Native Hawaiian weaver, feather artist, quilters, and an ocean voyaging canoe

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:06]The first voyagers to Hawaii traveled on double hulled canoes using the stars and the ocean currents as their guides, but they used sails made out of woven pandanus leaves.

[00:00:23]We call them in Hawaiian, ulana lauhala.

[00:00:27]And that was the material of choice to make our utilitarian materials from the floor mats to baskets and containers.

[00:00:36]But I think the settlement of Hawaii wouldn't have been possible without ulana lauhala.

[00:00:43]I remember as a young boy looking at my grandfather's lauhala hat and me trying to figure out how those little strips were interwoven into one another.

[00:00:55][Music] So this is the hat that inspired me to learn to weave.

[00:01:02][Music] [Marques speaking Hawaiian] The act of making is something that I learned from teachers and elders.

[00:01:17][Marques speaking Hawaiian] I also learned ceremonial practices associated with the art form as well.

[00:01:26]So when we go to a pandanus, we ask for permission of the plant.

[00:01:34]We clean the tree, take off all the old leaves, and then we harvest the freshly dried leaves 'cause those will be nice and supple.

[00:01:48]Mahalo. [Music] First you would dethorn the leaf and then you would roll them into our rolls called kuka'a. [Music] And then you would cut the prepared leaves into sized strips.

[00:02:15]And from that point you would start to do your weaving.

[00:02:20][Music] After learning the practice of ulana lauhala, I started to expand into cordage making, into net making, anything using fibers. [Music] I've created historical Hawaiian fans.

[00:02:42]This style of fan was only used by the chiefly class within Hawaii. This crescent shaped blade with this woven handle.

[00:02:51]There's pandanus leaves for the blade and there's coconut cordage along with hibiscus cordage as an accent on the edge.

[00:03:00]Just incorporating various techniques that really speak to  the creativity of our ancestors.

[00:03:07][Music] In Honolulu, I work at the Bishop Museum as the museum's cultural adviser and curator for cultural resilience.

[00:03:19]The Bishop Museum was founded by Charles Reed Bishop to honor the legacy of his wife, one of our last Hawaiian chiefesses, Princess Bernice Pauahi.

[00:03:28]All of her family's heirlooms passed to Charles and Charles created the museum to safeguard those treasures.

[00:03:36]And today we have over 25 million specimens representing natural history as well as cultural materials. [Music] So we have four different lei hulu, Hawaiian feather lei using feathers from the endemic birds to Hawaii alongside a mahiole, a feathered helmet that was used by our chiefs to symbolize their status.

[00:04:03]Feathers adorned our ali'i or our royal class.

[00:04:08]They stored or maintained mana which is that spiritual essence or strength that you have within you.

[00:04:15]That mahiole belonged to King Kaumualiʻi of Kauai. All of the individual's mana resided in those physical pieces.

[00:04:25]So an item captured that spiritual energy, mana of that person. [Music] Hawaiian feather capes are known as ʻahu ʻula and it refers to the ancestral capes that chiefs wore.

[00:04:42]No other ʻahu ʻula was made like this.

[00:04:45]This is the only known Hawaiian cape that has upturned feathers of this type.

[00:04:50]To get the feathers to stand this way and everything to be so uniform, it's very intentional that they collected without harming the bird but just using what they need.

[00:05:03]The amount gathered from each species is quite staggering.

[00:05:09]To create something like this took a community of practitioners.

[00:05:15]There would be bird specialists that knew where to acquire the feathers.

[00:05:20]There's the people that knew how to prepare the netting and then the skilled artisans that would  combine all of those materials together.

[00:05:30]Hawaiian forest birds are highly endangered so I use feathers from birds that are food sources and other birds that molt.

[00:05:41]These goose feathers  can be harvested after they molt and then we dye them in different colors.

[00:05:47]This particular lei is called a wili poepoe.

[00:05:51]The natural curve of the feather is coming away from the yarn but with the other style that we do make the feather is the opposite way which makes it very smooth.

[00:06:04]You're doing thousands and thousands of feathers.

[00:06:09]This is called a humupapa.

[00:06:12]It's probably the more contemporary out of the lei styles for Hawaiian feather work.

