East Maui Taro Festival in Hana

HANA – The 19th annual East Maui Taro Festival will be held from Friday through Sunday in Hana.

Activities will include traditional foods, arts and crafts, cultural demonstrations, music and hula.

Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., there will be Makali’i voyaging canoe tours and rides at Hana Bay, weather permitting.

Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the festival will unfold at Hana Ballpark with entertainment along with food and craft sales, Hawaiian cultural demonstrations and a nonprofit informational tent.

Sunday from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m., the taro pancake breakfast also will offer loco moco bowls. Tickets are available with varying prices.

At 11 a.m. that day, the National Tropical Botanical Garden-Kahanu Garden and Pi’ilanihale Heiau will be open to tours, followed at 2 p.m. with a Kapahu Living Farm tour in Kipahulu.

For more information, call 264-1553 or see www.tarofestival.org.

East Maui Taro Festival in Hana – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

Kalo connections

TARO FEST

    » Where: Haleiwa Farmers Market, at Kamehameha Highway and Leong Bypass near Haleiwa Beach Park
    » When: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday
    » Call: 388-9696 or e-mail HaleiwaFarmersMarket@gmail.com
    EVENTS
    Recipe contest (call or e-mail for details), poi-pounding demonstration, talk story with North Shore kupuna, taro farm tours, dishes by Hawaii chefs, makahiki activities and entertainment. Plus, taro submissions to break the Guinness world record (call or e-mail for details).”

In a Hawaiian genesis story, a stillborn baby’s grave site grows the first taro plant, which feeds his younger brother, the first Hawaiian. The tale is at the root of the culture’s reverence for taro, called kalo in Hawaiian.

“Poi and family are one and the same,” says Aunty Betty Jenkins, a North Shore kupuna who is one of the guiding forces behind Haleiwa Farmers Market’s taro festival on Sunday. “Kalo connects us to all Hawaiians, to all of our neighborhood, to all community. It’s very spiritual.”

A new generation is now standing alongside elders like Jenkins to perpetuate taro’s cultural relevance. For Daniel Anthony of the organization Mana Ai, that effort centers on eating. “First and foremost, Mana Ai promotes the eating of taro in any way, shape or form,”