Reprinted from the Nude & Natural Newesletter (The Naturist Society)- December 2001

Little Beach Under Attack
Traditional clothing optional beach becomes a pawn in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement

Still smarting from the loss in 1999 of the clothing-optional beach at Kaloko Honokohau National Historical Park on the Big Island, naturists are taking seriously the most recent threat to nude recreation in Hawaii. This time, the concern is for Maui and Little Beach, considered by many to be the most popular clothing-optional site in Hawaii.

The approach to banishing nudity at Little Beach has evolved quickly to be the same as was used at Kaloko Honokohau. A small group of people claiming native Hawaiian heritage is seeking to have the site declared to be a sacred place, while advancing the claim that nudity, which they say was never practiced by indigenous Hawaiians, should be considered an "insult" to Hawaiian culture.

As a part of Makena State Park, Little Beach has enjoyed a quiet existence during the past several years. A popular draw for tourists, it is also a favored spot for countless local residents. The recent involvement of local law enforcement has been generally limited to matters concerning alcohol violations. Simply put, nudity at Little Beach has been a non- issue.

Tom Collins, the beach mayor at Little Beach, is a resident of nearby Kihei and has been skinny-dipping at the beach for more than thirty years, Quoted last month by the Maui News, Collins observed, "We haven't had any complaints about nudity or offensive conduct down here since 1987," Collins added that the last time police were called was because of a group of drunken youngsters, who were completely clothed.

But nudity at Little Beach was thrust into the headlines in recent weeks when the Parks Division of the State Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) created a committee to come up with a master plan for Makena State Park, Lacking funds previously to consider a new plan, the DLNR had allowed the park to operate on its own momentum and under the guidance of Phil Ohta, state parks superintendent on Maui,

The new committee, however, has authority to look into all aspects of the operation of the 165 acre park. Those are expected to include evaluation of a ban on smoking to eliminate cigarette butts in the sand and a policy requiring beachgoers to pack out all their trash. And of course, there already has begun an examination of the clothing-optional use of Little Beach.

Hawaii law does not prohibit nudity, per se. It prohibits the exposure of a person's genitals to another person "under circumstances in which the actor's conduct is likely to alarm the other person or put the other person in fear of bodily injury." Circumstances at Little Beach do not favor an argument that someone would become alarmed at discovering humans in their natural state in the natural setting. Well known to tourists and local alike, Little Beach is an end destination, not on the way to anything else. Locally published guidebooks tout it as "Maui's nude beach" and descriptions of it as a nude beach it are included on the visitors' channel of the local cable television service.

Last year, in a legal action underwritten in part by the Naturist Action Committee and the Naturist Education Foundation, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that four arrests for simple nudity at Polo Beach on the island of Oahu were invalid because the nudity of the defendants on a remote and well known clothing-optional beach did not constitute an offense under state law. Nudity laws affecting state parks are somewhat more restrictive.

Another Beach, Another Minister

Local folklorist and clergyman Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell, Sr. should know the law. Some 16 years and 200 pounds ago he was a police officer who used to arrest people for nudity on Little Beach. Maxwell, an outspoken proponent of Hawaiian sovereignty, has more recently become an untiring opponent of nudity. He admits publicly that a ban on nudity would be difficult to enforce, but the consideration of a new plan for Makena State Park and Little Beach has provided Maxwell with just the sort of platform he enjoys to "educate" people to his view of Hawaiian cultural values, while castigating those he considers to be "outsiders" for bringing corrupting influences to the sacred places of the Islands.

Maxwell is a skilled activist who routinely manages to have himself named to an amazing number of boards, committees and advisory panels. Often, Maxwell is the moderator, host, or featured speaker. His initial design in the DLNR hearings for Makena Park was to suggest a "compromise" in which Little Beach would be clothing-optional only on certain days. Naturists pointed to the fact that skinny-dippers and nude sunbathers have already been displaced at other clothing- optional beaches in the Islands. They pointed out that Little Beach is only 300 feet long, while nearby Big Beach, where clothing is compulsory, is 3,400 feet long. The compromises have already been made!

Charlie Maxwell quickly shifted the attack to a familiar theme. Interlopers, he said, were destroying Hawaiian culture. And Hawaiian culture, Maxwell says, is pretty much whatever he and other contemporary storytellers interpret it to be from stories that have been passed down to them. Maxwell has little use for historical or scientific accounts.

Maxwell's latest revelation is that Makena is actually the birthplace of Maui.

Of the more than one million residents of Hawaii today, about 200,000 can claim to have some indigenous roots. There are about 8,000 residents of full Hawaiian descent. Uncle Charlie Maxwell is not among them.

Maxwell is descended from an Scottish seaman who left his ship in the late eighteenth century during a call on the islands. Uncle Charlie's account makes his A WOL ancestor the ship's captain and has him marrying the daughter of the High Priest. Others question the characteristically resplendent claims, which in any case are irrelevant, except that they place Maxwell in the category of latecomer to the party. Nevertheless, he has assumed the role of determining what is "pono" (correct) in the cultural cleansing of the Islands.

In response to a recent polite inquiry by a naturist who asked about Little Beach, Maxwell wrote, "The Hawaiian Culture will prevail and in the end what is pono will happen at One Li'ili'i [Little Beach]. When you go to someone's home you follow their rules, you do not make up your own. Be good guest and follow the rules of 'our home'."

Even the park's name has become un-pono.

"It's not Makena State Park," declared one DLNR committee member recently. "It's Pu'u Ola'i State Park. People have got to get the message."

The Naturist Action Committee is working with Friends of Little Beach, the local naturist group. Dick Hyers of FOLB has secured a seat on the committee, which includes Maxwell and is chaired by Ohta, himself no friend to clothing-optional use of the beach.

Watch for NAC Action Alerts, Advisories and Updates concerning further developments on Maui.