Read this article in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi
The skills of the ancient ones were unsurpassed in their fashioning of many treasures.
Concerning baskets and other things made of the ʻieʻie vine, the Hawaiians of old were number one. According to Te Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck), a past director of the Bishop Museum, the work of the Hawaiians in twined baskets surpassed those of other Pacific Peoples. The baskets were made with ʻieʻie, a plant of the forest that has long rootlets appropriate for twining.
At the time that Te Rangi Hīroa published Arts and Crafts of Hawaiʻi in 1911, there were no Native Hawaiians working with ʻieʻie and making baskets. During the renaissance of the 1970s, however, some people looked within the book to revive knowledge of various items that can be made with ʻieʻie – hinalea traps, ʻoʻopu traps, ʻōpae traps, round baskets with lids and without, as well as baskets over gourds. Those baskets are fantastic to see.
A special form was the that of the feathered god-images. An image was just returned along with the cape of Kekuaokalani, the son of the younger brother of Kamehameha, Keliʻimaikaʻi. Keliʻimaikaʻi was the grandfather of Pauahi. This relationship was why all the lands of Keliʻimaikaʻi – like Punaluʻu on Oʻahu – were passed down to Keʻelikōlani and then to Pauahi.
Kumulāʻau Sing and his beloved wife, Haunani, are native-born leaders teaching basketry, fish traps, and image-making of ancestors, family gods, and gods like Kū and Lono – their students choose which. After the year-long class, students can study under a featherwork master like Rick San Nicholas to apply feathers to their images.
Their students use rattan, “faux ʻieʻie” and a good substitute, lest the forest gets denuded. The students learn to gather ʻieʻie and how to process ʻieʻie. At the past Merrie Monarch, a crafts person by the name of Wes Sen was selling processed ʻieʻie from Fiji. That’s a good thing lest the forests of Hawaiʻi become denuded. If you are interested, you can visit: https://kekumuhawaii.com/home.
