The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 21

Names and Faces C2 Honolulu Advertiser Wednesday, July 29. 1981 hawaiiana C2 Television log Classified ads C3-14 V.5 Savin i i in 1 'f" Hi. yesterday's echoes ft Kenneth Emory (left) and Theodore Kelsey (right) recording chanter James Kapihenui Palea Kuluwaimaka at the Bishop Museum in 1933. Kuluwaimaka, a descendant of chiefs Now "out of the disintegrating recordings made' in Hawaii decades ago have been dusted off and shared by the Bishop Museum in "Na Leo Hawaii Kahiko: Voices of Old Hawaii," an album of two long-playing records. and musicians, was a chanter in the courts of Kamehameha TV and Kalakaua.

He died in 1936. Bt4h0DMueum photo arcnivet hangs out in the glorified closet and is one of the persons responsible for putting together the new album. "The life of the cylinders is coming to an end." she says, showing a box with the crumbled remnants of one of the cylinders. Her enemies are fluctuating temperatures and humidity; the collection is both air conditioned and heated, but is still deteriorating. Even tapes, after 20 or 30 years, literally begin to disintegrate.

Tatar notes that the sound fidelity of the old recordings is "horrible," but when the notion of issuing an album hatched, she knew that they should be both the heart and focus of the project. The impetus for the album was a representative of the National Endowment for the Arts, in the days before Reagan austerity budgets. A representative noted that they hardly ever got any requests for funds from Hawaii. So the museum pitched the album idea. The National Endowment ponied up $9,300 and Tatar says that she and selected colleagues proceeded to "make all the mistakes first-timers always make.

We under-budgeted and under-estimated the time it would take." Tatar picked the material for the album. With the chants, she looked for things that weren't well known, such as a geneology chant, which she says is unavailable on commercial recordings. She also tried to choose material that was aesthetically significant and of fairly decent technical quality, to choose chants that are still performed today but were done differently in the '20s and '30s, and to find performances by the teachers of the most venerated current teachers. The National Endowment, in turn, suggested a second disc for the album, taking a broad view of the history of Hawaiian music. The album ended up costing about twice as much as the National Endowment funding, with a pressing of 1.500 copies in a handsome jacket that includes an eight-page insert of lyrics and their translations and a selection of historic photographs.

To Tatar, the album's real significance is Disc I. The primitive original recordings were all sent to the Thomas A. Edison laboratory in Syracuse; N.Y. Tatar says that technicians performed acoustical miracles with them. The second disc of the album takes in a range of material, all of it authentically historical, from the Hawaiian adaptation of hymns to ragtime, representing styles from the mid to late 19th century and folk styles of the early part of the current century.

Disc II opens with some pretty somber church stuff recorded at Kamehameha Schools in 1950, but it picks up. There's even a real jaunty near-Blue Grass thing called "Honolulu Hula Hula Heigh" from a Columbia recording, circa 1915, and a rendition of "Hanohano Hanalei" recorded in 1928 that shows you exactly where the Emersons came from Right on and get down. i collections. The Helen Roberts Collection represents the work of Roberts in 1923, when she traveled on behalf of the museum to isolated areas on Kauai and the Big Island, toting an Edison phonograph-recorder and the wax cylinders on which sounds were embedded. She recorded Hawaiians known for their expertise in chanting.

Most of these chanters were born between 1830 and 1870, and most spoke only Hawaiian. So even though they were recorded in 1923, their chanting represents the 19th century. Selections from the Kuluwaimaka Collection are the other major source for Disc I. That collection featured James Kapihenui Palea Kuluwaimaka, who was born in 1845 and had been a chanter in the courts of Kamehameha IV in the early 1860s and to King Kalakaua (1873-1891). The collection was formed in 1933 when anthropologist Kenneth Emory and Theodore Kelsey used Dictaphone wax cylinders and a Dictaphone phonograph-recorder to record Kuluwaimaka.

