This installment acknowledges Pukui’s ties to her own sources of knowledge, and how these teachings prepared her for her role as a kumu hula, composer, writer, researcher, and expert English-Hawaiian translator. On exhibit will be Pukui’s ipu heke, donated to Bishop Museum by her hānai daughter, Patience Namaka Bacon, as well as a magnetic tape recorder gifted to the Museum in 1950 and used by Pukui to document the voices of kūpuna across the Islands.

The case also presents a collection of resources Pukui bestowed upon Hawaiʻi, featuring many of the publications that she authored, coauthored, and collaborated on. This will include her first editions of the Hawaiian Dictionary, co-written by Samuel H. Elbert, and ʻŌlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs and Poetical Sayings.

Mary Kawena Pukui: Knowledge Is Life opens at the final Nānā i ke Kumu Series Program of 2025, a partnership between the Mary Kawena Pukui Cultural Preservation Society and Bishop Museum, on December 19, 2025. It celebrates the achievements of the program, its panelists and participants, and reminds Hawaiʻi to hoʻomau, to carry on the important work still left to do.