Hāloa
The first child born to Hoʻohokukalani, daughter of Papa, the foundation, sometimes called mother earth, and Wākea, the broad expanse of the heavens, was stillborn. He was wrapped gently in kapa (tapa cloth) and buried in the ground. In the place where his parents tears fell, a stalk sprouted forth and was called hā-loa (long breath; long stem), it trembled (naka), a leaf (lau) unfurled and swayed in the wind (kapalili). Hāloanakalaukapalili was this first child, the kalo plant.
A second child was born and lived, a man, also named Hāloa, whose responsibility (kuleana) it was to care for his older brother. In return, the kalo fed his family and his descendants through all of the generations down to the present.
The kalo plant is a symbol of family. The main stalk and corm is called makua (parent). The side shoots, called ʻohā, represent the children. Nā ʻohā (many side shoots) becomes ʻohana, the Hawaiian word for family.
Kalo, or taro (Colocasia esculenta), is one of the oldest food crops in the world. A hypoallergenic, complex carbohydrate it is one of the key staple starch crops of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.
A loʻi is a wetland, or irrigated, taro patch or system of patches fed by a spring or a stream. In a traditional system, water was borrowed from the stream to feed the taro and returned to the stream in a steady flow.