UH Hilo celebrates U.S. Mint release honoring Mary Kawena Pukui
Pele Harman, UH Hilo’s director of Native Hawaiian engagement and Mary Kawena Pukui’s great-granddaughter, says she is excited to see the coin released after working with the U.S. Mint on its launch.
In celebration of Women’s History Month and the U.S. Mint 2025 Native American $1 coin honoree, Mary Kawena Pukui (1895-1986), the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo will host a panel discussion and kanikapila (live music) event on March 28, 2025.
The event was announced by Pelehonuamea Harman, UH Hilo’s new director of Native Hawaiian engagement and Pukui’s great-granddaughter, who says she is excited to see the coin finally released after working with the U.S. Mint on its launch.
“This is a celebration for our people,” says Harman about the coin that celebrates her great-grandmother’s extraordinary work on preserving Native Hawaiian language and culture. “Hopefully, this coin is a source of inspiration for young people and our people who are spread out all over the planet. We want it to be a conversation starter, a history lesson in the form of a coin for non-Hawaiians and people who don’t know our story.”
The Mary Kawena Pukui coin features the legendary Hawaiian scholar Pukui along with the title of her famed series of books Nānā I Ke Kumu which she produced with Queen Liliʻuokalani Children’s Center to document Hawaiian cultural practices and beliefs. Pukui was renowned for her groundbreaking work at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, where she contributed to foundational resources such as the Hawaiian Dictionary, Native Planters in Old Hawaii, and ʻŌlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs and Poetical Sayings.
All by design
Harman and her family were first notified that their kupuna had been chosen for the coin back in 2023. The news brought up mixed emotions.
For Harman, seeing her great-grandmother on the coin not only recognizes her achievements as a Hawaiian but also her dual heritage. “Her father came from Salem Massachusetts. She was raised to know both sides of herself. To be very versed in her Hawaiian roots and then also to know about her father’s heritage. That’s what made her such a great bridger and navigator,” says Harman.
The family’s reservations about the coin were eased by the genuine commitment of U.S. Mint contacts like design manager Roger Vasquez. “He was one of the first people to contact us. He told us how important it was to him to get the art correct,” says Harman.
Deciding on the coin’s design was a long process with many artists submitting several versions of their designs. In the end, Harman and her family were shown five designs. They settled on a design that depicts Pukui with a hibiscus in her hair wearing a muʻumuʻu and kukui nut lei. “When we think of our tūtū — I think many Native Hawaiians think of their tūtū — she does have a flower and wears a muʻumuʻu and a lei.”
Along with the kukui nut lei, Pukui is also holding kukui leaves in her hand, both symbolic of Hawaiian knowledge. Her gaze is also turned to the side. “She’s kind of looking off to the distance in the coin design. She was always thinking and, in her own thoughtful way, thinking about future generations,” says Harman.
One essential part of the coin design that Harman and her family gave direct input on is the lack of English translation for the statement and book title, Nānā I Ke Kumu. Harman observes, “We asked them to take the translation out because we wanted people to delve deeper and think, ‘What language is this? Who is the woman portrayed here and what is her story?'”
Harman hopes the coin elicits familiarity for fellow Hawaiians while encouraging people to learn. “The art itself is a beautiful way of honoring her. Her legacy is one that endures.”
Panel event and musical celebration scheduled at UH Hilo, March 28
To celebrate the release of the coin and honor Pukui, there are events scheduled over the next year across the state.
UH Hilo has already started the celebrations. For Women’s History Month this month, student workers researched and created display cases in the lobby of the campus’s Mookini Library highlighting Pukui’s scholarly contributions, currently available for the public’s viewing.
Mookini Library also will be hosting a panel discussion and kanikapila community event on March 28.
The panel starts at 3:00 p.m. at the library with panelists UH Hilo Professor of Hawaiian Language and Hawaiian Studies Larry Kimura, cultural historian Kepa Maly, and UH Hilo anthropology alumnus Halena Kapuni-Reynolds who is associate curator of Native Hawaiian history and culture at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
- Larry Kimura, Professor of Hawaiian Language (Oct. 9, 2014, Keaohou)
- Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, first Native Hawaiian Associate Curator for Smithsonian (June 13. 2023, UH Hilo Stories)
The group will discuss the impacts of Pukui’s work on their fields of study with some focus on the differences between Hawaiian and Western methods of studying communities.
At 4:15 p.m., those in attendance are invited to a kanikapila (live music session) on the newly renovated lānai of the dining hall adjacent to the library’s lanai. UH Hilo faculty, staff, and alumni of Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language — Kaʻiuokalani Damas, Kainani Kahaunaele, Bruce Torres-Fischer, and Kaliko Trapp — will alakaʻi (lead) participants in performing musical compositions by Mary Kawena Pukui. Participants are invited to bring their musical instruments (ʻukulele, guitars, bass, voices!) to join in the session honoring Pukui.
UH Hilo Associate Professor of Hawaiian Language and Hawaiian Studies Kekoa Harman will also bring his Na Mele Hula Kahiko seminar class (KHWS 475) and hālau students from Ke Kula ʻo Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Iki charter school to offer impromptu hula in this celebratory gathering.
The event is sponsored by the UH Hilo Office of the Chancellor, Mookini Library, Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center, Kamehameha Schools’ Kaiāulu event, and the Mary Kawena Pukui Cultural Preservation Society.
A testament to resilience
Besides her connection to UH Hilo through her great-granddaughter Pele Harman, Pukui shares a special tie with the island of Hawaiʻi having grown up in Kāʻu. Harman observes, “Kāʻu was her homeland. It formed her curiosity and her love for our language, our ways, and our customs.”
The celebration of Pukui at this time is especially poignant. “This is the first time in our history when more Hawaiians live outside of the state than reside in Hawaiʻi,” says Harman. “I think especially for those Hawaiians who are all over the world as part of the diaspora, for our people to be honored in this way is really important.”
Harman notes how meaningful it is for young people to see someone on a coin that belongs to the same “obscure population of people” they do, especially with so many people declaring Hawaiians as near extinction. “By all accounts we should’ve died out,” she says. “Some people thought we would’ve lost our language and all these other things, but we haven’t. [The coin] is a testament to our resilience.”
Pukui herself was also witness to great change and loss. Harman notes, “She navigated through a time of great transition for her people. She realized that our economic systems, our language systems, our customs were all changing at that time. It reminded her how important it was to write these things down as we became more far removed from our customs and traditions.”
For Harman, the significance of the coin goes beyond Pukui herself.
“I think the most important thing in her being honored on this coin is that currency lasts forever. She’s the face of the coin, but it’s actually a way of celebrating our people and the history of Hawaiʻi.”
Story by Sophia Kim-O’Sullivan, a graduate student in library science and information at UH Mānoa.
