Above, Kili Redondo (left) and Leinani Lozi (right), oli (chant) at the opening of the 2023 Hilo Lei Day Festival at Kalākaua Park. Photo by Rita French
Lei, the lovely garlands of Hawaiʻi, are made of many different materials, from shells to ivory, to flowers, to feathers – so many things can be crafted into beautiful adornments.
These same techniques can be used to craft other types of adornments as well.
A garland is a lei.
Worn around the neck, open or closed, it is a lei ʻāʻī – a neck lei.
Lei Day 2023, Kalākaua Park Photo by Rita French
Worn on the head, it is a lei poʻo – a head lei.
Leinani Lozi wears on her head a lei poʻo of kupukupu (native sword fern) in the hili style. Around her neck she wears a lei lāʻī in the hilo style. Photo by Rita French
Worn on a hat, it is a lei pāpale – a hat lei.
Leinaʻala Lassiter wears a lei pāpale (hat lei) of loke (rose) and lei ʻāʻī of pua kiele (gardenia) in the kui style as she MCs the 2023 Hilo Lei Day Festival at Kalākaua Park. Photo by Rita French
A short garland worn on the wrist or ankle is a kūpeʻe.
Marcia Timboy, a member of the Hilo Lei Day Festival Board of Directors, show her kūpeʻelima (bracelet) of fern, liko, and other foliage. Around her neck she wears a lei pūpū, a shell lei ʻāʻī. Photo by Leilehua YuenAn unidentified student wears a kūpeʻe wāwae (anklet) of lau kukui (kukui leaf). Photo by Leilehua Yuen
A short garland or a floral arrangement worn in the hair or as a boutonnière is a wehi, wēwehi, or wehiwehi.
Recently we have been hearing that some people are claiming wēwehi are called “koko” or “coco” in Hawaiian. This is not true. “Koko” means “blood” in Hawaiian. “Kōkō” is a carrying net. “Kokō” is to crow or cackle. “Coco” is not a Hawaiian word.
Photo by Leilehua Yuen
There are many ways to craft a lei or a wēwehi. The two main ways of creating a lei are to kui lei (to sew or string a lei), and to haku lei (to braid, weave, or compile/fabricate a lei). This can be confusing because haku has several definitions, and is both a noun and a verb.
Here I am sorting my digital collection of ʻEmalani images, trying to arrange them chronologically, to find provenance of them all, and to start including a little history.
With Dr. & Mrs. Rooke. Original photo at the Bishop Museum. https://digitalarchives.hawaii.gov/item/ark:70111/1z99Emma and Alexander Liholiho were married on June 19, 1856
Alekanetero ʻIolani Kalanikualiholiho Maka o ʻIouli Kūnuiākea o Kūkāʻilimoku (Kamehameha IV) and Queen Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke 1862 image by Henry L Chase , Front Street, Honolulu
1865
Photograph by Camille Silvy, LondonStudio at 38 Porcester TerraceLondonCarte-de-visite depicting a full-length portrait of Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke, then Queen Dowager of the Kingdom of Hawaii. She is standing and faces three-quarters left. Her hands are together in front of her, left hand over right. She is wearing a Western style dress, with a light coloured headdress and a veil. On the left of the photograph stands a table with books on it. A curtain is hanging behind the table. Provenance: From an album of ‘Royal Portraits’ compiled by Queen Victoria Royal Collection Trust
1866
Emma Gardener collection (?) dated 1865, however Queen Emma did not arrive in New York until 1866After her European tour, Queen Emma arrived in New York in August of 1866. This image is on paper produced by Edward and Henry T. Anthony & Co
After her European tour, Queen Emma arrived in New York in August of 1866. This image was published by Edward and Henry T. Anthony & CoIdentified as a Henry L. Chase image.Carte de Visite by Bradley and Rutholfson, San Francisco, October 1866. This is the image most commonly mis-identified as Mary Ellen Pleasant, due to it being used by Helen Holdredge in her book on Mrs. Pleasant.Carte de visite of Queen Emma which has been altered and identified as Mary Ellen Pleasant.What I think is especially charming about how she signed this carte de visite: “On sea,” which is how we would say it in Hawaiian. She then corrected it to “at sea,” the English phrasing.USS Vanderbilt
186?
Although this image is sometimes identified as the wedding of ʻEmalani and Liholiho, Kamehameha IV, it is not. The image is a montage of several members of the Hawaiian royalty based on their photos. While many of their lifetimes did overlap, this is not an accurate representation of a specific moment in time. The image of ʻEmalani is based on a photo of her wearing widow’s weeds, therefore the image of her is post-1863, the year her husband died. In it, she is wearing the same gown as in the carte de visite below. The images must, therefore, be at least a year prior to 1870.
