Feb 17, 2026

Reaching for Language

Ku'ulani Muise

Brand Lady & Co-Founder

Last September, at the launch of our Reserve Aged cuts, I shared some of my thoughts around language, how it shapes the way we see and move through the world.

Language can illuminate certain lifeways with expansive clarity, offering us intricate vocabularies for understanding ourselves and our places, through its grammar teaching us what relations are possible or impossible. And then, inversely, through quiet omission—a missing word, an absent grammatical structure—language can render concepts that are thinkable in one tongue unthinkable in another simply by what it does not name.

February in Hawaiʻi brings two observances into conversation: Invasive Species Awareness Month and Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi—Hawaiian Language Month. For our work with Axis deer, the overlap is pointed.

'Invasive' is an apt term for our conservation community to use. It names real harm and helps to galvanize active management and repair.

For Axis deer on Maui, the word is seemingly fitting: they cause real harm across our food and ecosystems and their active management is absolutely imperative.

And yet.

We source our food from them.

At Maui Nui, we hold this particular tension: Axis deer are also the most nutrient-dense protein we can offer our communities and our customers.

The word 'invasive' leaves no room for this complexity, no space for the gratitude—reverence, even—that can overtake even the most seasoned harvester in the field.

Photo of deer and native trees by Asher Koles

Deer on Maui beside endangered Hala pepe and Olopua trees.

When I reach for ways to speak and think about these animals in our ʻōlelo, I find no word for 'invasive.'

The omission, rather than constricting how we can feel and think about Axis deer, expands our capacity for holding this tension. For vigilance alongside gratitude, for championing active management, while working tirelessly to utilize every single piece of these incredible animals for food.

And so, some ʻōlelo for us all…

In the link below are my answers to a Q&A I was sent three years ago by a group of Hawaiian language middle school students learning about their food systems. They sent their questions in English, but I really wanted to respond to them in our ʻōlelo.

It was hard. I was thinking about our mission in English and trying to translate, but the words weren't there. So I called my kuaʻana, my brilliant sister, to help me think (in Hawaiian) about these things.

We had to start over, chuck translations, and write in Hawaiian, first, to uncover what our ʻōlelo makes possible—expansive concepts of relations and care. How lucky.

In honor of Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and the beautiful community that keeps our ʻōlelo makuahine, our mother tongue alive, a recording of me reading our answers is also included for anyone who would like to listen.

Ola nō kākou i ka ʻōlelo!

Q: Introduce yourself, your business, and why you started:

Mai ka uka anu o ʻUlupalakua,

Kua lāʻau loloa o Puʻu Kaʻeo,

He ʻūmeke kāʻeo nā ʻāina kula o Maui.

Aloha nui mai kākou.

Eia mai nei ka ʻohana ʻo Maui Nui Venison, ma ka poli o ʻUlupalakua, kahi e noke nui nei i ka hana hoʻoponopono i ka nui kia e ola a ulu nei ma ia ʻāina. Ua hoʻomaka ia ʻimi pono ʻana i ala e hoʻolanalana ai i ka nui o ka pā ʻana o kēia ʻāina i ia wahi kia nei, a lana hoʻi ka manaʻo i ka hiki ke hoʻohana i ka nui kino o ia holoholona i wahi ʻai momona na ke kaiāulu a na ka poʻe e ʻono mai nei.

From the chilly uplands of ʻUlupalakua and the long-forested back of Kaʻeo Hill, a well-filled calabash are the plains of Maui. Aloha to us all!

Here we are, the Maui Nui Venison ʻOhana, in the heart of ʻUlupalakua where there is a great persistence in the work of balancing the many deer that live and increase on this land. This endeavor was started as a path to alleviate the magnitude of the impact on this land by these deer, and buoyant indeed are our thoughts in the possibility that the entire body of this animal can be used as a bit of rich food for the community and for the people who are ʻono for some.

Q: What are some of your sustainable practices?

