It’s time to open my mailbag again. This week I’ve picked two sets of reader questions that touch on Hawaiian songs. But first, a quiz:

Where can you find the remnants of the hukilau that was once held in Laie?

Where was “The Hukilau Song” written?

Which fisherman is largely credited with creating the shaka gesture?

Which romantic setting was destroyed by the building of the Ala Wai Canal?

What was lower Kapahulu Avenue’s original name?

How did Waikiki get its name?

LETTER 1

Keoni Ronald May wrote and said that in the 1950s he took part in a hukilau on the Windward side of Oahu. What did I know about the hukilau, and when did it end? he asked.

Hukilau are Hawaiian-style picnics that were popular in ancient times. Legends spoke about how the gods, kings, queens, chiefs and mighty warriors took pleasure in the hukilau. Dancing and feats of strength and skill often accompanied the merrymaking.

When Kapiolani Park opened in 1877, over 20,000 people attended a hukilau there, thrown by Princesses Likelike and (later Queen) Lili‘uokalani.

There were sixty pa‘u riders, followed by musicians and hula dancers. The festivities lasted all night, until the sun rose over Diamond Head the next morning.

Hukilau means to “pull the leaves,” referring to the part of the net, woven with leaves, that guests would hold and pull ashore.

When Crown Prince Gustav Adolph and Princess Louise of Sweden visited Oahu in 1926, a hukilau was held in their honor in Haleiwa.

“Swedish royalty at this Hukilau will be given an idea how ancient Hawaiian communities set apart a day and joined for a large catch of fish,” The Honolulu Advertiser reported.

A great net, half a mile in length, was used. All those attending were expected to lend a helping hand and aid in hauling the big net ashore. Trained fishermen, aided by guests in bathing suits, pulled together and whetted their appetite for the feast that would follow.

Two pigs were roasted, along with chickens. They joined a feast of laulau, lomi salmon, potatoes, vegetables, poi and haupia.

When the call for “kau kau” came, there was no need for a second shout, the paper said.

The Hawaii Visitors Bureau and the Mormon community in Laie began hosting yearly, then monthly hukilau that were open to visitors and kamaaina alike beginning in 1938. Often 800 to 1,000 attended.

Expert fisherman Hamana Kalili — widely believed to be the person who invented the shaka gesture (not the word) — was one of the organizers of the first events. He had lost the middle three fingers of his right hand 20 years earlier.

Guests could swim in the morning, watch craft demonstrations such as lau hala weaving and lei making, listen to music and relax. After dinner an hourlong program of music and dance was held.

One of the most widely known hapa-haole songs was written by a guest who attended a 1948 hukilau. Jack Owens stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and had a piano in his room.

Owens returned from the hukilau badly sunburned. He arose at 4 a.m. to put lotion on and sat down at the piano. Events of the day went through his mind. “The Hukilau Song” took just 20 minutes to write.

At a Hawaii Visitors Bureau luau in Nuuanu a week later, Owens played the song for the first time. “I’m trying the song out tonight,” Owens said, “and if it goes over with them, then I’ll introduce it on the mainland. If not, I’ll forget about it.” The 100 or so guests gave their rousing approval.

Owens also wrote “I’ll Weave a Lei of Stars for You” and 50 other songs.

In the late 1950s a group of South Pacific students called the Polynesian Panorama performed traditional songs and dances in Waikiki. They were in high demand and sold out performances at the Waikiki Shell.

At the time, the Church College of Hawaii (now BYU Hawaii) in Laie was just 5 years old. Many of the students needed jobs, and while local students could work at the cannery or elsewhere, international students had fewer options.

Church College leaders thought they might create a home for the Polynesian Panorama in Laie. It could merge with the hukilau and occupy a 15-acre site next to the college.

The Polynesian Cultural Center opened in 1963. It took the form of six little villages that represented different South Pacific islands.

LETTER 2

Another question that involves a song is from Carol Lum, who wrote to ask about Capt. James Makee. Lum studies hula with my friend TeMoana Makolo, and she taught them “Hula o Makee” and “Makee Ailana.”

Who was James Makee? Lum asked me.

Makee was a Scottish sea captain who came to Hawaii in 1843 and settled down on Maui. He bought Ulupalakua and named it Rose Ranch for the pink cottage roses Hawaiians called lokelani. Today it’s Maui’s official flower.

“Ulupalakua” means “ripe breadfruit ridge,” Thomas Thrum wrote. It also could be “breadfruit that ripens on the back of carriers.”

Former Honolulu Advertiser columnist Wade Shirkey says Makee is pronounced McKee, not the Hawaiian Ma-ke-e.

Makee was a poker buddy to King Kalakaua, whom he often entertained at his ranch. The owner; his wife, Catherine; and eight children had planted over 30,000 trees and had beautiful flower gardens. Guests could enjoy billiards, lawn bowling, croquet, tennis and horseback riding.

Pacific Commercial Advertiser Publisher Henry Whitney called it the “most beautiful, most productive and valuable plantation in our group.”

Makee became the first president of the Kapiolani Park Association in the 1870s. Before the Ala Wai Canal drained the swampy areas of Waikiki in the mid-1920s, there was a lot of water in the park, and a few islands where the zoo was later built.

Park Administrator Allan Herbert recalled that a stream crossed Waikiki Road (now Kalakaua Avenue) near the entrance to the park and another near the Moana Hotel, over which there were no bridges.

The largest island in the park was called Makee Island (or Makee ‘Ailana). It was about 100 by 700 feet in size and covered with weeping willows, hau, palm, kiawe, coconut and ironwood trees.

Visitors could row boats to it or cross small wooden bridges. It was located about where the zoo and its parking lot are today.

The park’s first bandstand was on the island, and it was a popular place for moonlight concerts in its day.

Lanikai resident Albert Hussey said the island was “surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped pond where beautiful water lilies floated and the Royal Hawaiian Band rendered their music.”

“Within this pond a spouting fresh water spring poured forth. The water of this pond was known as ‘wai,’ and the spouting water as ‘ki-ki,’ therefore combining together, the word ‘Waikiki’ was named.”

In olden times Kalakaua Avenue was called Waikiki Road, and the street Ewa of the park was called Makee Road. Eighty or so years ago, the road was widened and renamed Kapahulu Avenue. A tiny stub of Makee Road remains below Jefferson Elementary School.

The “Hula o Makee” is about a ship named for the former captain, Shirkey says. “Makee ‘Ailana” is about a long-gone romantic part of Kapiolani Park’s lagoons.

Nina Kealiiwahamana Rapoza says her great- grandfather James Kaihi‘ihikapuokalani Ii, who lived nearby, wrote “Makee ‘Ailana.” It was about the lovers he saw rowing to and from the island.

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Bob Sigall is the author of five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.