I met a very articulate gentleman at the conference I am attending, who is a dean at a health care institution. In speaking to us about health care education, he mentioned the word "hanai," which is Hawaiian for the community taking care of homeless kids (Jerry, let me know if I got this wrong). He said it used to be that kids were taken in off the street and raised by families, and, indeed, this is how he was raised. Now, he says, "family services" has taken over that role.

We both thought "hanai" was wonderful and wished it were still in place.

Kalleh,

I was not aware of the word hanai until I read your post.

Although I've lived in Hawaii for twenty years I know only a very few words in Hawaiian language, and hanai was not one of them until you taught it to me.

~~~~ jerry

Mary Kawena Pakui and Samuel H. Elbert, in their wonderful Hawaiian Dictionary, gloss hānai as follows: (1) Foster child, adopted child; (2) To raise, rear, feed, nourish, sustain; (3) Body of a kŏkŏ net carrier, and cords attached to it; fish net or trap; (4) Same as hanahanai (edge of a precipice or slope); (5) Hawai`i name for mānai needle; (6) To skim along.

It is related to another word, hānaiāhuhu 'to make a pet of an animal', with the following example sentence: Eia kekahi mau hānaiāhuhu a ke aupuni 'Here are some favorite plans of the government'.

Oh...isn't that interesting that they have a word meaning "to make a pet of an animal?" And then to have that word linked with hanai!

I think it is such a nice custom to have the community raise kids whose parents have died. I suspect the outcome is better than when the state does it.

Surely in most cases nowadays the community does raise orphans? Although the national government may provide a lot of the funding and set the rules, it is the responsibility of local government to look after the needs of children in their area. There are also various charities, but there is less need for them now.

This is certainly the case in the UK.

Well, arnie, that's the case in the U.S., too, though the state and local agencies are often not that good. In Hawaii, though, the people in the community took the kids in as their own. To me, that's a big difference from some local governmental agency or charity taking the lead. The people in the community saw it as their responsibility and there was no governmental involvement.

Perhaps your governmental involvement is less than ours. For the kids' sakes, I hope so.