[00:06:18]It is made to go on a hat.

[00:06:23]But for me, even in creating contemporary pieces, I like to remember that these were for our ali'i. [Music] If you don't tie on the same place every time, it'll look like this the whole way down.

[00:06:40]You have to be able to tie consistently every single feather.

[00:06:45]I always try to get my students to think about how much it takes to be so accurate and so technical.

[00:06:51]The edge of this feather should be in the middle. So when you tied it... That allows them to open their eyes to understanding the ingenuity and the craftsmanship of our ancestors.

[00:07:04]I see you tried to do the no crimp thing on the I love to see that realization and that light bulb come on to them.

[00:07:11]Oh, it's good. [Music] King Kamehameha the First unified all of the islands together. He did this through conquest and battle, becoming the first king of Hawaii in 1810.

[00:07:34]This palace was completed in 1882 at the command of King Kalakaua.

[00:07:39]He built the palace to send a message to the world. We're modern.

[00:07:42]We're educated. We're technologically advanced. Construction here included telephones and gas lights which were replaced by electric lights four years before the White House in Washington DC.

[00:07:57]Kalakaua died in 1891.

[00:08:00]He had been traveling in the United States.

[00:08:03]The Hawaiians did not know he had died until the ship he was expected home on was spotted off of Diamond Head draped in black.

[00:08:13]Queen Lili'uokalani was the heir to her brother and during her reign, American businessmen overthrew the Hawaiian government.

[00:08:25]She was deposed in 1893.

[00:08:27]The provisional  government took down the flag of the Kingdom of Hawaii and raised the American flag.

[00:08:33]The Republic of Hawaii started arresting people and then they arrested Lili'uokalani.

[00:08:38]She was imprisoned in an upstairs room of the palace so she began to speak to the future with thread and fabric, creating a quilt from garments, scraps.

[00:08:52]The Hawaiian flag is very prominent in the quilt.

[00:08:57]It reminds us of who we were and what had happened to us and how strong she was.

[00:09:19]In Hawaiian tradition, you go, you sit, you watch, you learn.

[00:09:25]So, if you don't mind, I'm going to start you from the very beginning and My sister and I, we have an amazing Hawaiian quilting class.

[00:09:33]It's a tradition that's  almost four or five generations in our family.

[00:09:39]So everything that you see here, all the Hawaiian quilts are one solid design. It's not pieces put together.

[00:09:46]It's just one piece like  you have here. And it all... My role is to handle the beginner's table.

[00:09:52]We're going to lay your pattern in place.

[00:09:55]We're going to pin it down.

[00:09:56]We're going to cut it out.

[00:09:57]We tell them how to  lay the pattern, how to cut it out, how to quilt and the ones who say that I don't think this is meant for me.

[00:10:04]Yeah, it is meant for you.

[00:10:06]And we will take the time to teach you how to do it.

[00:10:09]My sister and I come from a very traditional family, raised in the Hawaiian way.

[00:10:15]My mom, Poakalani, was born with only one hand and she was raised by her grandmother and the grandmother would always say, "No, you can't quilt having only one hand."

[00:10:26]But when her grandmother died, she had the dream where her grandmother came to her and says, "You need to look at my quilt patterns."

[00:10:35]And there were 200  full-size 90 by 90 quilt patterns.

[00:10:41]My dad looked at that and said, "Well, why don't we reduce the pattern, make it into a smaller size?"

[00:10:48]And then my mom was actually able to sew and quilt.

[00:10:54]When I started, she was teaching me and she's amazing how she could do it with only one hand and she was like a force of nature.

[00:11:05]She was so helpful. And of course, John with all of these patterns.

[00:11:12]90% of the quilts we have made are John's designs.

[00:11:18]My dad, from the time that he was growing up, he wanted to be a cop because he loved to help people.

[00:11:26]When he retired, he told my mom, "We're probably going to want to start a quilting class."

[00:11:33]He took his designs from culture, tradition, and from his background with flowers 'cause his family were lei sellers.

[00:11:44]And what's interesting is that he would draw only 1/8 of a full design.

[00:11:51]He could actually see the full design by just drawing the 1/8.

[00:12:01]He's drawn over 2,000 patterns and so we have this legacy to work through that is incredible.

