Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hula Pahu

“For many weeks in succession, the first sound that fell on the ear in the morning was the loud beating of the drum, summoning the dancers to assemble. … Day after day, several hours in the day, the noisy hula – drumming, singing, and dancing in the open air, constituted the great attraction …”  (Hiram Bingham)

The Hawaiian term ‘Pahu’ translates into ’drum’, ‘Niu’ being the Hawaiian word for ‘coconut’.   The traditional pahu hula (hula drum) was carved from coconut stumps and covered with sharkskin (although possibly other types of native wood (koa, breadfruit, etc.) may have been used.)

The pahu is carved out of a single piece of wood; a bowl-like septum separates the sound chamber from the base or carved arches and a sharkskin membrane is lashed with sennit to the base.

The original material used for the Pahu’s waha (head) was either shark or ray skin. Heiau Pahu tended to be originally made with a waha of ray skin, while non-religious Pahu often used sharkskin.  (Kalikiano)

Pahu were made with great care. In pre-European times (pre-1778) each part of the drum’s body, especially the sennit, ‘aha, used to lash the sharkskin to the base, required special prayers which were chanted during the processes of making the sennit and lashing the skin to the drum.

The power of the prayers became entrapped in the lashing, the wood, the skin and remained with the drum always. The rows of inverted arches carved out of the base, called hoaka, are visually symbolic of outstretched hands supporting joined human figures overhead and are poetically symbolic of the shadows of gods (hoaka means to cast a shadow.)  (Smithsonian)

“Their wooden drum, with one sharkskin head, is beaten by the fingers of the musician, sitting cross-legged beside it as the uncovered end stands on the ground.”  (Hiram Bingham)

Laʻa is generally credited for introducing the drum to Hawaiʻi.  Laʻamaikahiki (Laʻa-from-Kahiki) brought the first sharkskin pahu to Hawaiʻi from Kahiki (Tahiti,) “sounding over the oceans” sometime around AD 1250.

On nearing the land he waked the echoes with the stirring tones of his drum, which so astonished the people that they followed him from point to point along the coast and heaped favors upon him whenever he came ashore.

Laʻa was an enthusiastic patron of the hula and is said to have made a tour of the islands, in which he instructed the natives in new forms of the dance.  (Emerson)

The shorter variety of Pahu (Pahu Hula) was used to beat time in Hula dances and to accompany chanting mele. It was made to be played by a standing person (always a priest, Kahuna, or Chief), whereas the Hula Pahu was made to more suitably accommodate a seated or kneeling individual.

The sounds of the pahu are referred to as leo (voice) and the drum head is referred to as waha (mouth.)  During state rituals in the large open-air heiau, the pahu was a receptacle for a god who spoke through the ‘voice’ of the drum.

There is reason to believe that the original use of the pahu was in connection with the services of the temple, and that its adaptation to the hālau was simply transference from one to another religious use.

Music, particularly drumming, was traditionally important in Hawaiian ritual. A drum would have been played as part of hula – a larger version was used in temples.  The seated musician normally played the pahu with one hand and a smaller drum, sometimes tied to the knee, with the other.  (British Museum)

Hawaiian musical traditions are essentially vocal. Percussive musical instruments are never played alone, but always to accompany chanting and dancing.

The pahu is an instrument of power and sacredness that exemplifies traditions of ritual music and dance that are steeped in time. The drum is both a sound producer and a symbol. Its music represents the fundamental principles of Hawaiian perceptions of time and timing in traditional music.

Pahu were given proper names and passed down from generation to generation as objects of mana (power) and kapu (sacredness) producing sounds that carried the knowledge of generations of aliʻi and kahuna (specialists, including priests.)  (Smithsonian)

Hula is a form of cultural expression of the utmost complexity, reaching back through the centuries to a time in the islands when history was recorded entirely by story and song, and passed along to succeeding generations by skilled individuals.

