Though my own return was not significant, what was important was who I brought to my home family. First was their loved and remembered adopted son, Chappy. Then there were the ‘visitors from afar’, ‘birds of a single flight’. These were my wife and in-laws – Ela and her parents and my son Eric and his wife. Also, there was ‘A‘makualenalena, the old one. To have such a respected one as Ela’s grand-uncle travel with us was something which I knew would dignify our visiting group in the eyes of the people at home. They would have glimpsed him already as they waited, full of curiosity, in front of the meeting house, ready to call us across the time-honoured ground.

I want to talk about ‘A‘makualenalena, the sage.

My own wedding in Hawai‘i was a day and night of singing, dancing, laughter, gift-giving, feasting and speechmaking. But it was when the old man spoke that everything stopped except for the sun, which by then was quitting the flaming sky and silhouetting the black mountains.

Hearing the genealogies was something I was used to when I was growing up. As a boy, I would become impatient with these recitations because I was made to sit and listen to them for hour upon hour while other children were outside playing. It was Paa who would sit me beside him, holding my ear to aid my hearing, and who wouldn’t let go until all was done.

As I grew, I came to understand that it was through the genealogies that important links were made. At a wedding, there was often a genealogical joining between the bride’s and bridegroom’s families. It was a matter of those who were experts knowing the connections and going far back into whakapapa to describe the links down to the present time. At a funeral, the aim of the genealogist would be to describe the connection of the visiting groups to the one lying in state. These are the moments when all time becomes present and you understand that you are merely a bead on an unbroken necklace which is without beginning or end.

I realised as we sat in the fading light of my wedding day, my ears attuned to the language that I was becoming more and more familiar with, that the old man was reciting whakapapa. And as he continued I realised that what I was hearing, there in Hawai‘i, was my own genealogy – the names from before the earth was made, the names from before the earth was peopled, the names from after the earth was peopled, the names before the sailing and venturing, the names to do with the sailing and venturing.

My heart was bumping against its walls. I was hearing the same names that I had heard from the lips of my elders when I was a child with a held ear.