Native Hawaiian neighborhood survived Maui fire. Lahaina locals praise its cultural significance
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Shaun “Buge” Saribay felt like giving up. Hours of makeshift firefighting with garden hoses and buckets of water across Lahaina didn’t stop flames from consuming his house, his rental properties and thousands of other structures in his beloved hometown.
Drained, dirty and delirious, he continued anyway, pedaling a bicycle he found during the apocalyptic night of Aug. 8 to one Lahaina neighborhood he was determined to save as a symbol of enduring Hawaiian heritage.
Although Native Hawaiians including Saribay live throughout Lahaina, the Villages of Leiali’i is the only community in West Maui exclusively for Hawaiians. Part of a program Congress passed in 1921 to give Hawaii’s Indigenous people land to live on, Leiali’i and other so-called homestead communities have become not just key to economic self-sufficiency, but reserves of Hawaiian culture and traditions as well.
