Every Paddler Knew the Voice of Aunty Maile
By Karen Valentine Kapono
It’s race day at Hilo Bayfront. The summer outrigger canoe paddling season is in full swing. Colorful canoes are lined up, ready to race. Canoe club T-shirts with club insignia move through the crowd on paddlers of all ages, a seemingly chaotic scene. Until you hear a strong, commanding voice. Who is that woman with the bullhorn? Everyone knows it’s Aunty Maile—the one who keeps keiki and adults in line, the Big Island Sports Hall-of-Famer, renowned and respected for her half-century of canoe paddling leadership as paddler, coach, official, and race organizer.
“My mom was harsh,” says her daughter Aloha Mauhili, who now carries the role of race secretary held for many years by her mother in the Moku O Hawai‘i Canoe Racing Association—only the third one in the history of the association.
Aunty Maile Mauhili’s commanding voice is missing this year but will be echoing and remembered by many of the paddlers competing in the July championship regatta named after her: the Aunty Maile Mauhili/Moku O Hawai‘i Championships, recognizing Hawai‘i Island’s best teams. Sadly, Aunty Maile suffered an aneurysm last summer at age 85, after having been on the scene of a race just days before. She passed away October 19, 2019 at her family home in Keaukaha.
Even with the legion of significant leaders in the long history of canoe paddling, no other island has someone’s name on a regatta championship.
The Moku O Hawai‘i Canoe Racing Association board renamed the Hawai‘i Island championships in 1984, in recognition of Aunty Maile’s outstanding leadership and commitment. She was instrumental in the revival of the sport in Hilo during the 1950s and 60s. She served 38 years as race secretary for Moku O Hawai‘i, was coach and co-founder of the Kailana Canoe Club and a board member of the statewide Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association (HCRA). There are more than 70 clubs in the state association.
Her tenure as Moku O Hawai‘i race secretary—an important job of checking the registration cards of more than a thousand paddlers—has little reward other than to know that all the paddlers can go home with the confidence that their results were officially confirmed and their efforts recognized.
Every seat in the wa‘a (canoe) has an important role in competition. The slightest blip in timing and focus can affect the result. Aunty Maile’s role was to be an inspiration for each one.
Reaching far beyond her official job of tallying the races, Aunty Maile embodied the aloha spirit of this recognized, pure Hawaiian sport of outrigger canoe paddling, helping to shape the characters of youth, and maintain the team spirit among adults as well. She took all the youth under her wing and guided them, literally, often paddling out with the kids to keep them straight, says her daughter.
“Every time they would finish, she would give advice to each one, saying, ‘You can do better’—gave positive feedback, making the kids feel good and making it fun, too.”
“It is up to us to serve as good role models to the younger generation,” Aunty Maile said upon her induction into the Big Island Sports Hall of Fame. “We, as adults, have the responsibility to lead by example.”
At least one and maybe two generations of youth on the island are better off because of her.
“Mom told us that there was no way we weren’t going paddling,” says daughter Aloha, who has been paddling in competition since age 14. “With paddling you learn teamwork and respect. Respect that wa‘a [canoe] or she’s not going to make yourselves win. It was teamwork and listening. You had no choice. Respect your elders, respect the wa‘a, and respect yourself.”
Born and raised in the Hilo area and graduating from Hilo High School in 1953, Aunty Maile worked as a campus security official for the school, also coaching their paddling team before retiring in 1984.
Every day while at the school, Aloha says, “My mom just reached out to a lot of kids. Even ones that the school or parents just wanted to throw away, she rescued. Parents came to her later and said, ‘Thank you Aunty, my boy went from an F to a B; he’s doing real good, going to graduate.’
“She put in a lot of time talking with the kids. She’d say, ‘Why you kids acting like that? You good, you got a good heart, you don’t have to follow. Be a good leader.’ She would always tell them, ‘You’re a good person, gotta do good. You don’t want to go there, go here.’ They remembered all those things—tough talk and tough love. When I was there and would look at some of the boys [acting up], I’d say, ‘You’re in for it. Go sit down and listen. Get a talking.’ Mom gave them good advice. Also coaches. She was strict. No switching paddlers. Either you toe the line or you will be the line. She would sometimes break up fights between coaches and officials. ‘What are you guys doing? What are the kids going to think? Knock it off already, you guys.’”
Aloha, also a paddling coach who works at Hilo High School helping special ed students, says, “Paddling is good for kids, giving them focus, teamwork, just getting them on a straight path. Mom wouldn’t allow gossip, no stealing. The kids helped her carry the paddles and load her car.”