Nui nō hoʻi mākou ka i hānai ʻia ai ma ka ʻiʻo maʻemaʻe o ka ʻāina, a he hōʻihi hoʻi kā mākou i ke ʻano kūpono e alualu ai i ia wahi holoholona. He kālena hoʻi kā ke kime alualu i ka hana o ke aumoe i ʻole ʻaloʻahia nui nā kia. A ao ka pō, hōʻea mai nei nā mea lole kia no ka ʻokiʻoki ʻana i ke kino piha i ʻai momona no kākou. Kālele nui mākou i ka hoʻēmi ʻana i ka hoʻopau ʻai, me ka hoʻohana piha ʻana i ke kino holoʻokoʻa mai ke poʻo a ka hiʻu.

Many of us have been fed by this clean meat from the land, and we revere the kinds of appropriate ways to pursue this animal. The harvest team is very talented in working at night so that the deer are not stressed. When night becomes day, the butchers arrive for the cutting into pieces of the entire body as rich food for us. We greatly support the reduction of wasting food, by truly using the entire body from top to bottom.

Q: As a supplier, what do you want Hawaiian children to know/think/feel when they eat your food?

Iā mākou e ʻimi ana i ka hoʻoponopono o ka heluna kia ma Maui, ʻimi like mākou i ke ehuehu o kahi ʻonaehana hānai ʻai a me ke eʻehu o ke kaiaola i pā nui i nā kia. I ka hōʻea mua ʻana o nā kia i ka mokupuni o Molokaʻi ma ka makahiki 1868, i makana na ka Mōʻī Kapuāiwa, ʻaʻohe wānana i ka uluāhewa nui o ia mau kia a me kona pā ʻino ʻana i ke ola pono o nā kula o uka a me nā kula o kai, mai nā ululāʻau o uka a i nā ʻākoʻakoʻa o kai.

ʻO ia hana hoʻokaulike heluna kia, he ala ia i maʻa i ka hele ʻia e oʻu mau kūpuna ma ka hoʻokaulike ʻana i ka nui holoholona ma ka ʻāina a ma ke kai i ola pono nā mea a pau kekahi me kekahi.

While we seek to balance the deer numbers on Maui, we also seek the health of the systems of food production and the health of the ecosystems that are greatly impacted by the deer. When deer first arrived to the island of Molokaʻi in 1868, as a gift to King Kapuāiwa (Kamehameha V), there was no foretelling of the great overgrowth of these deer and their harmful impact on the balanced health of the upland plains and the seaward plains, from the upland forests to the coral heads of the sea.

This work of balancing deer numbers, it is a path well-worn by my ancestors by their balancing of the numbers of animals on the land and in the sea so that all things lived in balance with one another.

Q: Anything else you are inspired to share?

Wahi a kahiko, ua lehulehu a manomano ka ʻikena a ka Hawaiʻi, ua nui ko lākou akamai i ka hoʻoulu ʻana i ka ʻāina i kahua ʻai pono i paʻa no nā hanauna hou. Mai nā ʻauwai o nā loʻi kalo o uka a i nā makawai o nā loko iʻa o kai, ua nui ke akamai i ka holo o ka lā me ka mahina i ka lewa lani a me ko lāua pā nui i nā mea ola o ka honua.

Na wai hoʻi e ʻauamo ana i ia kuleana? Na wai lā? "Na wai hoʻi ka ʻole o ke akamai, he alahele i maʻa i ka hele ʻia e oʻu mau mākua."

The ancients have said, great and numerous was the knowledge of the Hawaiʻi, great was their intelligence for cultivating the land as a foundation of appropriate foods firmly laid for the future generations. From the water canals of the upland kalo terraces to the sluice gates of the fishponds at the sea, great was the understanding of the progression of the sun and the moon in the heavens and their shining and influence on the living things of the earth.

Who, indeed, will pick up and carry this kuleana on their shoulders? Who? "Who could not be wise on a path already well-worn by their ancestors."