1871
1871 by Henry L. Chase https://digitalarchives.hawaii.gov/item/ark:70111/1z8N
1880
ʻEmalani was a renowned horsewoman. In this image she is wearing an English-style riding habit accented in the inimitable Hawaiian style. 1880 https://digitalarchives.hawaii.gov/item/ark:70111/1Dw0This stately image was made by Andreas Avelino Montano, a Colombian from California. He came to Hawaii and was active from 1876 to 1883 as a photographer and portrait painters for Queen Emma and other fashionable aliis. He had a skill for portraying Hawaiian women. His studio at 87 Fort Street in Honolulu became known as Hale Paʻikiʻi (photographer house). He tutored the painter Charles Furneaux. He married Mary Jane Fayerweather, a quarter Hawaiian and three quarter Caucasian woman, sister of Julia Fayerweather Afong, and widow of Benoni R. Davidson. Although she was five years his senior they had four children: Emma, Rose, Maggie and Harry. He later retired photography and became a rancher.1883
By the time the missionaries got here on 4 April 1820, Hawaiian women were very familiar with European clothing and fashion. Remember, Europeans had been coming in increasing numbers since 1778, so we’d been familiar with Western garments for over 40 years. They were nothing new. The “upper crust” already were using quantities of imported fabrics in making pāʻ ū and malo because they were status symbols, much like high-end import goods today.
Hawaiian people already had been wearing European clothing, occasionally as full suits, more often individual pieces as fashion accessories, for decades. Kamehameha, himself, often dressed in European clothing.
Drawing by Louis Choris from sketches made from life in 1816.
Despite the “common wisdom,” I sincerely doubt that the missionary wives were the first European women that Hawaiians met in person, though I am sure that coming in such a large group as they did, and with the intent of staying, they were a great curiosity.
Women at sea was not the rarity the common English narrative would have us believe. Most of us have heard the stories of women who disguised themselves as men and went to sea. There also were many women who sailed as women, to the extent of captaining their own ships, though that was more common in Asia than in Europe.
A number of ship captains, both merchants and whalers, sailed with their families on-board. A captains wife often trained in navigation. Many kept the ship’s financial records, acting as purser and chief steward.
In 1846 a smallpox epidemic broke out aboard the whaler Powhaton, out of Martha’s Vinyard. Caroline Mayhew, wife of Captain William Mayhew, knew navigation and practical medicine. She took over as captain and cared for her husband and those crew who were ill, saving their lives.
Also, since the first European ships came to replenished their water barrels in our rivers and streams, Hawaiian men had been working on sailing ships – they were considered some of the world’s best sailors and highly desired – for decades – so they were quite familiar with fashions around the world. I’m sure more than a few of them brought home fabric and garments as gifts for nā wāhine in their ʻ ohana.
In this watercolor, we see a fashion-forward aliʻ i wahine (noblewoman) sitting for a portrait wearing her European style blouse with a traditional pāʻ ū (skirt). We know her high rank by the lei niho palaoa (carved whale-tooth necklace) she wears. Louis Choris painted this in 1816, four years before the American missionaries arrived.
Femme des iles Sandwich 1816 watercolor by Louis Choris
We can see that Hawaiian women already were interested in world fashion well before the missionaries arrived. The world had changed, and artists such as Choris were having a hard time finding the untouched Hawaiʻ i of the past.
Kalākua Kaheiheimālie watercolor by Clarissa Chapman Armstrong. This may be the first holokū made in Hawaiʻ i. Her necklace is a lei hala, fashioned from the keys of the hala (pandanus) tree. In her hair is a large comb, possibly of shell or ivory. After the death of Kamehameha, Kalākua later married Ulumāheihei Hoapili.
When this whole batch of foreign women showed up, they were quite the curiosity. Kalākua knew that people would be intrigued with them.
She wanted to be in the lead of the fashion trends and made a point of greeting them as soon as possible. Immediately, she had the missionary women make her a gown. To be sure to could be done, she brought her own cloth. she then arranged to have all of the women sit and sew her new gown. It would take all of them, as she wanted it complete so that she could wear it when she disembarked from their ship. This was a huge status and fashion coup for her.
Lucy Thurston wrote:
“Kalākua brought a web of white cambric to have a dress made for herself in the fashion of our ladies, and was very particular in her wish to have it finished while sailing along the western side of the island, before reaching the king.”
“Monday morning April 3d (1820,) the first sewing circle was formed that the sun ever looked down upon in the Hawaiian realm. Kalākua was directress. She requested all the seven white ladies to take seats with them on mats, on the deck of the Thaddeus.”
It would be comparable to a former US president’s wife going on board a visiting ship from China and coming off wearing a custom gown in Chinese silk. All of a sudden, that garment and fabric is all the rage and all the upper class want them.
I think it was a masterstroke of fashion diplomacy. This was the year after her husband, Kamehameha Paiʻ ea had died. The various chiefs were jockeying and re-establishing status and alliances, and the same was happening among the many wives Kamehameha had left behind. In one move Kalākua established that she could make the missionary women work for her, that she was a trendsetter, and placed herself in a powerful position of diplomatic friendship with the missionary wives. By bringing her own fabric, she assured that none could think she was impressed by trade cloth and trinkets handed out. She needed no handouts. She would allow them to do her bidding.
