’s mother, Agnes Kea from Palama, O‘ahu, was one of 14 children (as was Red). Her father, John Kea Mano was born in Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i. Agnes’ great-grandfather, Mano, originally from Wailua, Kaua‘i, was diagnosed with Hansen’s disease and sent to Kalaupapa leper colony in 1888. Mano and a Lahaina woman, Nellie Nahiole‘a, who also contracted the disease, started a family. Agnes Kea’s grandfather, born in 1892 in Kalaupapa, did not have leprosy. “My maternal great-grandparents’ signatures can be found on the ku‘e document, protesting the annexation of Hawai‘i.”

After a quick courtship of two months, Red Neves and Agnes Kea were married in the Honolulu neighborhood of Kalihi in 1933. “My parents began their family in 1934. The war years were challenging for many kama‘āina families. My dad did not like martial law in Hawai‘i,” recalls Paul. Following WWII, his dad assisted in the cleanup after the Hilo tsunami of 1946. When his civil service job relocated to the West Coast, the family relocated as well.

Growing up Hawaiian on the Mainland

Kumu Paul was born in San Francisco, but he was brought up in the Hawaiian/kama‘āina way. The Neves ‘ohana (family) bought a house and several lots in Bernal Heights in San Francisco, creating a Hawaiian-style homestead. “Dad raised pigs, cattle, goats, chickens, and we had an orchard and vegetable gardens. My folks tried to duplicate old Papakōlea [Hawaiian homestead lands in Honolulu] right above the City,” Paul remembers fondly.

During the 1950s through 1960s, the family was part of an intimate San Francisco community of Hawai‘i transplants, hosting entertainers from “home” with backyard kanikapila (music jams) and island-style home cooking. Many of the Fairmont Hotel’s Tonga Room entertainers, and other touring Hawaiian musicians from ocean liners, would find their way up to the “Hawaiian homestead” of Bernal Heights. His mother, always so graciously generous in an innately Hawaiian way, shared whatever the family had.

“Poor is when you don’t know who you are,” Agnes Kea Neves told young Paul and his siblings, and she made sure they knew who they were, grounded in where they came from, Hawai‘i.

His parents visited Hawai‘i at least once a year on the Lurline or Mariposa ocean liners, to visit family and friends and transport Hawai‘i food and other supplies back to their adopted home.

The turbulent 1960s—with the Vietnam War, racial discord, and social upheaval—brought life-changing challenges to the Hawaiian family. Compelled to move back to Hawai‘i after more than two decades away, the family settled in Kailua, O‘ahu in 1968.

“They never forgot who they were or where they came from. My dad never considered himself haole,” says Paul, although his dad was Portuguese—of European descent.

Wandering, to Return

Young Paul graduated from Kailua High School in 1971, and left the islands in 1973 to seek adventure and opportunity. He and a friend headed down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Mexico. “We hung out there [Mexico] for around six months, living like hippies!” After driving back to Northern California, he explored living in several cities while working for Air California from 1974–1984, moving from Oakland to San Diego in 1975, and from San Diego to Las Vegas in 1979.

Moving to Las Vegas was a pivotal point in strengthening his cultural identity. He began studying hula and oli (chant) with Kumu Hula Wayne Kaho‘onei Panoke. Kumu Kaho‘onei’s hula lineage was of renowned Kumu Hula No‘eau Winona “Nona” Desha-Beamer, and kumu ‘ūniki (given status of kumu hula) from Aunty Nona in 1968. Subsequently, Paul’s kumu ‘ūniki was from Kumu Kaho‘onei in 1999, after 20 years of study.

Since moving to Hilo in 1984, Kumu Paul has been active and involved in spiritual, cultural, and political issues facing Native Hawaiians. In 1986, he was a founding member of Ka Lahui Hawai‘i, a sovereignty initiative. He also served the Catholic community for 21 years as a pastoral associate until 2004. He has given workshops in the Cook Islands, across the US continent, Puerto Rico, Europe, at the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, and has participated as an official observer for the Royal Order of Kamehameha I in regards to the Hawaiian Kingdom at World Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Kumu Paul established Hālau Ha‘a Kea o Akala in 1998; Hālau Ha‘a Kea o Kinohi in 2004, jointly based in Hilo, San Francisco, and Kyoto, Japan; and Hālau Ha‘a Kea o Mokihana in Washington, DC. He has judged and participated in hula competitions in Hawai‘i and Japan, including Hilo’s own Merrie Monarch Festival. “Hula people are ambassadors of aloha,” Paul proudly states.

When his parents moved to Hawai‘i Island from O‘ahu in 1989, Kumu Paul was already an integral member of the Hawaiian cultural community and aware of its concerns—one being the overdevelopment of “crown lands” on Mauna Kea. He asked his mother, Agnes Kea, about lineal ties to Mauna Kea, because of the family name. “She said there is protection from Mauna a Kea, that it brings about balance. ‘Weʻre Kea people—unblemished. The mountain without blemish. Itʻs so holy, youʻre not supposed to go up there and if you do go there, itʻs for something really important. You walk very softly; you leave no footprints.ʻ Thatʻs how she explained it.”

Kumu Paul believes he returned home to Hawai‘i for a higher purpose. “We were given a special place to live with God. That’s why the whole world comes here. We cannot replace what it is.”

Kāhea—The Call

On April 10, 2009, Kumu Paul attended the momentous 50th wedding anniversary of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan. He had developed a rapport with the royal family when, as a member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, he escorted Princess Sayako to the top of Mauna Kea in 1998 to visit Subaru Observatory. They met with the late well-known astronomer, Dr. Norio Kaifu, then the Subaru project’s director. During a lunch meeting a few years later, Kumu Paul and his mentor, Genesis LeeLoy, candidly expressed their concern on further development atop Mauna Kea to Dr. Kaifu. “Please do not build more after Subaru,” they implored Dr. Kaifu. Kumu Paul believes that conversation was the reason no observatories have been built on Mauna Kea since 1998.

Kumu Paul honored the astronomer’s integrity when he was invited to speak at Dr. Kaifu’s memorial in Tokyo in September 2019 by sharing the story of the lunch meeting to hundreds of dignitaries and scientists. “Dr. Kaifu [an architect of the TMT] didn’t say where to build the Thirty Meter Telescope [TMT]…Would you put it on Mount Fuji?”

The proposal of building the TMT has awakened an activist movement for many Hawaiians and their supporters worldwide. Kumu Paul believes that Mauna Kea has called out “she that protects, now needs protecting.” He and the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, have heeded the kāhea (call), by establishing an ahu (altar) and a pu‘uhonua (place of refuge) at the base of Mauna Kea. They have stood in vigilance since July 13, 2019 to protect Mauna Kea from further development and will do so “until the last aloha ‘āina,” Paul declares.

“The spirit of Mauna Kea is calling upon the Hawaiian people to realign their spiritual past, present, and future. Hawaiians have the kuleana, the privilege, and responsibility to share ‘kapu aloha’ with the world.” Paul believes that the true physical sign of this is: first light at Kumukahi, Puna, aligns with the Naha stone to Mauna Kea’s summit and consequently up the island chain to Mokumanamana in the northwest Hawaiian Islands.

Kumu Paul reflects, “We are all here for a reason. In my vision, Hawai‘i is the new Geneva. This is where people come to learn peace. The Mauna Kea movement is firmly grounded in the concept of ‘kapu alohaʻ—to conduct oneself in pono [righteous] and sacred behavior, and many who visit the mauna are touched to practice peace. One must be silent when approaching Mauna Kea, listen to what she has to say, as she is bringing balance and alignment for all of us here.” ❖

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