Since the essence of modern Hawaiian Hula is a medium of expression for communicating thoughts, stories and feelings that are for the most part translated by patterns of bodily motion in which not just the arms and hands, but the entire body, act as story telling devices.  (Kalikiano)

Hula combines dance and chant or song to tell stories, recount past events and provide entertainment for its audience.  With a clear link between dancer’s actions and the chant or song, the dancer uses rhythmic lower body movements, mimetic or depictive hand gestures and facial expression, as part of this performance. (ksbe-edu)

“The hula was a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s minds. Its view of life was idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.” 

“(W)hen it comes to the hula and the whole train of feelings and sentiments that made their entrances and exits in the hālau (the hall of the hula) one perceives that in this he has found the door to the heart of the people.”  (Emerson, son of Missionaries)

In describing a hula danced before Keōpūolani and her daughter Nāhiʻenaʻena, in Lāhainā in 1823, Missionary CS Stewart wrote:  “The motions of the dance were slow and graceful, and, in this instance, free from indelicacy of action; and the song, or rather recitative, accompanied by much gesticulation, was dignified and harmonious in its numbers.”

”The theme of the whole, was the character and praises of the queen and princess, who were compared to everything sublime in nature, exalted as gods.” (Missionary Stewart)

“This was intended, in part at least, as an honor and gratification to the king, especially at Honolulu, at his expected reception there, on his removal from Kailua.  Apparently, not all hula was viewed as bad or indecent.”

“In the hula, the dancers are often fantastically decorated with figured or colored kapa, green leaves, fresh flowers, braided hair, and sometimes with a gaiter on the ancle, set with hundreds of dog’s teeth, so as to be considerably heavy, and to rattle against each other in the motion of the feet.”  (Hiram Bingham)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kūpeʻe Niho ʻIlio

“The hula was a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s minds.”

“Its view of life was idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.”

“As to subject-matter, its warp was spun largely from the bowels of the old-time mythology into cords through which the race maintained vital connection with its mysterious past.”

“The people were superstitiously religious; one finds their drama saturated with religious feeling; hedged about with tabu, loaded down with prayer and sacrifice. “

“They were poetical; nature was full of voices for their ears; their thoughts came to them as images; nature was to them an allegory; all this found expression in their dramatic art.”

“The ancient Hawaiians did not personally and informally indulge in the dance for their own amusement, as does pleasure loving society at the present time.”

“We are wont to think of the old-time Hawaiians as light-hearted children of nature, given to spontaneous outbursts of song and dance as the mood seized them …”

“… quite as the rustics of ‘merrie England’ joined hands and tripped ‘the light fantastic toe’ in the joyous month of May or shouted the harvest home at a later season. “

“The genius of the Hawaiian was different.”

“With him the dance was an affair of premeditation, an organized effort, guarded by the traditions of a somber religion. And this characteristic, with qualifications, will be found to belong to popular Hawaiian sport and amusement of every variety.” (Nathaniel Bright Emerson.)

The costume of the hula dancer was much the same for both sexes, its chief article a simple short skirt about the waist, the pa-u.  When the time has come for a dance, the halau becomes one common dressing room. At a signal from the kumu the work begins. The putting on of each article of costume is accompanied by a special song.

First come the ku-pe‘e, anklets of whale teeth, bone, shell-work, dog-teeth, fiber-stuffs, and what not. While all stoop in unison they chant the song of the anklet:

Aala kupukupu ka uka o Kane-hoa.
E ho-a!
Hoa na llma o ka makani, he Wai-kaloa
He Wai-kaloa ka makanl anu Lihue.
Alina lehua i kau ka opua
Ku’u pua,
Ku’u pua i‘ini e ku-i a lei.
Ina ia oe ke lei ‘a mai ia.

