Royal gifts due home
COURTESY TE PAPA TONGAREWA
The mahiole (feathered helmet) of Chief Kalaniopuu were given to Capt. James Cook 237 years ago.
COURTESY TE PAPA TONGAREWA
The ahu ula (feathered cloak) of Chief Kalaniopuu were given to Capt. James Cook 237 years ago.
In 1779 the ruling chief of Hawaii island greeted a visitor from a distant land named Capt. James Cook at Kealakekua Bay and offered him a lavish gift of his own feathered cloak and helmet.
Now, after 237 years away from Hawaii, the ahu ula (feathered cloak) and mahiole (feathered helmet) of Chief Kalaniopuu will be returning to the islands for display at the Bishop Museum starting March 19.
The Honolulu museum teamed up with the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa to bring the artifacts to Hawaii for what is being described as a loan of at least 10 years, but they could end up here on a permanent basis.
“We’re thrilled and excited we can return these treasures back to Hawaii,” said Arapata Hakiwai, Maori co-leader of Te Papa Tongarewa, where they have been housed since 1912.
The cloak, made from the feathers of an estimated 20,000 birds, is said to be worth some $6 million.
“These items are truly priceless,” said Kamana‘opono Crabbe, CEO of OHA, which spent “several hundred thousand dollars” helping to negotiate for their return. “Whatever we spent, it was well worth it.”
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Crabbe said the items not only represent a treasure to the Hawaiian people, but symbolize the beginning of the challenges that faced Native Hawaiians as Europeans and Americans started migrating to the islands.
After receiving the gifts from Kalaniopuu, Cook left the island but returned a month or so later to repair storm damage to his ship. The natives weren’t as accommodating this time, and a violent clash led to the English captain’s death.
The cape and helmet remained on the ship, however, and they wound up in England before passing through the hands of various museum owners and collectors.
They eventually came into the possession of Lord St. Oswald, who in 1912 gave his entire collection to the Dominion Museum in New Zealand, the predecessor of Te Papa Tongarewa.
In 2013 discussions began among Bishop Museum, Te Papa Tongarewa and OHA to bring the artifacts back to Hawaii.
Marques Marzan, Bishop Museum cultural resource specialist, said the cloak, helmet and all Hawaiian feather work were reserved exclusively for the use of royalty and required a great deal of labor and craftsmanship.
Olona cordage was used as a backing — a netting used as the foundation onto which bundles of feathers were attached and arranged in bold designs, Marzan said.
Marzan said each chief had one cloak, a garment that could take years to create. And the longer the cloak, he said, the more important the chief was.
Kalaniopuu gave up his cloak to Cook as a gift to an equal, a gift between chiefs, he said.
Blair Collis, president and CEO of Bishop Museum, said the museum is honored to be charged with the care of these cultural treasures.
”They have a unique history,” Collis said of the feathered artifacts. “They have a fascinating, tragic, significant story to tell.”
The exhibit will be called “He Nae Akea: Bound Together.”
Hawaiian Airlines will transport the feathered cape and helmet to Hawaii on a flight March 13, and a private ceremony will be held to receive the items March 17.
Crabbe, who has seen the ahu ula and mahiole in New Zealand on several occasions, predicted they would be popular here.
“They’re awesome,” he said. “The colors and hues of the feathers are amazing; the condition is pristine. The curatorship has been fantastic.”
Hakiwai, from Te Papa Tongarewa in New Zealand, said his museum can see the pieces having a permanent home in Hawaii. Te Papa has committed to returning Maori treasures to communities in New Zealand, and the museum’s board supports returning culturally important items to their homes.
“It’s something museums should be doing more of,” he said.
Coincidentally, the cloak and helmet will go on display at the Bishop Museum on the same day that a previously planned Hawaiian feather-work show was scheduled.
“Na Hulu Alii: Royal Hawaiian Featherwork,” billed as the largest display of Hawaiian feather work in history, was planned to appear in Honolulu from March 19 to May 23 following a run at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
But the show — featuring feather-work pieces largely owned by the Bishop Museum but also from museums around the world — was canceled recently after the Honolulu museum determined it couldn’t do it justice, Collis said.
