There are places of extreme beauty.

And that for me is the Nā Pali Coast

where there is a hidden gem.

An old village site called Niihau Kauai.

It is an absolutely ideal place to perpetuate Hawaiian culture.

(reflective music)

(Hawaiian music)

I teach Hawaiian studies here in Kauai,

and the children call me Cuomo Kauka.

(Hawaiian music)

I teach Hula, which is Hawaiian dance,

Ōlelo Hawaii, which is Hawaiian language,

and Kapa, which is Hawaiian barkcloth.

Oh my God, it's so beautiful.

In Hawaii, we did not have loomed material.

We made our clothing and our blankets from the bark of a tree.

Kapa is made first by growing the plant and then harvesting it.

Scraping off the outer bark.

Removing the inner bark

and pounding it out.

You got to pound, and pound, and pound and pound

and then you need many, many strips and you fold them

together and pound them all out as one.

(pounding sound)

But you've got to have the materials to teach Hawaiian arts.

And those materials are very much based on plants.

(Helicopter sounds)

We have to grow the Wauke in order to make Kapa.

That's why we have been return to Niihau Kauai for 27 year.

There are no roads in there.

It is only accessible by boat or by air.

(helicopter sound)

You feel the sense of place when you land.

When you walk along the little trail.

And when you look out at the ocean

and you see the turtles that are resting on the beach.

They have been on that beach for centuries.

We've only been on that beach more recently.

(uplifting music)

Our first trip into Niihau Kauai

was to return ancestral remains or Kupuna iwi,

and, ever since that trip,

we have been going back to take care this old village site.

And we have also planted Wauke there to make Kapa.

And I am still trying to figure out how my Kupuna,

how my ancestors made as beautifully as they have.

It's a process.

We have to relearn these things.

Voila.

So it's a place of old Hawaii

that brings much to our understanding of perhaps how life used to be.

Come in right here and you gotta cut it at the bottom.

I like to teach my children about Kapa

because first of all they have to learn

how to take care of the plants

and then they have to learn how to harvest them

and how to clean them

and how to pound them.

(pounding sounds)

They know who they are.

They know where they live.

They know why they live here

and what they can do to help.

How do Hawaiians see the land,

that the land is the chief and that people are its servants.

(reflective music)