Ask most visitors about taro and they will mention poi — the soft, purple-grey staple served at a lūʻau. But in Hawaiian tradition, kalo is far more than food. It is family: the elder sibling of the Hawaiian people, and one of the deepest roots of Hawaiian identity.
The short answer
Kalo (taro) is considered an ancestor because of the moʻolelo of Hāloa, in which the first kalo plant grew from a stillborn child of the sky father Wākea. The next child, also named Hāloa, became the first human — making kalo the elder sibling whom Hawaiians are bound to care for.
Kalo (Colocasia esculenta) arrived in Hawaiʻi with the first Polynesian voyagers, carried thousands of miles by canoe alongside the other plants a people needed to survive. It became the most important food of old Hawaiʻi. But its place in the culture rests on something a nutrition label can never capture — a story about where Hawaiians come from.
Who was Hāloa? The story of the first kalo
The moʻolelo begins with Wākea, the expanse of the sky, and Hoʻohōkūkalani, whose name means "to adorn the heavens with stars." Their first child was born still, without breath. Grieving, they buried the little body at the eastern corner of their home.
From that spot, a plant rose. A slender stalk pushed up, and above it unfurled a wide, trembling, heart-shaped leaf. They named this first kalo Hāloanakalaukapalili — Hāloa of the long breath, the quivering leaf. When Hoʻohōkūkalani gave birth again, to a healthy son, she named him Hāloa in honor of his elder brother. That second Hāloa is remembered as the first human being, the ancestor from whom Hawaiians descend.
Kalo is not a crop that Hawaiians happen to eat. It is the elder brother they are asked to feed, and who feeds them in return.
How can a plant be an ancestor?
To many outside the culture, calling a plant a sibling sounds like poetry. Within the Hawaiian worldview, it is genealogy. Hawaiians trace descent through long chanted lineages, and Hāloa the plant sits at the head of that line as the elder sibling, the kuaʻana. In a Hawaiian family, the elder is responsible for the younger, and the younger honors and cares for the elder. That relationship is reciprocal, and it never ends.
Applied to kalo, this means the plant nourishes the people, and the people are obligated to tend the plant — to keep its patches clean, its water flowing, its line unbroken. It is one of many Hawaiian moʻolelo where the natural world and human world are not separate categories but branches of a single family.
What does kalo have to do with the word ʻohana?
Look closely at a kalo plant and you will see the metaphor made literal. Around the central parent corm — the makua — small offshoots sprout. These little cormlets are called ʻohā. Left in the ground, each ʻohā becomes a new plant, still connected to the same root system.
From ʻohā comes the word ʻohana: family. An ʻohana is understood as all the shoots that grow from one source — parents, children, cousins, generations — expanding outward yet drawing from the same root. When Hawaiians speak of family, they are, without always saying so, speaking in the language of the taro patch.
How was kalo grown — and why the loʻi mattered
Traditional wetland kalo grows in a loʻi, an irrigated pondfield fed by cool, moving stream water channeled through hand-built ditches called ʻauwai. A well-run system of loʻi could feed enormous numbers of people and was a marvel of engineering, water law, and cooperation. Dryland kalo was grown too, in upland fields watered by rain.
Almost nothing was wasted. The corm was steamed and pounded into poi. The young leaves, called lūʻau, were cooked and eaten (raw taro is sharp with calcium oxalate and must be cooked). And the huli — the leafy top of the harvested plant — was replanted, so the next generation grew directly from the last. Growing kalo is, in the most practical sense, an act of continuity.
What does kalo teach about kuleana and caring for the land?
Two ideas sit at the center of kalo culture. Kuleana is responsibility — the duty each person carries within a family and a community. Mālama ʻāina is the responsibility to care for the land and the resources it provides. Kalo binds the two together: because the plant is kin, tending it is not chores but kuleana, and caring for the loʻi is caring for family.
This is why the recent revival of loʻi across the islands — with families and schools restoring old patches to grow kalo again — is about far more than local food. It is a way of restoring a relationship. The same heart-shaped leaf still appears throughout Hawaiian flora and nature art precisely because it carries all of this meaning in a single, recognizable shape.
Is kalo the same thing as taro?
Yes. Kalo is the Hawaiian name for the taro plant, Colocasia esculenta. "Taro" is the more general Pacific and English term for the same plant.
Why is kalo considered sacred in Hawaiian culture?
Because of the moʻolelo of Hāloa. The first kalo grew from a stillborn child of Wākea and Hoʻohōkūkalani, and the first human was named after that plant. Kalo is therefore the elder sibling of the Hawaiian people — family, not merely a crop.
What is poi made from?
Poi is made from the corm — the starchy underground stem — of the kalo plant. The corm is steamed, then pounded and thinned with water into a smooth paste.
Can you eat taro leaves?
Yes, when they are thoroughly cooked. The young leaves, called lūʻau, are steamed and eaten. Raw taro contains calcium oxalate crystals that irritate the mouth and throat, so it must always be cooked first.
What does ʻohana have to do with kalo?
The word ʻohana comes from ʻohā, the offshoots that grow from the parent taro corm. Family is understood as all the shoots that grow from a single root — a metaphor drawn straight from the taro patch.
Keep reading from the journal
- Poi: the staple food at the heart of ancient Hawaiʻi
- What Ohana Really Means in Hawaiian Culture
- Native Hawaiian Plants You Should Know
- Hawaiian Mythology: Gods, Guardians & the Stories of the Islands
- Kukui Nut: The Meaning of Hawaiʻi's Light-Giving State Tree