Fragrant the grasses of high Kane-hoa.
Bind on the anklets, bind!
Bind with finger deft as the wind
That cools the air of this bower.
Lehua bloom pales at my flower,
O sweetheart of mine,
Bud that I’d pluck and wear in my wreath,
If thou wert but a flower!
(Anklet Song, Emerson)

“In times long past anklets made from hundreds of dog teeth which, strung on a foundation of olona netting in much the same manner as feathers were woven into the fabric of a fiber mesh to make the famous feather capes, were worn in the hula to accentuate the rhythms of the feet in dancing. They were called kupee niho ilio, dog tooth bracelets.” (Roberts)

’The canine teeth of dogs (’ilio) with holes drilled through the root and strung on a cord have been regarded as dog-tooth necklaces (lei ’ilio).’

‘They may have been used temporarily as such, but it is more likely that they were so strung until a sufficient number had been collected to make the dog-tooth leg ornament characteristic of Hawaii.’

’Dogtooth leg ornaments (kupe’e niho ’ilio), worn by men dancers, are peculiar to Hawaii.’ (Buck)  They could also be considered instruments, as they underlined the sounds of stamping feet.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hula – How the Missionaries Felt

“Hula is the language of the heart, and therefore the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people.”  (attributed to Kalākaua)

“Their dances … are prefaced with a slow, solemn song, in which all the party join, moving their legs, and gently striking their breasts, in a manner, and with attitudes, that are perfectly easy and graceful … .”  (Captain Cook Journal, 1779)

“Hula is not just a dance, but a way of life, an ancient art that tells of Hawaiʻi’s rich history and spirituality.” (attributed to many)

As hula is the dance that accompanies Hawaiian mele, the function of hula is therefore an extension of the function of mele in Hawaiian society. While it was the mele that was the essential part of the story, hula served to animate the words, giving physical life to the moʻolelo (stories.)  (Bishop Museum)

Hula combines dance and chant or song to tell stories, recount past events and provide entertainment for its audience.

With a clear link between dancer’s actions and the chant or song, the dancer uses rhythmic lower body movements, mimetic or depictive hand gestures and facial expression, as part of this performance. (ksbe-edu)

So what did the missionaries really think?

As Hiram Bingham once noted, they “were wasting their time in learning, practising, or witnessing the hula, or heathen song and dance.”  (Remember, heathen simply means ‘without religion, as in without God.’)

I think some might be surprised on how some missionaries viewed hula.

“The hula was a religious service, in which poetry, music, pantomime, and the dance lent themselves, under the forms of dramatic art, to the refreshment of men’s minds. Its view of life was idyllic, and it gave itself to the celebration of those mythical times when gods and goddesses moved on the earth as men and women and when men and women were as gods.”  (Emerson, son of missionaries)

“(W)hen it comes to the hula and the whole train of feelings and sentiments that made their entrances and exits in the halau (the hall of the hula) one perceives that in this he has found the door to the heart of the people.”  (Emerson, son of Missionaries)

In describing a hula danced before Keōpūolani and her daughter Nāhiʻenaʻena, in Lāhainā in 1823, Missionary CS Stewart wrote:

“The motions of the dance were slow and graceful, and, in this instance, free from indelicacy of action; and the song, or rather recitative, accompanied by much gesticulation, was dignified and harmonious in its numbers.”

“The theme of the whole, was the character and praises of the queen and princess, who were compared to everything sublime in nature, exalted as gods.” (Missionary Stewart)

In describing the challenges between commitment to hula, as well as their studies, Sybil Bingham, wife of Hiram noted, “… most of them (are) indeed in earnest to receive instruction as the conduct of each day testifies.”

” Three of them are obliged to attend the hula hula every afternoon. At the close of the school this forenoon, and also last Saturday, they proposed going quickly to eat and return immediately that they might not lose the privilege of the bible lesson. …”

“We were gratified after the vigorous effort made for the hula hula to see our scholars both at public worship and sabbath school.”  (Sybil Bingham)

And how did Hiram Bingham feel (the one most often accused of a Hula ban?)

