Royal Hawaiian Featherwork FIG. 11: Feather lei, lei hulu. Hawaiian Islands. 19th century. Yellow ‘o‘o (Moho sp.) feathers, red Kuhl’s lorikeet (Vini kuhlii) feathers, black ribbon. L: 36.5 cm. Provenance: Estate of Victoria Ward; 1962 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, purchased from the Estate of Victoria Ward. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Ethnology Collection, D.02620/1962.062. FIG. 12: Feather lei, lei hulu. Hawaiian Islands. 19th century. Red and green Kuhl’s lorikeet (Vini kuhlii) feathers, red yarn, black ribbon. L: 54.8 cm. Provenance: Princess Victoria Ka‘iulani; A. S. Cleghorn; 1911 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, gift of the Estate of A. S. Cleghorn. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Princess Victoria Ka‘iulani Collection, 10386/1911.005. FIG. 13: Feather lei, lei hulu. Hawaiian Islands. 20th century. Green-dyed goose (Anatidae sp.), feathers, yellow-dyed Hawaiian domestic fowl or moa (Gallus gallus) feathers, yellow yarn, black ribbon. L: 76.5 cm. Provenance: Lucy K. Davis and Edgar Henriques; Lucy K. Peabody; 1932 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, bequest of Lucy K. Peabody. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Henriques Collection, D.01616/1932.079. 77 triangles and the body of the garment decorated with crescents.18 A historical source noted by Charlot stated that the crescents on cloaks represented moons.19 He theorizes that “circles might, then, represent full moons and since nights were connected to particular gods, such designs might refer to the particular gods of a family or days of birth, etc.”20 A cloak with circular motifs is one of two collected in August 1789 by Captain Robert Gray when he visited the Hawaiian Islands on board the Columbia Rediviva, the fi rst American ship to circumnavigate the globe (fi gs. 16a and b). These garments are associated with “Attoo, the crown prince,” who sailed with Gray to Boston and took part in a procession to honor the ship. The historian Ernest Dodge has indicated that donning this cloak, Attoo “moved up State Street like a living fl ame.”21 It is one of the largest cloaks known. Kaeppler has attributed the design of circles as being representative of the pillars of the earth, “on the ‘sides’ of the ocean.”22 As described by scholar Samuel Manaiakalani Kamakau in the nineteenth century, the pillars sit “at the edge of the ocean next to the base of the sky that lies around the platform of the earth” and hold up the earth and sky.23 Although the featherwork designs are one of the most compelling aspects of these garments, information about the relationships of the cosmic motifs and forms to the sacred and political function of the garments was sparsely recorded in the written record, and the oral histories relating to them are few. Although featherwork dates back many centuries, the exhibition focuses on pieces made for Hawaiian ali‘i (chiefs) and royals beginning in the late eighteenth century and ending just before the twentieth century. This period saw the arrival of European explorers, unifi cation of the islands in 1810, the prolongation of the Kamehameha dynasty through 1874, widescale conversion to Christianity after the arrival of missionaries in 1820, the overthrow of the Hawaiian government in 1893, and annexation by the United States in 1898. In the late eighteenth century, featherwork garments worn by ali‘i were made in many shapes and sizes. Their materials and methods of manufacture varied as well. Some were trapezoidal with straight necklines, made with honeycreeper and domestic fowl feathers (fi gs. 9 and 10). Three are included in the exhibition and demonstrate the application of feathers still attached to bird skin glued to bands of barkcloth or plaited plant fi ber that were placed over the netting at the top of the capes. The stiff
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