Visitor Joyce DeCristoforo was among hundreds who gathered at the King Kamehameha statue yesterday to see one of the Islands' most colorful traditions: the cloaking of the monarch with dozens of lei to kick off the annual King Kamehameha Celebration.

"It's just marvelous and beautiful," said DeCristoforo, 63, who is visiting with her husband from Orlando, Fla. "There's something spiritual about it that I'm not sure I understand, but it's there."

Each lei is made up of more than 500 flowers. Each blossom is supposed to represent a person in Kamehameha's kingdom.

The lei-draping ceremony is in its 91st year, but other Kamehameha Day traditions, such as today's Kamehameha Day Parade, began as far back as the late 1800s, said Adrian K. Kamali'i, chairman of the King Kamehameha Celebration Commission.

Kamali'i said the state commission is looking for ways to reinvigorate the tradition, perhaps by reaching out to entities such as the Department of Education to broaden the Kamehameha Day celebration.

"Kamehameha was so much more than a king," Kamali'i said. "He was also a statesman who opened Hawai'i to international relations and a great father who raised a lineage of other great rulers."

As firefighters on an elevated platform draped lei on the statue, dancers from Halau Hula Olana performed "Green Rose Hula" and "That's the Hawaiian Way."

A volunteer, Scott Car-michael, 19, helped to carry the lei to the firefighters. "It's nice because the event is out in the open and the public is able to attend," Carmichael said.

"For all of us, this is a chance to reaffirm our interest in supporting the ali'i," said Nani Mahoe, treasurer of the Royal Society of Hawaiian Women. The 312 members of the society, many of whom are in their 80s and 90s, create the lei from flowers brought by the commission from Moloka'i.

Leo Urabe, 13, of Pearl City, a dancer in Halau Hula Olana and whose mother helped to create one of the lei, was also watching and taking photos of the performers.

"The ceremony is a nice way to honor Kamehameha," she said.

Ryan Fritz, 34, and his family were visiting Hawai'i from Denver. The lei-draping "is fantastic," Fritz said. "The guys from the Fire Department are doing a really professional job."