Her own experience living in the highest circles of political power had taught her how and with whom to make alliances. As Kamehameha had used relationships with newcomers to up his own political game in his rise to power, developing a relationship with these newcomers gave her greater negotiating strength with Kaʻ ahumanu, the most powerful of Kamehameha’s wives, in establishing herself in the hierarchy of the new political paradigm.
On the missionary side, the women immediately took the opportunity to use teaching sewing these new garments as a ministry. Women who converted to Christianity did, indeed, adopt the holokū for daily wear, but it took over a decade for other women to follow the trend in daily wear. It was almost 1840 before women in general wore the garment. Like other fashion trends around the world, the early adopters tended to be the more affluent / higher socially placed, and the more urban dwelling people. Outlying areas tend to be more conservative regarding change.
Even at that late date, Clarissa Chapman Armstrong who sailed for Hawaiʻ i in 1831 and taught literacy and Bible study classes for women for the next couple of decades (interspersed with a trip to the Marquesas) wrote that “Week after week passes and we see nothing but naked, filthy, wicked heathen with souls as dark as the tabernacles which they inhabit.”
If the missionary women had ever truly attempted to cover the bodies of Hawaiian women to keep the pure eyes of their missionary men from being tempted by lusts of the flesh, they failed miserably.
What succeeded in clothing both Hawaiian women and men was fashion’s fancy and sartorial aspiration.
The days of Hawaiian women being content with a simple wrap skirt and shawl were gone forever.
Femme des iles Sandwich Portrait of a woman from the Hawaiian Islands, wearing a cloth wrap skirt, a pair of earrings, a whale tooth shaped necklace, and her hair short with a section of hair limed at the front. 1822 lithograph, brown and yellow tone with additional red tone.Missionaries preaching in a kukui grove. Drawn 1838-1842, published 1845. Note the variety of clothing styles, from Hawaiian to European.
The holokū, so named due to its ability to make the wearer appear “evenly plump, stout, symmetrical,”was not worn alone. Under it, a loose-fitting shift absorbed perspiration and gave some shape and body to the garment. Cut to a similar pattern as the holokū, this shift had shortened sleeves and no train or trailing hem. Thus it was named the mu‘umu‘u (cut off / amputated). As time went on the muʻ umuʻ u also became daywear instead of just an undergarment.
I think the old narrative of missionary women covering the Hawaiian women to hide them from their men is giving too much power to the male gaze. It really disenfranchises Hawaiian women who had a great deal of agency prior to westernization/colonization. If my own relatives are any example, I really doubt that anyone has ever been able to force Hawaiian women to wear something they didn’t want to.
Newspapers Ka Elele, 26 Aug 1848 Ka Hae Hawai‘i, 19 Dec 1856 Ka Hae Hawai‘i, 1 Jul 1857 Ka Hae Hawai‘i, 2 May 1860 Ka Hae Hawai‘i, 10 Oct 1860 Ka Hoku o ka Pakipika, 28 Nov 1861 Ke Kumu Hawai‘i, 1 Feb 1837 Nupepa Kuokoa, 12 Jul 1862 Nupepa Kuokoa, 22 Jul 1865 Nupepa Kuokoa, 9 Jun 1866 Nupepa Kuokoa, 23 Feb 1867
Manuscripts Arthur, Linda Boynton; Fossilized Fashion in Hawai‘i; Washington State University
Books Grimshaw, Patricia; New England Missionary Wives, Hawaiian Women, and the “Cult of True Womanhood”; University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Robert, Dana Lee; American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice; Mercer University Press.
At one time, the people of Hawai‘i nei used leaves of mai‘a (banana), hala (pandanus) and kī (cordyline) to clothe themselves. At this time, a man named Maikoha lived in Nu‘uanu Valley at Pu‘iwa, beside the waters of a stream. Maikoha had two daughters, Lauhuiki and La‘ahana who were hard working and obedient.
The three lived for many years, planting and farming beside the stream, catching river shrimps to eat with their vegetables, and trading with the neighbors when they wanted fish from the sea.
Eventually Maikoha became old and knew he would soon die. He told his daughters to bury him beside the stream, and that soon after his burial a plant would grow from his body, and this plant would be useful to them.
The young women followed his instructions, and soon a plant did grow. Their father came to them in dreams and taught them to strip the bark and pound it into large sheets, which could be fashioned conveniently into clothing and coverings. They learned to take the sap of plants and make beautifully colored dyes to decorate this new kind of garment.
Pāʻū and kīhei, and details of kapa made by Leilehua Yuen in 1999 at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park. It was part of a project to recreate clothing worn by residents of the area prior to 1778.Leilehua Yuen stamping a kapa malo (Hawaiian bark cloth loincloth), at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical park at a cultural festival.Jessica Yuen beats kapa, Hawaiian bark cloth, at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park. About 1995.Men in hula attire wearing dog tooth anklets. They are dancing a hula ʻ ulīʻ ulī. Men of the Sandwich Islands Dancing, watercolor painting on paper by Louis Choris, 1816, Honolulu Museum of Art, accession 12155aA depiction of two male inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands (now known as the Hawaiian Islands). 1816, Louis Choris.