“This was intended, in part at least, as an honor and gratification to the king, especially at Honolulu, at his expected reception there, on his removal from Kailua.  Apparently, not all hula was viewed as bad or indecent.”  (Missionary Hiram Bingham)

“In the hula, the dancers are often fantastically decorated with figured or colored kapa, green leaves, fresh flowers, braided hair, and sometimes with a gaiter on the ancle, set with hundreds of dog’s teeth, so as to be considerably heavy, and to rattle against each other in the motion of the feet.”  (Hiram Bingham)

“They had been interwoven too with their superstitions, and made subservient to the honor of their gods, and their rulers, either living or departed and deified.” (Hiram Bingham)

The missionaries most often opposed nudity, drinking and ‘wasting’ time.  Even today, laws forbid nudity in public; frown on excessive drinking and, likewise, we tend to encourage people to be productive members of their community (kind of like the concerns expressed by the early missionaries, including Bingham.)

So what happened?  Was hula ever effectively banned?  Did hula stop?

“Missionary influence, while strong, never wiped out the hula as a functional part of the Hawaiian society. Faced with this undeniable fact, the authorities sought to curb performances by regulation.”  (Barrere, Pukui & Kelly)

While not effectively stopping it completely, it does appear the missionaries did play a role on the Sabbath.  “The king Kaumualiʻi appears exceedingly interested in what he now learns from the bible through the interpretation of Honolii.”

“The Capt. of the schooner informed us that last week the king sent out his crier, prohibiting dancing and work in the “Kalo patches” on the Sabbath. Honolii gives us some account of this in his letter to Mr. B.”

“After giving many of the particulars relative to the king’s desire to hear the word of the Great Jehovah he says “I, John, told the king ‘your people have hula hula on the Sabbath day? The king say, yes'”

“Then I ask him, ‘Can you wait hula hula on this day? Your people may hula hula on Monday, this day it is holy. Then king say we may stop hula hula on another Sabbath day.'”  (Sybil Bingham)

In 1830, Kaʻahumanu issued an oral proclamation in which she instructed the people, in part: “The hula is forbidden, the chant (olioli), the song of pleasure (mele), foul speech, and bathing by women in public places.” (Kamakau)

Although it was apparently never formally rescinded, the law was so widely ignored, especially after Kaʻahumanu died in 1832, that it virtually ceased to exist.

Kaʻahumanu was not the only Aliʻi who sought to ban hula: “A hula in the village today at the house formerly occupied by Kaomi. It was commenced at an early hour and continued until noon and was broken up only by the appearance of Kinau to put a stop to it.”

“The notice that a hula was going on reached her and she sent word by Kalaaulana to Kaomi to put a stop to it & shut up the house”.  (Missionary Levi Chamberlain)

There are many references to King Kamehameha III regularly watching the hula.  “The young king (Kamehameha III,) … has been induced, however, to coincide with the other chiefs in all public acts.”

“His conduct, therefore, as a private person, though far from correct, has had but little influence. But recently, he has asserted more openly his independence; & he has done it by pursuing a course, which he knew was altogether opposed to the wishes of nearly all the high chiefs. He has revived the hula, or native dance”.   (EW Clark)

He was not alone.  “Unquestionably many christian Hawaiians considered hula immoral, and attempted to extirpate it. A series of letters from the Hawaiian journal Nupepa Kukoa in 1864-66 complains about hula schools operating in Maui, Oʻahu and Kauai.”

“These letters are interesting because they show that hula continued to flourish … ‘the “power and influence” of the national dance was never threatened … hula remained the favorite entertainment of Hawaiians of all classes.’”  (kaimi-org)

In 1836, it was reported the French consul for Manila visited Honolulu, and attended a state banquet hosted by the King. Part of the festivities was a formal hula performance.

In 1850, the Penal Code required a license for “any theater, circus, Hawaiian hula, public show or other exhibition, not of an immoral character” for which admission was charged.