Last month Bishop Museum announced a five-year plan to streamline operations and make other changes in response to declining revenue.
“It was not the right time for the commitments, resources and planning for that show,” Collis said.
The museum is now aiming to mount that show around 2019 or 2020, he said.
Meanwhile the de Young Museum has extended its “Royal Hawaiian Featherwork” exhibit through April 10.
40 responses to “Royal gifts due home”
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Historic items require special handling {humidty control, lighting, etc.) Museum functions.
Interesting that so many Bishop Museum functions are being curtailed. Too often the chief accountant turns out to be the chief embezzler.
Shame on mongoose for trashing someone’s reputation by innuendo having no evidence to back it up.
And who exactly is the chief accountant at the Bishop Museum? That’s a rhetorical question BTW, as I know you’re clueless.
Chief like that should be a chef instead.
Items like these are examples of the devastation the Polynesians caused to the bird populations here in Hawaii Islands after their invasion of the islands around 1200 A.D. causing wide spread extinctions of many bird species like the mamo bird.
DiverDave: Do your homework. The birds were not killed in the process of the harvesting of the feathers. They were caught and released. As well, the devastation of the native species was, in many cases, cause by the introduction (by colonizers) of predators such as cats and rats. In New Zealand, the Huia bird was wiped out at the beginning of this century by idiots who hunted the bird to extinction because the English aristocracy wanted feathers as prestige/fashion statements because a member of the royal family returned from New Zealand wearing a feather in his hat band. Truth is, there are many reasons why the native species in Hawaii (and New Zealand) have been decimated and for you to point your finger at Polynesians in your typical racist rant is irresponsible. Rather than celebrate the return of an historic garment you see this as an opportunity to cast aspersions. Lighten up!
Apparently, the birds aren’t sacred, only thing sacred is the piece of land where the telescope should be built.
They are both sacred!
Thanks to Timothy Hurley for yet another fact-filled well-written article. And thanks to Bishop Museum and OHA for arranging this exhibit.
The primary mission of Bishop Museum is to preserve Hawaiian artifacts of historic and cultural significance, to study them, and to make them available for public viewing accompanied by expert explanations. There has been a lot of disappointment that Bishop Museum is selling off a botanical garden on a neighbor island, cutting its budget for tangential activities, and requiring some research staff to become independent contractors whose salaries are partly paid by outside institutions which give grants for research projects. But in the real world money matters. Bishop Museum is a huge treasure for Hawaii, and it needs to protect its primary mission by cutting back on non-essential activities like exhibits of paper mache dinosaurs.
Since the helmet and cloak were gifts to Captain Cook, who was a subject of the British Empire, their proper home should be the British Museum.
That old thing would fall apart with such long journey.
Actually, according to the NAGPRA, federal law that Dan Inouye played a big role in writing and passing, the lineal descendants of Chief Kalaniopuu still own these objects and may claim them directly,without the OHA/state NHO, by filing a NAGPRA claim. Doing so while the objects are in Hawaii would facilitate a successful claim. Any takers out there, Descendants? Time to step up and put the OHA in its proper place.
Actually, I believe that according to the NAGPRA law a gift from a native to an outsider, if freely given by a consenting and mentally competent native, remains the property of the recipient and his descendants or corporate successors and cannot be forced by law to be repatriated. This issue was thoroughly explored in hearings by the national NAGPRA Review Committee and reported in local news media during the huge controversy over the Kawaihae (Forbes Cave) artifacts when claimants included Bishop Museum, OHA, Eddie Aiau and his Hui Malama i na Kupuna o Hawaii Nei (he and girlfriend had worked as staffers for Inouye during the drafting of the NAGPRA bill), La’akea Suganuma and his Royal Hawaiian Academy of Traditional Arts, and numerous others. Of course the main issue in the case o the Kawaihae artifacts was whether they were moepu (burial artifacts of cultural significance) which had been stolen by an adventurer and sold for profit or whether they had been discovered by an anthropologist who then donated them to Bishop Museum. That’s very different from the situation with the mahiole and aha ula that were freely given by Kalaniopu’u to Captain Cook as an act of ho’okupu from a native King to someone he regarded as a god. See my huge webpage about NAGPRA, with numerous subpages, at
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii.html
Dr C’s scholarship as usual is intact. Notwithstanding that, times change and the current thinking is as I stated it above.
