Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 8, 1 August 1991 — Registering the story behind Hawaiian quilts [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Registering the story behind Hawaiian quilts

By Christina Zarobe Assistant Editor In a world flooded with high-tech, split-second communications, the message in historic Hawaiian style quilts has managed to endure for more than a century. "The Hawaiian people have an amazing ability to relate without words," says Elizabeth Akana, a specialist of island quilts. "Their love and their energy has a way of staying alive." Realizing the historic value in eaeh of these quilts, the Hawaiian Quilt Research Project has been launched. It is a four-year program to study the Hawaiian appliqued and flag quilts and registration. Volunteers with the project are studying the Hawaiian appliqued and the flag quilts and patterns made prior to 1960. Sponsored by the Kalihi-Palama Culture and Arts Society, the Hawaiian Quilt Research Project is one of 60 quilt documentation projects nationwide, recording the history of thousands of handmade American quilts. As part of the project, registration days are being held throughout the islands giving owners the opportunity to bring in their quilts to leam more about the material, time period and pattern of the handicraft. A registration day was held during last month's "A Festival of Hawaiian Quilts," the 13th annual quilt exhibition at the Mission Houses Museum. Hawaiian quilt authority Lee Wild has organized the exhibition from the beginning. She acknowledges that compiling the history of Hawaiian style quilts involves "detective work. So many people who have brought in their quilts don't know anything about them. "They tell us they found them in grandma's trunk when she died. 'I wish we would have listened to her story,' they say."

Volunteers are able to process 40-50 quilts eaeh registration day. Thus far, five of the events have been held on O'ahu and one on Lana'i in the past year. According to Wild, historians have been able to deduce that missionaries brought quilts when they arrived on the islands. Native Hawaiians were intrigued with the craft but couldn't understand the sense of cutting up fabric into scraps and then sewing them back together. The appliques however, appealed to Hawaiian creativity. Hawaiian women already had a long tradition of making kapa, a cloth pounded from the bark of the wauke (paper mulberry) plant. Many quilt designs derive from island flora such as the 'ulu' (breadfruit) or kukui (candlenut) trees. "Eaeh one of these brings us closer and closer. It's going to happen. We're going to get answers to a lot of questions," predicts Wild. During registration a pair of volunteers, wearing gloves to protect the quilt from the hand's oils and dirt, work on identifying the stitching and the applique. Textile specialist Barbara Harger, who teaches at the University of Hawaii, then uses a microscope to study the fiber content and condition of the quilt. "From my standpoint, we try to help them with preserving the quilts. Some are very old, and the conditions have been from sad to beautiful," said Harger as she scrutinized a quilt dating back to approximately 1914. While the quilts are being analyzed, another volunteer conducts an oral history with the owner to find out more about the quilt's background. Often volunteers were onee visitors who eame by a previous quilt registration day. Fascinated by the process, they returned to help others leam about their quilts. Volunteers from the Pearl Harbor Hawaiian Civic Club, a non-profit organization founded in 1962 to assist people of Hawaiian ancestry in furthering their education and perpetuate Hawaiian language and culture traditions, are also involved. Since 1969, Akana has been involved with quilting. "All those 22 years I've known and felt that quilts were so important. The Hawaiian quilt is important because it's based on love." Akana, herself a quilter, will exhibit a collection of Hawaiian style quilts and bedding — miniature

and full-size — planned for December at the Lyman House Memorial Museum. Akana likes to tell the story about the first time she gave a lecture on Kaua'i. She referred to one quilt during her talk, whieh a woman had made with the use of only one hand as a tribute to her husband who had been the harbormaster at Nawiliwili. The woman's husband was in the audience, Akana remembers. "She gave it to him and he didn't realize the significance of it. A lot of mystery has been shrouded in the quilt. "You look at a quilt and eaeh one has its own uniqueness, its own story to tell. Today, we've seen so many firsts and eaeh of those firsts unlocks another part of history."

A volunteer examines the stitching and applique of a quilt. Hawaiian quilt authority Lee Wild and isiand quilt specialist Elizabeth Akana take a break from registering during "A Festival of Quilts" exhibit.

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A Hawaiian style quilt is examined during a recent quilt registration day at the Mission Houses Museum.