To say that recordings from the '20s and '30s are delicate is putting it mildly. The old cylinders are even more brittle than Charleston Heston's acting. And each time they're played, there is a marked reduction in the quality of the sound. Much of the material in the audio recording collection has been transferred to tapes but even that doesn't guarantee their permanence. Betty Tatar is the museum's ethnomusicologist and By Pierre Bowman tlvrrtirr Staff rilrr The Audio-Recording Collection at the Bishop Museum is sort of a glorified closet: not much of a place to hang out and as it turns out not such a terrific place to keep recordings.

Nevertheless, the collection is a treasure, but one not particularly easy to share with the public. Under the current set-up, the general public can come and listen to recordings from the collection, but only by making -an appointment, and just about one at a time. That's the way it works in a glorified closets But now there's a dramatic improvement in the way the collection can be shared or at least a little part of the collection. The museum has recently issued "Na Leo Hawaii Kahiko: Voices of Old Hawaii," an album of two 12-inch long-playing records produced from material in the museum collection. It is on sale for $20 at the museum and at House of Music locations in Honolulu and on Maui and the Big island.

The first disc in the album dips into the really rare stuff, and it's probably a good thing. Now, this rare stuff isn't exactly what you'd plop onto the stereo to get the party going. Instead it's a link through the ears to the 19th century and the material in the museum from which it has been taken is deteriorating inexorably in the glorified closet. Disc I is Hawaiian chanting selected from two major fj I i 1 -a--'- i I fv 1 Maiki Honda with collage "Silent "Kalakaua was a controversial person, and I'm not sure I really like him. But he did manage to gather around him a group responsible for reviving widespread interest in the ancient Hawaiian culture." Rocky Ka'ioulio-kahihikolo'ehu Jensen and wood sculpture: "By bridging the gap between past and present, we want to show that the Hawaiian culture has a continuing vitality." Advertiser ohotoa by Charles Okdmur Of the mihdm of ike hand By Ronn Ronck Ailvrrlisrr Staff Writrr During the time of King Kalakaua.

the merry monarch was falsely accused of playing sexual games during secret meetings of his Hale Naua society. It was rumored that he modified the ancient Hawaiian sport "Silent Pahu" depicts a group of male dancers seen from the back. "I like the symmetry of a line of males," she explains, "swinging their hips back and forth, dancing in unison. For this collage I decided to picture their backside and okoles." Honda was reluctant to break away from her pen and ink drawings and try collage until Rocky and Lucia Jensen encouraged her experiments. All artists, she says, occasionally want to try something new but they are usually afraid of the reception.

"This is one of the reasons I like working within the Hale Naua III," Honda explains. "The members give mutual support and draw our strengths from one another." Rocky strong wooden sculptures are inspired by Hawaiian history and mythology, also is an accomplished drawer. He and Lucia collaborated, as artist and on a 1976 book entitled "Ka P'oe Kane Kahiko: Men of Ancient Hawaii." It features drawings of prehistoric Hawaiians along with text that interprets their function within the culture. In "Things of the Mind and Things of the Hand," he is exhibiting a large pencil drawing of King Kalakaua this year marks the centennial of his tour around the world with the monarch holding a yellow feather lei. Jensen is also displaying a couple of photographs.

"Just as Maiki wants to get away from her drawings for a while by doing collages," he says, "I retreat into taking photographs. They're an outlet for creativity that I will continue to explore." Now that "The Things of the Mind and Things of the. Hand" is on exhibit. Jensen and Honda say they are already looking forward to next year's display. "I have a general theme in mind already." Jensen says, "but it still needs some working out.

My only goal is that each show be better than the last." with tracing and maintaining genealogic integrity. They reviewed the background of each person who claimed to be a member of the ali'i. A side result was that the organization enhanced political stability and. through the preservation of name chants, reinforced a sense of culture and history." When the kapu religious system in Hawaii was destroyed in 1819, and the missionaries arrived a year later, the power of the ali'i and kahuna class was weakened. The Ka Papa Kuauhau Ali'i subsequently faded from the scene.