I recall that a couple years ago Bishop Museum hosted a special exhibit of three huge wood carvings of Kukailimoku — one belongs to Bishop Museum, one belongs to a museum in Europe (was it Germany?) and one belongs to the Peabody Essex Museum. The latter two were here on loan for a couple months. There was talk at the time among some of the Hawaiian activists that those two should be kept and not returned at the end of the loan period, using the NAGPRA law as leverage especially regarding the Peabody-Essex one because it is owned by a U.S. museum and therefore under jurisdiction of NAGPRA. But in the end the two loaned heathen gods were returned to their museums without any drama.
“Crabbe, who has seen the ahu ula and mahiole in New Zealand on several occasions, predicted they would be popular here. “They’re awesome,” he said. “The colors and hues of the feathers are amazing; the condition is pristine. The curatorship has been fantastic.” Like Crabbe, I have also seen the ahu ula and mahiole in the Te Papa Museum in Wellington. They are truly magnificent and are in this condition because of the outstanding care that has been taken in storing/displaying them (temperature controlled display case, etc) over the decades (as Crabbe states). Even though they originally left Hawaii as gifts, it is right that they are now being returned–hopefully, on a permanent basis. Bishop Museum has a serious responsibility in making sure that the standard of care continues. As for the question of ownership, if both were originally the subject of gifts, then their return should be to the people of Hawaii.
They were gifts to someone else. Do you take back gifts you give someone?
Seaborn (below): The gifts are not being taken back. Te Papa Museum is making an effort to return items of historical importance to their respective cultures. Read the article.
Not to worry: Only birds and commoners were clubbed in the making of these items.
I think the story goes, and someone more knowledgable than me would verify it, that the native Hawaiians would smear sticky breadfruit sap where a bird with desirable feathers would land, get stuck and lend his plucked tail feathers to the endeavor. There are several excellent BBC documentaries on the amazing James Cook on youtube. He could be aggressive and was. It’s doubtful he was viewed as a “god” – that’s one of those social memes that keeps getting passed along – similar to Chinese immigrants to Hawaii are Native Hawaiians.
Thanks. I thought that You Tube only has puppy videos.
“It’s doubtful he was viewed as a “god” – that’s one of those social memes that keeps getting passed along” As I’m sure you know, this has been the topic of scholarly debate for a long time. Perhaps the best book saying the natives did NOT view Captain Cook as a God is by Gananath Obeyesekere entitled “The Apotheosis of Captain Cook.” On the other hand, perhaps the greatest anthropologist who studied native Hawaiians is Marshall Sahlins, who says the natives DID regard Cook as a god. I think there’s no doubt that at the time of the Kealakekua Bay encounter the leaders all did treat Cook as the god long, as demonstrated by the way they took him to the heiau and gave him high protocol. That was the period when Kalaniopu’u gave the manhole and aha Lula to Cook, as an act of reverence to a major god. But a few weeks later, of course, when Cook returned to make a ship repair and it was no longer Makahiki, and Cook tried to take Kalaniopu’u as a hostage for the return of a stolen small boat, the natives no longer regarded Cook as a god and killed him. Nevertheless, the feather cloak and helmet had already been given as genuine gifts of friendship and reverence; definitely not as trade goods in return for nails.
Make sure you check your post again before posting it – I think you will find that autocorrect has made some unwelcome and unfortunate changes to your writing!
As I’m sure you know, this [“It’s doubtful he was viewed as a “god” – that’s one of those social memes that keeps getting passed along”] has been the topic of scholarly debate for a long time. Perhaps the best book saying the natives did NOT view Captain Cook as a God is by Gananath Obeyesekere entitled “The Apotheosis of Captain Cook.” On the other hand, perhaps the greatest anthropologist who studied native Hawaiians is Marshall Sahlins, who says the natives DID regard Cook as a god. I think there’s no doubt that at the time of the Kealakekua Bay encounter the leaders all did treat Cook as the god long, as demonstrated by the way they took him to the heiau and gave him high protocol. That was the period when Kalaniopu’u gave the manhole and aha Lula to Cook, as an act of reverence to a major god. But a few weeks later, of course, when Cook returned to make a ship repair and it was no longer Makahiki, and Cook tried to take Kalaniopu’u as a hostage for the return of a stolen small boat, the natives no longer regarded Cook as a god and killed him. Nevertheless, the feather cloak and helmet had already been given as genuine gifts of friendship and reverence; definitely not as trade goods in return for nails.
