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Hula Reflections
Ka Maile (excerpted from Kinohi Loa) M aile, a fragrant vine with glossy, deep green leaves, has always held a personal significance for me. Growing up next to a rainforest, I grew up with it. Maile was part of the natural foliage, growing wild. Even so, we reserved "picking" it for only the most auspicious of occasions.
A lthough we would say, "We going pick maile," doing so entailed: traipsing into the dense forest growth, taking care not to fall into the puka (volcanic crevices), "picking" it off the trees by tugging and untwining the vines off the tree branches, being careful to not bruise the leaves, finding our way back out of the forest, pounding and stripping the stems to remove them from the vines, and entwining several stripped vines to create a lush, open-ended lei.
F avoring the flower lei, the showier the better, malihini (newcomers/visitors) often misperceive a maile lei as just a "bunch of leaves". For us, a maile lei has no equal. To be bestowed a maile lei is a true honor. It was the lei worn by ke ali'i, the royalty, and the maka`âinana, the commoner, alike.F or those of us who danced the hula, we knew the maile vine as sacred to Laka, the goddess of hula.
As a six-year-old keiki, for a hula performance, my Daddy presented me with my first maile lei. The kumu hula was going for the "Hô da cute effect," placing me front and center. I was the "runt", the littlest one, in the troupe (the culturally-correct term for troupe these days is hâlau).The lei was unraveling or Daddy must have thought I was a whole lot taller; either way, the open-ended maile lei was waaaaay too long. I kept tripping over it during the entire performance, making for an unexpected comic hula.So proud and happy was I to wear that maile lei, I "danced" on unfazed, filling the hall with laughter. Ahh, such were the beginnings of a keiki Hilo Hattie!Y ou see as young as I was, I knew maile was extra special. Dad's going into the deep, dark forest in search of maile, harvesting it, and then lovingly making it into a loving gift for his little girl made it even more special.I kept Dad's maile lei in my ipu for weeks, breathing in its unique, vanilla-anise fragrance and feeling so very happy inside. To this day, I can recall that maile lei's fragrance, relive those happy moments, and giggle a little, as if all just happened yesterday.
>> On-Site Link on Laka's Sacred Plants: Greenery for the Hula Altar |
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