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78 FIGS. 16a and b (left and right): Cloak, ‘ahu ‘ula. Hawaiian Islands. Possibly mid-18th century. Red ‘i‘iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) feathers, yellow ‘o‘o (Moho sp.) feathers, olona (Touchardia latifolia) fi ber. 168.5 x 283.5 cm. Provenance: Attoo, the crown prince, Kaua‘i chief; 1789 Joseph Barrell, voyage of the Columbia Rediviva; Captain Joy; Mrs. Benjamin Joy; John Benjamin Joy; Charles Henry Joy; 1912 Mrs. Charles Henry Joy; 1913 purchased by Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Ethnology Collection, 11094/1913.001. David Malo, an important native Hawaiian historian of the nineteenth century born in the 1790s and raised in the court of Kamehameha I,26 wrote, “The ‘ahu‘ula was a possession most costly and precious, not obtainable by the common people, only by the ali‘i. It was much worn by them as an insignia in time of war and when they went into battle. The ‘ahu‘ula . . . was an object of plunder in every battle.”27 A storied ‘ahu ‘ula with three sweeping red crescents and a red neckline was worn by Chief Kekuaokalani, a nephew of Kamehameha I, who was appointed by him as the guardian of the god Kuka‘ilimoku (fi g. 7). In 1819, Kekuaokalani was killed in the Battle of Kuamo‘o on the island of Hawai‘i. His wife, Chiefess Manono, fought beside him against the forces of Kamehameha II, who had ordered abolishment of the kapu system that governed social and religious customs. In The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People, written by King David Kalakaua in 1888, he stated that “No characters in Hawaiian history stand forth with a sadder prominence, or add a richer tint to the vanishing chivalry of the race, than Kekuaokalani and his courageous and devoted wife, Manono, the last defenders in arms of the Hawaiian gods.”28 Upon Kekuaokalani’s death on the battlefi eld, the cloak was taken as a prize for Kamehameha II and subsequently passed down to Kamehameha III. collars that resulted provided protection from fl ying sling stones used as weapons during battles.24 Roughly half of the fewer than fi fteen trapezoidal capes known to exist today were collected by Captain James Cook during his third voyage and stay in Hawai‘i in 1778–1779. Though John Webber, artist of the voyage, depicted this type of cape in the ink and watercolor drawing, A Chief of Atooi (1778), on view in the exhibition, it appears that this style of cape did not endure in the 1780s. Other unique fashions of the late eighteenth century on view include capes of great variation in size with rounded bottom edges and elaborate geometric designs of yellow and red feathers combined with moa (domestic fowl) feathers (fi g. 8). Ten years after Cook’s visit, an engraving of a chief, Tianna, included in the account of John Meares’ voyage from China to the Northwest Coast of North America from 1788–1789, depicts him wearing a large-style cloak with a circular neckline and alternating triangles on the border, most likely of red and yellow feathers (fi g. 15). It is distinct in design and style from the earlier trapezoidal capes, showing a change in style that is refl ected in most of the cloaks that circulated in the early nineteenth century when red and yellow feathers were used almost exclusively. Hundreds of ali‘i (chiefs) are recorded in Hawaiian history and ‘ahu ‘ula were “worn proudly on the battlefi eld.”25 In Hawaiian Antiquities, FIG. 14 (right): Cloak, ‘ahu ‘ula. Hawaiian Islands. Pre 1825. Red ‘i‘iwi (Vestiaria coccinea) feathers, yellow and black ‘o‘o (Moho sp.) feathers, olona (Touchardia latifolia) fi ber. 144.3 x 226 cm. Provenance: 1825 Honorable William Keith, third son of the 7th Earl of Kintore of Aberdeenshire, Scotland (during HMS Blonde voyage); 1969 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, gift of Helena Keith, Countess of Kintore, widow of the 11th Earl of Kintore. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Ethnology Collection, 1969.181. FIG. 15 (below): Unknown artist, Tianna, a Prince of Atooi (Kaua‘i ), One of the Sandwich Islands, 1790. Engraving. 30 x 25 cm. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Library, A. W. F. Fuller Collection, 1964.0280. ART on view


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