4 Sunday, April 1, 2018 Hawaii Tribune-Herald
2018 Merrie Monarch Festival
Merrie Monarch Festival President Luana Kawelu, sitting, left, views the onstage
activities.
Festival From page 3
scuttling it. Dorothy “Aunty Dot”
Thompson, who worked for the
county Department of Parks and
Recreation, took control of the festival.
She went to hula master George
Na‘ope, one of the festival’s co-founders,
whose connections with other
influential figures in hula led to a
unique halau and solo wahine hula
competition that started in 1971.
Thompson, who died in 2010,
had a vision of what the festival
could be and the tenacity and
work ethic to make it happen.
“She believed in it so much she
took out personal loans to keep it
going. I asked her why she did that
and she said, ‘I didn’t want to see
another Hawaiian event go down,’”
recalled Luana Kawelu, the festival’s
president and Thompson’s daughter.
Thompson and Na‘ope’s timing
were perfect, and the Merrie
Monarch Festival was on the
vanguard of a Hawaiian renaissance
of language and culture.
Another centerpiece of the renaissance
is Hokule‘a, the Polynesian
HOLLYN JOHNSON/Tribune-Herald
Voyaging Society’s modern version of
the wa‘a — double-hulled canoes that
ancient Polynesians sailed over open
ocean, wayfinding by the stars, sun,
waves and other environmental factors.
Hokule‘a returned last year from
its Malama Honua voyage, a threeyear,
42,000-mile journey around
the world. The epic voyage wouldn’t
have been possible if not for the original
crew that sailed from Hawaii to
Tahiti and back in 1976. That crew
was led by the late Mau Piailug, a
pwo (master) navigator from the
Micronesian island of Satawal, who
restored to Hawaiians a prime piece
of their heritage by teaching Nainoa
Thompson, pwo navigator and PVS
president, the art of wayfinding.
“I put out the invitation to the
original crew, the first crew that
went to and from Tahiti. Of the
25 who sailed, 12 are still alive,”
Kawelu said. “I told them we’d
be so honored to honor them.”
The celebration will occur at
See FESTIVAL Page 6