“No license for a Hawaiian hula shall be granted for any other place than Honolulu.”  (The law did not regulate hula in private, so the dance continued to be practiced and enjoyed throughout the islands.)

King David Kalākaua’s 1883 coronation included three days of hula performances and his 1886 jubilee celebrations had performances of ancient and newly created dances.

Hula was never effectively banned; it is a common misconception that one would suggest that the American missionaries banned hula.  They could not have banned hula, they did not have the authority.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Inter-Island Hula Contest

David and Lydia Bray sought to reinsert hula into everyday public life.  A group of influential Hawaiians – a princess, a famed hula dancer, and a composer – gathered at a Honolulu home in 1919 to judge a private hula performance.

The Brays, a young Hawaiian couple who were dancers themselves, had staged this unofficial “hula trial.”  They sought to address the question, Was hula truly vulgar and vile? All we know is that girls from the ages of eight to fourteen presented their hula repertoire before the panel.

At the end of the presentation, the judges conferred and delivered a “not guilty” verdict. The hula was clean; its practitioners should not fear performing before Hawaiian and American audiences. (Imada)

For many Hawaiian women, hula presented a dream ticket out of Hawai‘i, promising fame, glamour, and middle-class status difficult for them to achieve in the plantation and service industries. Hula dancers could earn between fifty and one hundred dollars a week, compared with four to ten dollars a week in the pineapple canneries.

Talent recruiters from the US continent took advantage of the ample labor pool in the islands. Orchestra leaders, Hollywood film studios, and American nightclubs periodically scouted for dancers in Hawai‘i, where women often faced stiff competition for coveted hula contracts. (Imada)

Then, in 1938, sponsored by Hollywood’s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM) and the Hawai‘i-based Consolidated Amusement Company, the “Inter-Island Hula Contest” sought to crown a “hula queen.”

In the “greatest hula contest ever staged in the Islands,” nearly five hundred young Hawaiian women competed for the title for more than a month, going through several rounds of competition. Each hoped to win the grand prize: a trip to Hollywood and a chance at stardom in the United States.

On almost every island, audiences followed the competition with great enthusiasm, buying tickets for preliminary rounds held at movie theaters and rooting for their favorites.

On Friday nights on O‘ahu, local people attended elimination rounds at the Hawai‘i Theater and indicated by applause their choices of finalists. (Imada)

In September 1938 five finalists from five different islands gathered in Honolulu for a “Hula-Nui Nite” (Big Hula Nite).  Finalists were Keahi Bright, Oahu; Rita Lum Ho, Maui; Dorothy K Dudoit, Molokai; Ethel Moniz, Hawaii and Kealoha Holt, Kauai.  In an overflowing theater, a board of judges crowned the contestant from Kauai, Alice Kealoha Pauole Holt, “Hula Queen.”

Holt was born on February 10, 1919 into a life of modest means with a lineage directly tied to the royal families of Hawai‘i. Her introduction to the world of movies came by way of MGM, who sponsored the event, and sent her to Hollywood to play the part of the native dancer in the movie Honolulu with Robert Young and Eleanor Powell.  (IMDb)

Holt subsequently passed her MGM screen test in Hollywood and spent three months there, touring as an “ambassador of good will” and dancing in the American stage and film productions of Honolulu.

Holt may have been MGM Studio’s only official “Hula Queen,” but she was only one of a generation of Hawaiian women who began leaving Hawai‘i in the 1930s for the US continent. (Imada)

“Hollywood knew Hawaii’s brightest and best hula dancer, Kealoha Holt, for a brief few months, before the young lady suffered pangs of homesickness and returned to the islands.” (SB, Sep 30, 1939)

American nightclubs and showrooms packaged hula as middlebrow American entertainment, and hula dancers joined circuits that routed them between Hawai‘i and Manhattan. Hula became the ticket out of Hawai‘i for many women, promising fame and glamour in the United States. (Imada)

“And now, the newest crop of hula dancers, singers and musicians are in New York .… Most of the girls, in long letters home, write of their longing for Hawaii. Some, like Kealoha Holt, just pack up and return.”

