Kīpuka Moʻolelo
Kīpuka Moʻolelo is a storytelling podcast that centers Native Hawaiian voices, histories, and lived experiences through intimate conversations rooted in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and ʻike kūpuna. Each episode creates space for ʻike, memory, and manaʻo to be shared across generations, strengthening cultural connection and contemporary understanding.
Kīpuka Moʻolelo
Kuʻulei Kanahele
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In this episode of Kīpuka Moʻolelo, Kuʻulei Kanahele shares her journey into Hawaiian language, hula, and the deep study of Pele traditions—work shaped as much by archives and translation as by embodied practice. Raised on Oʻahu and drawn into ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi through school and family, Kuʻulei reflects on the differences between classroom Hawaiian and home Hawaiian, and how fluency grows through relationship, responsibility, and lived use.
The conversation centers on her work with Pele moʻolelo and oli, exploring how kūpuna encoded environmental knowledge, ethics, and law within chant and story. Kuʻulei offers insight into understanding akua not as distant figures, but as elemental forces whose laws guide how people move through landscapes shaped by fire, water, and growth. This episode invites listeners to reconsider moʻolelo Pele as living systems of knowledge, carrying lessons for care, restraint, and balance in Hawaiʻi today.
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This episode of Kīpuka Moʻolelo is a production of ʻŌiwi TV, a non-profit organization dedicated to amplifying ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, community voices, and ʻike Hawaiʻi through culturally grounded storytelling.
For more episodes, original series, and live programming, visit oiwi.tv and follow ʻŌiwi TV on social media.