[00:12:08]I'm very grateful for it.

[00:12:10]Make your stitches a little smaller if you can.

[00:12:12]We have a table with people who graduate from the beginner's table.

[00:12:16]They still need a little help.

[00:12:19]Then you have the third table who are the ones that make these huge quilts.

[00:12:25]We come to the table and we help each other as we do our own projects.

[00:12:29]So, it's like our own little family now.

[00:12:33]I wanted the jellyfish in a solid color.

[00:12:36]Maybe the ocean would be a little bit of a darker blue. -A dark blue so it'll make it pop. -So, that's how you want to do the fish.

[00:12:43]I had been thinking that I wanted a masculine quilt.

[00:12:47]John and I started talking about the old Hawaiian warriors.

[00:12:52]And then he came up to me a couple weeks later and he says, "Okay, close your eyes" and he led me over to his desk and there the pattern was.

[00:13:02]I thought this is a political statement that he's making because the warrior helmets are surrounded by the finials of the 'Iolani Palace like keeping  them prisoners inside.

[00:13:16]The way I interpreted it was people from the mainland imprisoned the queen in the 'Iolani Palace and took over the islands.

[00:13:24]A lot of the old ways were lost because of that.

[00:13:28]Maybe John had that in mind.

[00:13:33]Cissy and I never thought we would be the teachers, but my mom passed away in 2012.

[00:13:38]My dad in 2018.

[00:13:42]Okay, there you go. That's good.

[00:13:44]Cissy and I, we talked about what are we going to do about the class?

[00:13:47]And we said, you know, all we can do is try.

[00:13:50]That was the mission of my parents to pass that culture on from generation to generation.

[00:13:57]So this is my grandmother.

[00:13:59]She was taught by Poakalani.

[00:14:01]I was seven years old and my grandma would bring me every Saturday and we started quilting. She's done quilts for all of the grandkids. So she's doing a seahorse right now that John designed.

[00:14:13]She wanted whale, whales.

[00:14:15]Dolphins. Yeah. -Dolphin.

[00:14:24]Good job.

[00:14:25]Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:14:27]Am I proud? Absolutely.

[00:14:30]My dad said it's just a squiggly line on a piece of paper, but the quilters bring it to life.

[00:14:37]They keep us going. So, we do it for our quilters.

[00:14:45][Music] [Blowing shell horn] In Hawaii years ago, you know, racism was was here for sure, but it wasn't really addressed.

[00:15:10]In the 70s, there was no teaching the Hawaiian language and culture in public schools.

[00:15:16]I get out of high school and I don't have no idea who my ancestors are. I have no idea where they come from. And I have no reason to be proud that they were the greatest explorers and navigators on the face of the earth.

[00:15:30]But there was a movement that started called the Hawaiian Renaissance. And there was this idea of building a traditional voyaging canoe.

[00:15:39]That became the flashlight that helped our people get out of the dark of the storm.

[00:15:48]This weekend we are commemorating the launch of Hokulea 50 years ago.

[00:15:54]An incredible event that changed the way we see ourselves as Hawaiians, our place here in Polynesia in the Pacific.

[00:16:02][Music] Hawaii is the single most isolated island archipelago on the planet.

[00:16:29]The Polynesians 1,700 years ago came across 2400 miles of open ocean.

[00:16:35]How'd they get here?

[00:16:38]There had built up over time this idea that maybe they had simply drifted by chance and arrived here in Hawaii.

[00:16:46]The existing knowledge was the voyaging canoes couldn't sail from west to east against the predominant trade winds except there were these dreamers and one was Herb Kawainui Kane.

[00:16:59]He was a sculptor and a painter and along with Dr. Ben Finney, who was an anthropologist.

[00:17:06]These two individuals brought together culture and traditions and science.

[00:17:12]They made a quiet promise to build a voyaging crew.

[00:17:16]Let's sail it to Tahiti and let's set the record straight.

[00:17:22][Music] Constructing the canoe, they blended that traditional Polynesian understanding of the artistry of the canoe and then they brought in marine science and engineering to make sure it could do this 2,400 mile voyage.

[00:17:45][Music] The day of the launching, Native Hawaiians were there praying for the canoe. It has to be successful  for our people.

