Limu Traditions

“When I was growing up, if you went to a lūʻau, you would know who prepared the food and what area it came from by just knowing the taste of the limu and the kinds of limu that were utilized. Basically, you could tell where the families came from by the raw stuf they made,” says Malia Akutagawa, who was raised on the east end of Molokaʻi. Now 48 years old and an assistant professor of law and Hawaiian Studies with both the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s William S. Richardson School of Law and the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies in the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, Malia Akutagawa was taught by her grandmother from a young age how to pick limu. She says her grandmother, Katharine Kalua Hagemann Akutagawa, or Grandma Kitty, was known as one of the best limu pickers on the island. Grandma Kitty learned from Tūtū Hapa Kalua, who was cousin to Malia’s great grandmother, Haʻaheo.