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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Hats off to memories of Hawai'i

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

I've just had a lesson in how much of old Hawai'i we've lost in the last 100 years. The lesson comes from a story about women in Kaka'ako who wove hats for tourists. The story describes hats woven of 10 different materials that sold for $1.50 to $15.

Here's the list: pumpkin fiber hat, bird's nest fern hat, maidenhair fern hat, pamoho fern hat, bamboo straw pile hat, Kona hat, sugar cane hat, lauhala hat, coconut fiber hat and the peacock quill hat.

This story comes from the Jan. 12, 1901, edition of The Advertiser. To buy one of these hats, the writer instructed visitors to drive to the Healani Boat House on the waterfront (where Pier 5 is now) and walk along the seawall to a squatters village (now a waterfront park) where women wove hats.

There are directions for making each hat. The pumpkin fiber hat takes the longest because the pumpkin stalk, from which the hat is made, has to be cut and sliced, then cleaned over again for four days until the stalk resembles a piece of white, silken gauze. When finished the hat is light as a feather but fragile.

For a bird's nest fern hat, only the center or blade is used. It's peeled and dried in a shady place, then the strands are trimmed even. The lower portion of the blade is dark brown, the middle a golden brown. The two together make a beautiful effect.

One of the hard parts of making a maidenhair fern hat is finding the fern. In 1901, it grew on Kaua'i and in a shady dell on the beach near Kahuku where it grew in abundance. A maidenhair fern hat is heavy so it's worn by men.

A peacock quill hat is snow white and glistens in the sun as if made of a strand of pearls. It is one of the choicest hats and requires more than 400 quills to make. Each quill is shorn of feathers, split and scraped. Such a hat even then cost $15 and, according to the writer, "no ordinary hand can make such a hat."

One of the prettiest hats is the bamboo straw pile hat. The bamboo is cut when half grown. Every joint is cut and split on one side, then flattened and dried in the sun for a day or two. The most difficult part is soaking the bamboo in lime juice and water. The mixture and length of soaking must be just right. The result is a dead white color. When woven with black, hill banana leaf, the result is spectacular.

For pua ko or sugar cane hats, split blossom stalks and scrape away the fiber, then bundle and boil. The straws are dried in the sun until light brown. Cane leaf hats are made from the center or blade. It has a creamy, satiny finish. The blades are dried, split into fine strands and woven.

Kona hats are made of the young leaf of fan palm that is cut from the tree and dried in the sun for a week, soaked in salt water and dried again. This operation is repeated four or five times. This hat is superior to a lauhala hat and costs $3.50 to $5.

Coconut fiber hats are made in the same way as hala hats. Sometimes the leaves are dyed in the mud of a taro patch.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.