The Reclamation of Hawaiian Featherwork: Exploring History and Tradition in Relation to the Present
Arts
History of Art and Visual Culture; HAVC172
Hawaiian cultural traditions began hundreds of years ago, before European contact and have been sustained to the present. Hawaiian featherwork, which was reserved to the ali’i (chiefly class), is one of the oldest traditions and continues to be an important marker of Native Hawaiian identity today. It was practiced before and during the beginning of the monarchy period (ca. 1810-1893). After Kamahameha I’s (the first king of the unified Hawaiian archipelago) death in 1819, the production of featherwork started to wane though featherwork to be prominently displayed by the ali’i throughout the nineteenth century. Since the 1960s, it has been reclaimed as a practice and a symbol of Hawaiian culture due to its link to Native Hawaiian identity and history as it has been passed down through generations. Not only has it been reclaimed among Native Hawaiians as a living tradition, the reclamation of the featherwork has also taken the form of Indigenous conservation practices and public exhibitions in Hawaiian institutions, in collaboration with Western institutions.
