"The word piko, like so many in our mother tongue, is layered with meaning. Shedding its thin veil can unlock deeper levels of understanding demonstrating its importance in Hawaiian culture.
Piko names the belly button, and much like the navel- softly domed, shyly cupped, entirely unassuming- it whorls inward with deeper significance. It tells the story of our mothers and how we were once wholly connected to them through the umbilicus, the lifeline, the heartstring. Its story spirals deeper still, naming our mothers’ mothers and their mothers before them, whispering genealogies of wombs and women.
Piko identifies the fontanel, the mystic opening of skull through which strings the visceral umbilical cord connecting us to our aumākua, our ancestor spirits, ever hovering above. Piko refers to the maʻi, the genitals, that teem with the promise of new life and continuity. Piko is the summit of the mountain, the weaver’s first plait, the springing forth of leaf from stem. Piko designates the center and the source as well as describes the way in which we are connected to it.
Piko speaks of beginnings, which seems, to me, the most befitting place to start. I am a mother. I also write, read, paint, cook and sing (and sometimes clean), but all of the latter seem only to serve the first.
Over the past six years in which I have carried and coaxed three little children out into the world, being a mother has come to shape and color all of my doings. Being a mother has caused me to approach everything I do more thoughtfully. Every song, every prayer, story, practice, custom carries a message, and regardless of how many times and how many others have perpetuated that narrative, I feel the need to look at each thought through new eyes, through my own mama-lens, and to decide whether or not to pass that on to my own children. Luckily, I come from an ancient and powerful lineage whose cultural memory is full of the kind of knowing that I can confidently and lovingly bequeath, one of which is the significance of the piko.
In generations past, our ancestors venerated the umbilical cord (as well as the ʻīewe or placenta) as the connection between mother and child. This connection did not belong to the pair alone; rather, it was a connection that extended to all blood relatives, relatives who sometimes affectionately called one another, kuʻu piko, my umbilicus. The stump of cord that falls from the infant’s navel shortly after birth also held significance and the burying of all piko, whether belonging to the high-born babe or the humble, was of great consequence.
The manner in which the piko was buried varied from place to place and from family to family. Each held slightly different meanings, but whether buried in hallowed ground, in areas with auspicious place names, near sacred stones, in the crevices of branching koʻa, or simply in the family’s yard, the deeper intent each parent had for their child was very much the same. That intent spanned generations - that their child’s life be long and full and never starved for connection - connection to family, connection to place, connection to the land and to ancestors past.
As we prepare to bury the piko of our muliloa, our newest little one, I think back to all the piko that our ʻohana have planted together over the years. I remember all the piko we have tucked away into the earth for safekeeping, all the quiet prayers and well-wishes that are interred there with them. Her piko, the tiny withered vestige of her time in utero, becomes my talisman.
I see that at the heart of the piko concept and at the core of parenting is this same journey of connection. Piko is connection.
As parents, we are always and only teaching our children and ourselves of this truth - that we are our mothers, our families, our ancestors, that we are this place, the hills and the waters, the leaf and the fruit, that we are of this time as well as the time ahead and the time behind, and that from this place of connection, from the seat of this knowing, we must strive to move, to act, to sing and dance and live.
E hoʻi i ka piko."
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