[00:18:01]On board the canoe, it was Herb and Ben and Tommy Holmes, one of the top watermen in Hawaii. [Man speaking Hawaiian] And then we get alongside the canoe to push it down the beach. [Man speaking Hawaiian] [Cheering and applause] And she went in the water so fast. I was like, "Wow, there's just this beautiful canoe." God darn.

[00:18:31][Music] Hokulea is about 62 ft long and about 21 ft wide.

[00:18:42]She looks as much as a traditional ancient canoe as could be designed.

[00:18:50]She's also a sailing canoe and that means that we need wind to power her sails.

[00:18:58]And so she's double masted.

[00:19:02]The crew will rotate on three different watches.

[00:19:05]And when they're off watch, they will usually be resting in one of these bunks. It's very simple.

[00:19:12]We have hatches that store water and food beneath them.

[00:19:16]Here we have the Hoe Uli, a very large paddle.

[00:19:21]And it's got a very large blade that digs back into the water. And you actually will operate it by pushing the water towards the starboard side or towards the port side. And this will direct the course of the canoe as you're sailing.

[00:19:37]But knowing where to go, that is the most important part of steering. That is the job of the navigator on board.

[00:19:46]Just how did the  Polynesians navigate by the stars.

[00:19:52]The day she was launched 50 years ago, there was a Micronesian man. We call him Mau.

[00:19:58]He was master navigator at  a time when there was only six left. Mau became the primary navigator and then the primary teacher for the next 28 years.

[00:20:12]When we're trying to find our way without a modern compass, without a GPS or a sextant, there are about 200 stars that we really focus on.

[00:20:22]But stars are only visible maybe 10% of the time.

[00:20:27]So, as we bring our gaze from the heavens, we come down to a very important element of navigation, which is the ocean itself.

[00:20:35]You can see the patterns of the waves.

[00:20:37]Waves coming from different directions.

[00:20:39]How are they changing throughout the day or over the course of many days?

[00:20:43]You're also relying on what kind of wave motion are you experiencing standing with your two feet on the deck.

[00:20:51]The most advanced navigators are most in tune to those waves.

[00:20:56]On May 1st, 1976, Hokulea left.

[00:21:01]The trip took 31 days to get to Tahiti.

[00:21:07]There were an estimated 17,000 Tahitians there.

[00:21:10]That's more than half the population.

[00:21:12]They were saying, "We're proud of this moment.

[00:21:15]This is our history, our legacy, our traditions.

[00:21:19]This is our canoe."

[00:21:22]There was two crews. One to sail to Tahiti and one to sail it home. So, I was on the trip to come home. I was really scared.

[00:21:33]I spent my whole life in the ocean, but shallow water, coastal stuff.

[00:21:37]Now you're going to be in the deep.

[00:21:43]It took us 23 days to get home.

[00:21:45]No storm, good winds.

[00:21:50]We arrived and there was a celebration of this amazing feat.

[00:21:57]The sound of aloha to welcome Hokulea.

[00:22:00]My grandmother was there. She was so worried, but she knew I had to go. She came up to me and she just put her two hands in my face and she looked me in the eye.

[00:22:17][Drumming and Hawaiian chanting] On this date 50 years ago, a dream came to fruition.

[00:22:33]The initial crew that went down to Tahiti in 1976, many of them are here today. They're the trailblazers that strengthen our connection to our indigenous roots of voyaging and navigating.

[00:22:44]How's about a big hand for all of these these elders who made the dream a reality.

[00:22:52]So the ways that we continue to honor them is by raising up and continuing to sail.

[00:23:00]When this all started, there was the idea that she would only sail one voyage.

[00:23:06]And yet, 50 years later, she's actually circumnavigated the planet and has sailed hundreds of thousands of miles with hundreds of crew members.

[00:23:16]We're only going to be more and more off the wind probably.

[00:23:19]Today, I am the first woman to lead, captain, and navigate the Hokulea.

[00:23:31][Music] In Hawaii, we were so crushed, our culture.

[00:23:37]But Hokulea opened that door to go and change things and be who we are.

[00:23:44]Native people, Hawaiian people.

[00:23:51][Music]