One memorable scolding was for former mayor Billy Kenoi, says Aloha. “She called him ‘Billy Boy’ when he was a young kid, 14 or 15. Billy shared with everyone at mom’s service, about being down at Bayfront near a fight that was not his. ‘Aunty Maile saw me, yelled out, ‘Billy Boy’, and pointed me to get out.’ He laughed out loud and said, ‘I was 86’d from Bayfront by Aunty Maile. She’s the one who kept me straight!’”
“’Til today I have emails, texts from people throughout the world,” Aloha says. “They all have stories of her. The kids all remember her, and she remembered them. She had one sharp memory to the end.”
Aunty Maile was once quoted as saying, “I love canoe paddling and everything about it—the people, the paddlers, the culture. When I don’t come down to the beach, I don’t feel right.”
Aunty Maile’s Early Days
Maile Abigail Auwae Mauhili was the second oldest of 16 children of Hawaiian herbal healer “Papa” Henry Auwae and Agnes Kela. Born in Ola‘a, she credited her maternal grandmother, Tūtū Malia Kela, as her biggest influence. She was quoted in a 2015 interview as saying, “The thing she taught us first and foremost was respect. We were always told to respect people no matter where they came from and who they are. What I’m most proud of is always giving back. If can, can. If no can, then try. There’s no such thing as cannot. My grandma used to tell us that.”
She first learned to paddle in March of 1946, at the age of 11, just before the tragic April 1 tsunami hit Hilo. Seven years later, Maile, along with a handful of others, helped revive the sport of canoe paddling in East Hawai‘i.
Her first paddling coach was Isaac Keli‘ipio, whose family were caretakers of Moku Ola (also known as Coconut Island) before there was a bridge to it. The club he ran became the Kamehameha Canoe Club of today. Maile paddled for Kamehameha from 1953 to ’68, Keaukaha from 1973 to ’85, and finally for Wailani, the Hilo club she helped form and later coached. The name was later changed to Kailana and is one of the 13 clubs in the Moku O Hawai‘i Canoe Racing Association. She took her Kailana paddlers to the World Sprint Championships in New Zealand as well as to other islands for weekends, learning about Hawaiian culture.
One day in 1972, Maile was at Hilo Bay to watch the races when the late Dottie Thompson, matriarch of the Merrie Monarch Festival, approached her. Aunty Dottie also worked in parks and recreation for the county, and was a scorekeeper at Moku O Hawai‘i races.
“Aunty Dottie flagged us down and told us to get over there and do something,” Aunty Maile said. It led to Maile’s lifetime dream job, secured by Charles Rose, Moku O Hawai‘i’s first president, who came to see Maile one day at Hilo High campus and pronounced her the new race secretary, following Mary Jane Kahanamoku.
After Aunty Maile’s aneurysm last year, her health worsened and she entered a residential care home where she continued to hold court, says Aloha, who, along with other family, often gathered in her room. “She gave instructions about everything for her service down to the last detail. She was in charge. She had a talk session with all of us and advice to each. She was strong to the end.” Aunty Maile is survived by four children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Aloha is now planning for the Summer Moku O Hawai‘i Canoe Racing Season. Sadly, this summer’s Aunty Maile/Moku O Hawai‘i Championship Regatta and the planned IVF 2020 World Sprint Championships have been cancelled due to the virus pandemic.
Hawaiian outrigger canoes are the standard canoe used internationally in outrigger canoe racing and each country’s team has to use the koa canoe. The canoe goes by different names throughout the Pacific. Itʻs known as an outrigger in the continental US, canoe or wa‘a in Hawai‘i, va‘a in Tahiti, and waka ama in New Zealand. The IVF’s founders agreed that va‘a would be the international designation for an outrigger canoe. ❖
For more information: MokuOHawaii.com, IVFIV.org
Karen Valentine
Karen, along with Barbara Garcia, envisioned and created Ke Ola Magazine in 2008. She acted as co-publisher and editor until 2012. She has lived in Hawai‘i since 1999 and has family on Hawai‘i Island. She was co-publisher of Hawai‘i Island Journal until 2005, when she moved to Honolulu for two years. She has worked as an advertising copywriter, publisher of several magazines in Michigan, book editor and writer for such magazines as Hawai‘i Business, Enterprise magazine, Southwest Michigan Living, and Better Homes & Gardens. Karen has a college degree in journalism and art, and is a practitioner of Hawaiian cultural arts, including hula. She enjoys sailing her yacht throughout the Hawaiian Islands.