Moving right along to 1886, a new Hale Naua (Temple of Science) was begun in that year by King Kalakaua. It was based loosely along the lines of the Free Masons and its membership was restricted to ethnic Hawaiians. "The object of the Society," its constitution stated, "is the revival of the Ancient Science of Hawaii in combination with the promotion and advancement of Modern Science, Art, Literature, and Philanthropy." Kalakaua's major aim was to encourage the preservation of things Hawaiian. He sponsored the recording and printing of the Kumulipo creation chant, collected family genealogies, legitimized native medicine and encouraged the revival of the hula. After the king died during his San Francisco trip in 1891, the second Hale Nuau, like the first, slowly dissolved.

"Kalakaua was a controversial person." Honda says, "and I'm not sure 1 really like him. He was a self-centered personality but he did manage to gather around him a group of scientists, doctors and artists who shared their knowledge. Together these men and women were responsible for reviving wide-spread interest in the ancient Hawaiian culture." Honda, who customarily works in pen and ink but is exhibiting collage in the current show, draws her inspiration from the hula. One assemblage called widened. In front of him were dozens of the Hala Naua calabashes.

"It was during that visit to the Bishop Museum," says Jensen, "that I decided upon the theme, 'Things of the Mind and Things of the that became the central idea for this year's Hale Naua III annual exhibit. The contents of the these containers may have been made by hand but the artifacts represented the essence of Hawaiian culture and arts." How well members of Hale Naua III, a society of Hawaiian artists, have followed this theme can be seen until August 14 in the courtyard of Honolulu Hale. The exhibit catalog lists 66 pieces of art on display, ranging from Jensen's wooden sculpture to the illustrative oils of Herbert Kawainui Kane, to the impressionistic acrylics of A.C. Kahekiliuila Lagunero, to the graphic collages of Maiki Honda. It is mid-morning and a sea of clouds has blocked out the burning sun.

Taking a break from their exhibit duties, Jensen and Honda sit down on the front steps of Honolulu Hale to discuss the society and their own role within it as individual artists. "Hale Naua III," explains Jensen, now has about 150 members, about a third of whom work regularly at their art. "It was founded in 1976 by myself, my wife Lucia, and a half-dozen other Hawaiian artists. Our primary goal was, and still is, to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture, religion and history through works of art. By bridging the gap between past and present, we want to show that the Hawaiian culture has a continuing vitality." According to Jensen, the roots of the Hale Naua date back to about 1030 A.D.

when Haho. the son of Paumakua of Maui, established the Aha Ali'i or Council of High Chiefs. Later it was called the Ka Papa Kuauhau Ali'i or Genealogical Board of chiefs. "This first Hale Naua," Honda says, "was concerned ot Jcju to allow maie memoers oi me group to toss balls of twine at naked women sitting on. chairs across the room.

If the targeted lady could not catch the ball of twine between her legs the victorious man took her out of the room to claim his reward. The common nickname of the Hale Naua during Kalakaua 's day was the "Ball of Twine Society." Today, students of Hawaiiana have a more objective view of the Hale Naua and generally acknowledge that King Kalakaua's group had a loftier purpose. Any liscentious behavior among its members existed solely in the minds of outsiders. In the Bishop Museum's current traveling exhibit, "Hawai'i: The Royal Isles," there is a small covered container made of koa wood. Once belonging to a female member of the Hale Naua society, its contents include ethnographic objects' of ritual significance.

Among these are fishhooks, a miniature niho palaoa hook pendant, pieces of bark cloth, a fragment of netting, some photographs, a maroon and gold ribbon representing the colors of the Society. There is even a ball of twine in the container, but it probably symbolized mathematical and astronomical knowledge rather than sexual activity. Every member of the Hale Naua was supposed to keep such a container, but little is now known about their use in actual ceremonies. When. the nuseum was organizing the exhibit, Roger G.

Rose, its curator of ethnology, invited artist Rocky Ka'iouliokahihikolo'ehu Jensen (who has a sculpture in the exhibit) into the storage room. Jensen's eyes.