1- Although
a floral garland
is seen worldwide
as the most typical
Hawaiian lei, they
can also be made
with leaves, nuts,
shells and feathers - ‘Aunty’ Maile
Napoleon threads
a lei with expert care
Facing page:
The Milky Way
above the slopes
of Mauna Kea
Aloha
L
IKE A PAIR OF FLUTTERING BIRDS,
Maile Napoleon’s delicate, 78-year-old
hands never stop moving. I’m sitting
with her at a food court table in Waimea,
an upland farming and ranching community
on the Big Island, surrounded by green hills
in paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) country.
Maile is chatting – “talking story”, in the patois
of the islands – while her nimble fingers
continually inter-weave blossoms with strands
of dried raffia to create a woman’s head lei.
This master lei-maker is known as Aunty
Maile in the Hawaiian way of addressing even
your unrelated elders as aunty or uncle,
and she is teaching me how to make a lei.
But without realising it, she’s also schooling
me in the meaning of aloha, the ubiquitous
Hawaiian word of greeting and farewell that
encompasses deeply-felt spiritual concepts
of love, harmony, peace and compassion.
“My tutu (grandmother) told me that
the best way to show the aloha spirit is to make
something and give it away,” says Napoleon,
who in just four weeks will leave the Big Island
to live with her daughter in Colorado.
“I hated making leis when I started aged six,
but, over time, I grew to love it,” she continues
in her sing-song voice. “I put the best feelings
in me into a lei, and people tell me they feel
love like a kind of energy when they receive it.”
She lets out a merry laugh. “I don’t know
how that happens, but it makes me happy.”
Napoleon finishes the lei, hands it to me,
and asks that I leave it as an offering atop
the summit of Mauna Kea or give it to
a stranger “with a sad face,” as she often does.
“Giving a lei to someone without looking for
anything in return,” she says, “that’s aloha.”
Master lei-makers run free workshops every
second Friday at Volcano Art Center Gallery
(www.volcanoartcenter.org) in Hawai‘i
Volcanoes National Park (seven-day car pass:
` 1, 70 0 ).^2