“Their jobs pay from $75 to top prices of $100 a week. They put on three shows a night, six nights a week. They usually live at the hotel where they work, or in apartments adjoining night clubs where they are featured. … They pick up pin money making recordings, if they sing; posing for advertising, teaching the hula to patrons.”

“Today, with Hawaii’s good will emissaries stationed in strategic centers such as San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago and New York, synthetic shimmies of yesterday are giving way to real Hawaiian hulas.”

“These singing and dancing islanders who invade mainland night spots provide splendid advertising for Hawaii.  They take with them the charm and grace of an island paradise where two thirds of America longs to visit. They are fresh and blood representatives of a South Seas island lure of which escapists dream.”  (MacDonald, SB, Sep 30, 1939)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Merry or Merrie?

Today, we typically reference King David Kalakaua as the ‘Merrie Monarch;’ and most also say it was his nickname used by those outside of Hawai‘i.  Most suggest it was inspired by the king’s love of music, parties and fine food and drinks.  Yet, it is not clear why we spell ‘Merry’ that way.

It is probably coincidental, but about the same time Kalakaua was ruling in the Islands, there were numerous articles written about King Charles II, who had been ruling about 200-years earlier in England.  Charles was also referred to as the “Merry Monarch of England,” or simply, the “Merry Monarch.”

Charles II (born May 29, 1630, London—died February 6, 1685, London) was king of Great Britain and Ireland (1660–85).  He was restored to the throne after years of exile during the Puritan Commonwealth.

The years of his reign are known in English history as the Restoration period. His political adaptability and his knowledge of men enabled him to steer his country through the convolutions of the struggle between Anglicans, Catholics, and Dissenters that marked much of his reign. (Britannica)

“Charles Stuart the 2nd of England who lived an “eventful life” with “wild orgies” in “his depraved and dissolute court” was referred to in England as the “merry monarch.” (It was sometimes spelled ‘merrie monarch.’)

He was described as “a man of great and varied talents, a heartless libertine, sunk in vice and debauchery, and soddened with lust”.  (The Chelmsford Chronicle (Chelmsford Essex, England, January 13, 1860)

It is not clear if Charles II was referred to as the Merry Monarch during his reign; Hawai‘i’s King Kalakaua was also referred to as a Merry Monarch.  However, the first reference of such appears to be in news accounts of his death. (He died January 20, 1891.)

Several, primarily Mid-Western, newspapers on the continent ran identical stories with the heading that stated “He Was a Merry Monarch” The lead line of the story was “King David of Hawaii is dead.”  (January 29, 1891)

Later, the Honolulu Advertiser, in writing about the King in an October 23, 1901 article, noted, “when the merry monarch came to the throne a new nobility was created”.

In reference to Kalakaua, though, we call him ‘Merrie’, as noted above and below, it was not always so.

Early newspaper references to a Kalakaua nickname were all, effectively, using ‘Merry.’

In 1903, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (PCA) referenced, “King Kalakaua, the merry monarch.”  The next year, he was again referred to as ‘the merry monarch.’

Later, in 1904, the PCA reported on the christening of the infant son of Prince and Princess Kawananakoa where the paper stated, “the name of the ‘Merry Monarch of Hawaii’ was revived, for the young Prince will bear the name of David Kalakaua II.”

Later, the Honolulu Advertiser referred to Kalakaua as the “Merry Monarch of the Paradise of the Pacific.”  Kuykendall’s 3rd and final volume, describing the “Kalakaua Dynasty,” says that it “covers the colorful reign of King Kalakaua, the Merry Monarch.”

Even the festival that bears the nickname is not clear, nor consistent, with the spelling …

The first hula festival (held in 1964) that bore Kalakaua’s nickname was called the ‘Merry Monarch Festival’.  In anticipation of the event, the Hawaii Tribune Herald referred to “the first Merry Monarch Festival to be held in Hilo next April.”