20 thousand dead birds. Ugh. Not so great stewards of the Aina, eh?
I think they actually harvested two feathers per bird, so the toll was only 10,000 birds. But Hawaiian studies teachers say that there was a large cadre of professional bird catchers who were skilled at using sticky tree sap slathered on tree branches to capture the birds. The catchers would pluck a feather or two from each bird and then clean and release the birds “on a wing and a prayer” we might say today. So the Hawaiian studies teachers defend the use of bird feathers as not causing damage to birds or environment, consistent with the legend of Hawaiians as good stewards of the environment consistent with the “Hawaiian value” of malama ‘aina. Hawaiian studies teachers also say that the extinction of bird species in Hawaii was caused not by feather harvesting but by diseases given to the birds by mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes were, of course, introduced into Hawaii by those evil haoles (who get the blame for all bad things).
I think they actually harvested two feathers per bird, so the toll was only 10,000 birds. But Hawaiian studies teachers say that there was a large cadre of professional bird catchers who were skilled at using sticky tree sap slathered on tree branches to capture the birds. The catchers would pluck a feather or two from each bird and then clean and release the birds “on a wing and a prayer” we might say today. So the Hawaiian studies teachers defend the use of bird feathers as not causing damage to birds or environment, consistent with the legend of Hawaiians as good stewards of the environment consistent with the “Hawaiian value” of malama ‘aina. Hawaiian studies teachers also say that the extinction of bird species in Hawaii was caused not by feather harvesting but by diseases given to the birds by mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes were, of course, introduced into Hawaii by those evil h-a-o-l-e-s (who get the blame for all bad things).
Ken: And here I was thinking that you were tempering your comments. I was actually enjoying your comments as having some factual basis and then you spoil it all with this silly comment. Really….., this is a case of throwing stones in glass houses–if you are going to point your finger at Hawaiians for being poor stewards then bust out some more fingers for those non-Hawaiians who wear snakeskin boots, alligator shoes/bags, fur coats and the like. Many native and non native species have been decimated by different cultural groups, not just Hawaiians.
Only a few feathers from 10,000 birds were used to make the ahu ula (feathered cloak) and mahiole (feathered helmet)? Then it should be okay to use only 5 acres of land from the many tens of thousands of acres atop Mauna Kea to build a telescope.
Read the article and stick to the facts!
174. I will buy you a fried chicken lunch.
Why should they be kept permanently?
The idea any of these kinds of objects were “gifts” is usually made up by contemporary owners to appear to justify the taking. If Cook was not seen as a “god” and in fact he wasy not, then the item was probably a barter, or, trade item. Cook gave something valuable in return, most likely iron nails. The ships of Cook shallow draft coastal coal barges, were nailed together with iron nails, each one forged basically by hand. I wonder if these ships were among those with hulls coated in copper, which had to be nailed into the thick oak planks.
I heard he gave his sweaty cotton shirt! But I could be wrong. 🙂
Ben Folds Five wants his black tee shirt back.
Sounds sort of like the TV commercial with “Mean Joe Green” giving the little boy a sweaty shirt in return for the Coke given to him by the boy.
Then, Mean Joe Green wanting the shirt back after downing the Coca~Cola.
Now the Hawaii Visitors’ industry will have to include this cloak into the next marketing campaign.
China could make a knock off for sixty bucks.
Actually more like ten bucks. Keep you eye on this, Ken, there has been a lively black market trade in items such as this one for decades by insiders who amassed large collections of this valuable stuff by looting it systematically on the lands they took. They couldn’t sell it legally and openly because of NAGPRA so they sold it under the counter, as it were. I might be right in speculating that a certain federal agency knows more about this.