MELISSA LLANES BROWNLEE
The Day Captain Cook Missed Hawaii
We were celebrating our harvest. Food had been gathered and prepared for weeks. Men had fished and filled our ponds. Taro roots, our brothers, had been harvested and made into poi. The leaves stewed or steamed in underground ovens with fish, pigs, chickens. New kapa had been made by the women of the ahupua’a as they shared news of their preparation through the mountains and valleys, the sound of their rhythmic pounding, a comfort. Men and women were dancing in praise of Lono, their hair shorn to make the necklaces woven with whale bone. We were listening to the history of our people, the elders singing and chanting with drums and ipu. We were thankful for another bountiful year. We were not at war. The Kahuna were praying and sacrificing. It was a sacred time for all. Some were forgiven for their crimes, free to leave the refuges around the island. We didn’t know what we were missing.
Melissa Llanes Brownlee is a native Hawaiian writer who lives in Japan. She received her MFA from UNLV and has fiction recently published and forthcoming in The Citron Review, Waxwing, Milk Candy Review, Claw & Blossom, (mac)ro(mic), Micro Podcast, Bending Genres and elsewhere. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at www.melissallanesbrownlee.com.