Newspaper reports note that, “A purpose of the Merry Monarch Festival, a special project of the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce, is to develop an attraction that will draw visitors here during tourism’s slack period of the year.” (Hawaii Tribune Herald, March 31, 1964)

A later Hawaii Tribune Herald story (September 29, 1963) noted, “A Merry Monarch Festival designed to bring back for a brief period the colorful years if King Kalakaua will be held in Hilo next April, it was announced today by George Naope, promotor of activities for the County.”

In announcing that the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce had agreed to sponsor the “Merry Monarch Festival,” chairman Gene Wilhelm said, “the Merry Monarch Festival, named for Hawaii’s King Kalakaua, who reigned from 1874 to 1891, is planned for an annual event during the first week following Easter.” (Hawaii Tribune Herald, January 10, 1964)

in the early years, in addition to an annual parade and hula, there were a variety of other programs associated with the festival.

Men competed in a Kalakaua look-alike contest; quarter- and semi-finals of a sideburns-mustache contest at Mooheau Park.  (If he was married, the festival gave a gift certificate to “The Most Understanding Wife” (Hawaii Tribune Herald)

A couple of athletic competitions also took place. Single riders and relay teams competed in the Merry Monarch Festival Bicycle Pete Beamer Derby and rode bicycles from the Kamehameha Statue in Kohala, headed through Waimea, along the Hamakua Coast and ended up at Kalakaua Park in Hilo.  The winner of the 85-mile race received a trophy and $25.

Reminiscent of the old days of Hawai‘i when relays of the swiftest runners carried fresh fish to the chiefs, the festival had a 4-mile relay race through Hilo (starting and finishing at Mo‘oheau Park).  The relay runners used mullet as ‘batons.’

Another of the early festival activities was a Treasure Hunt.  Hunters were to dig up a buried box containing a Kalakaua medallion, redeemable for a cash prize, that was buried in a secret location.

“Samuel Clemens Moke, King Kalakaua’s emissary who pays daily visits to the Tribune Herald” provided cryptic clues on the treasure’s location.  These were published in the Hawai‘i Tribune Herald.

In reporting on its 50th anniversary, The Hawaii Tribune Herald noted that, “Andres Baclig, the county bandmaster in 1964, composed a number called the ‘Merry Monarch Festival March.’”

“The song, which was received with much acclaim, was presented at the Mooheau Bandstand on April 2, 1964, and it was a spirited number, featuring ‘lots of trombones and baritones.’”

In a report on planning for the 5th annual festival in the Honolulu Advertiser (December 24, 1967), it was reported that, “The largest planning committee ever set up for a Hilo Merry Monarch Festival is at work on the fifth annual festival”.

The ‘Merry’ name was used at least until 1969.

However, the 1977 program for the festival was a bit ambidextrous. The program was titled ‘Merrie Monarch Festival,’ but text on its initial pages, noted, “Hilo’s Merry Monarch Festival is named for Kalakaua who was Hawaii’s Merry Monarch.”

In 1971, the first competitive Merrie Monarch contest took place at the Hilo Civic Auditorium.  In 1979 the festival moved to the Edith Kanaka‘ole Tennis Stadium, where it has been held ever since.

In the late-1970s, newspaper reporting noted that performing at Hulihee Palace was the ‘Merry Monarchs Hawaiian Glee Club,’ “the foremost all male Hawaiian language singing group in the Islands (December 12, 1977).  A similar concert to celebrate the birthday of “Hawaii’s Merry Monarch, Kalakaua” was held that year at the Waikiki Shell.

Today, the King and Festival are referred to as the ‘Merrie Monarch.’  It is not clear when and why the nickname or the festival name changed from ‘Merry’ to ‘Merrie’.  However, the festival remains the premier hula competition.

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