{"id":7901,"date":"2012-06-29T16:39:42","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T02:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=7901"},"modified":"2021-03-30T12:57:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T22:57:13","slug":"cultural-exchange-in-dc-between-uh-and-new-mexico-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/06\/29\/cultural-exchange-in-dc-between-uh-and-new-mexico-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural exchange in D.C. between UH<\/abbr> and New Mexico University"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Despite a weather advisory and temperatures hovering between 102 and 105 degrees on Friday, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival<\/a> went on as scheduled. <\/p>\n

University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span><\/a> faculty member and author Maya Soetoro-Ng<\/strong> braved the heat to visit colleagues and UH<\/abbr> exhibits on The National Mall where she said more than a million visitors will learn about the importance of the preservation of tradition and the power of harnessing indigenous culture. <\/p>\n

“I also think it’s terrific that the university is having this opportunity to share and collaborate with other institutions and to have conversations of import and I think that the connections that are being forged here will probably be lasting,” Soetoro-Ng said. <\/p>\n

University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> delegates are having many opportunities to exchange cultural experiences with other public land-grant universities and colleges that are being featured in the festival. <\/p>\n

UH<\/abbr> students took part in a healing ritual at the University of New Mexico<\/a> exhibit where traditional healers Tonita Gonzales and Rita Navarrete Perez led the group in asking for health, wisdom, illumination of heart, strength and spirit. <\/p>\n

UH<\/abbr> students and other participants held drums and bells and other instruments and rattled them during the ritual. <\/p>\n

UH<\/abbr> health and healing experts received healing treatments from New Mexico’s healers, who in turn received lomi lomi treatments from UH<\/abbr> experts. <\/p>\n

New Mexico’s healers presented, Keola Chan<\/strong> of UH<\/abbr> Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine’s Department of Native Hawaiian Health<\/a>, with a ceremonial headband and sash that are said to protect the healer’s energy. <\/p>\n

“To me, it was about reconnecting as a people, bonding once again those relationships that we traditionally had when our ancestors used to sail,” said Chan. <\/p>\n

In turn, Chan offered Navarrete Perez traditional Hawaiian ʻawa<\/span>, which she accepted with gratitude. <\/p>\n

“How important for us it is to share our sacred medicine from your beautiful country. And I feel the responsibility to share this experience to the people that come close to me in my life,” said Navarrete Perez, a traditional healer working with the University of New Mexico exhibit. <\/p>\n

Experiences like this is what the festival is all about. <\/p>\n

“Hopefully, the relationships, the two way flows will lead to other interesting projects of culture awareness and sharing and collaboration in the future,” Soetoro-Ng said. <\/p>\n

Smithsonian Folklife Festival<\/h2>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> will be among 20 public land-grant universities to be featured in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C. from June 27 to July 8, 2012. <\/p>\n

The festival celebrates the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Morrill Act, which paved the way for higher education for rural and working class Americans. <\/p>\n

The University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> exhibits will feature traditional Hawaiian health and healing practices, a mini taro patch, non-instrument navigation, medicinal herb and organic farming and much more. Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community College’s halau Unukupukupu and the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Mānoa’s Tuahine Troup will also perform. <\/p>\n

See more on the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>’s Smithsonian experience.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> health experts receive healing treatments from New Mexico University healers, who in turn receive lomi lomi treatments from UH<\/abbr> experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,309,12],"tags":[312,9,947],"class_list":["post-7901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-uhsmithsonian2012","category-video","tag-smithsonian-folklife-festival","tag-uh-manoa","tag-uh-system","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7901"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138210,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions\/138210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}