A bright light of Hawaiian culture has gone out, but not before she had enlisted others to carry the torch.

Winona Beamer, loved by many for her perpetuation of the Hawaiian arts of music, hula, chant and storytelling, died yesterday. Certainly, she accomplished a great deal in her 84 years by any measure.

"Auntie Nona" had a special touch with children, both for a gentle style of storytelling and her musical compositions — most famously "Pupu Hinuhinu."

Her family style of hula is known simply and with worldwide renown as "the Beamer Method."

She has won numerous awards and honors, all of them accepted with her characteristic humility and charm.

But perhaps what was most remarkable about this particular ambassador of aloha was her persistence in cultivating new lovers of Hawaiian culture. It seemed teaching was her lifelong mission.

From the moment she stood and performed hula at Kamehameha Schools in an era when that art form was still suppressed, it became clear that Beamer would become a standard bearer.

Members of her 'ohana have followed her lead. Looking beyond even her two sons Keola and Kapono, Beamer was matriarch of quite an extended family, including her hanai daughter Maile Beamer Loo and hanai son Kaliko Trapp. Loo was raised in Hawaiian culture and enriched by her relationship with her adoptive mother, but the British-born Trapp was a convert.

"Everyone who's ever learned from her, it's now our kuleana to perpetuate that," Trapp said.

All who admired "Auntie Nona" can agree with that. Continuing that mission and continuing to keep the flame lit is the ideal — and continuing — memorial to a much loved cultural treasure of the Islands.