Nā Kama a Kaʻahupahau me Kuhaimoana was Herman Piʻikea Clark’s first large-scale commissioned mural project, created for the newly constructed Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Installed in the Faculty Seminar Room—referred to as the “war room” by then director Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask—the mural honors the legacy and protection of two powerful ancestral shark deities: Kaʻahupahau and her brother Kuhaimoana, guardians of Puʻuloa (Pearl Harbor) and Kanaka Maoli sovereignty. This mural emerged through a moment of institutional shift and cultural assertion. Under the fierce advocacy of Dr. Trask, the State of Hawaiʻi was compelled to revise its public art acquisition policies to include Kanaka Maoli artists—who had long been excluded from state commissions—and to ensure that Indigenous voices and aesthetics were present within spaces of Hawaiian intellectual resurgence. Clark’s commission became a pivotal expression of that reclamation. The mural weaves ancestral symbolism with contemporary design sensibilities, reflecting Clark’s signature approach to Indigenous abstraction. With bold composition and layered meaning, Nā Kama a Kaʻahupahau me Kuhaimoana speaks not only to the power of ancestral protection but also to the role of art in political and cultural resurgence.