Mokihana

One of our two opening oli honored this! My first oli honored my master and Hālau Mōhala ‘Ilima

50 years ago today...on the eve of her maiden arrival to Tahiti, Hōkūleʻa with her 15 crew members and two documenters on board, arrived off shore of Tetiaroa Atoll. Crew members did not spend time at Tetiaroa, but it was a landmark to the north of Papeʻete, as they were getting closer to their final destination, where people were already starting to gather to await their arrival the following day.

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Follow along as we reflect on this time 50 years ago, celebrating, honoring, and remembering Hōkūleʻa’s landmark 1976 maiden voyage through this series of photos, videos, newspaper articles, first hand accounts, and more!

A few of my lovelies in one of the dressing rooms before ho'ike.

Our annual Ho'ike was a so very much fun this past Saturday! We had our Alexandria debrief mtg & watch party potluck last night...such 'ono food. 😋🍊🥩🥖🥗🍲🥘🍨🍰 Our Wi******er/ Front Royal debrief & potluck will be this Thursday.

Please let me know if you watched live via Zoom 💻and share any and all thoughts. Constructive criticism is welcome and can be very helpful. Photos & video clips coming...☺️🤙

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The May Day program at the Bishop Museum is only available to watch for free through this Sunday. Don't miss out on this lovely concert.

If you have time and would like to watch our backyard ho`ike this Saturday at 7:00PM, Eastern time, email me for the Zoom link.

Last year we had to squish into a gym because of weather. We have a beautiful forecast this year!!

Dress rehearsing this Tuesday might be a bit wet, but I'm so grateful that it looks as if our yard will get to dry out by Saturday. Now we just need to pray for a break in the rain on Saturday for Ho'ike! 🙏🤞❤️

Ho'ike will be on May 30! Msg me if you'd like an invitation/zoom link.

FREE to view this month only! ...so many CONNECTIONS to our momma halau, Hālau Mōhala ‘Ilima.

How many can you list? :)

Hawaiian Airlines May Day 2026, presented by Bishop Museum Watch Hawaiian Airlines May 2026, presented by Bishop Museum. Enjoy performances by Keauhou, Robert Cazimero, special guest Kealiʻi Reichel, and more!

We are proud descendants in the line of Maiki Aiu Lake!

She was given away. Twice.
She was born Margaret Souza on May 28, 1925 in Honolulu. Her parents handed her to a great-aunt and uncle in Palolo Valley as a hānai child. When they both died, she was sent back to her birth mother. Then her birth mother sent her to ANOTHER great-aunt in Pauoa Valley. That second aunt was Helen Correa. And Helen Correa knew the hula.

Margaret's family was strict Christian. The hula was a closed book. Most of Hawaii had forgotten it on purpose. The dance had been outlawed in 1830 by a queen who had converted. The Hawaiian language had been banned from schools in 1896. By the 1940s, the old hula, in Maiki's own words, "lived only in the talent of a few masters."

Most of them were dying. Margaret was supposed to become a nurse. She chose the dying dance instead.

She studied under the great Lōkālia Montgomery. She graduated as a dancer at 18. She graduated as a kumu hula at 23. In 1948, she opened a studio in her family's living room.

Four years later, she did something nobody alive had been allowed to do in living memory. She got permission to call her studio a HĀLAU. That single word had been gone from Hawaiian life for so long the sign painter wrote it backward on her new sign. She kept the sign anyway.

The halau filled fast. Hundreds of students at a time. Children, adults, beginners, professionals. Hawaiians, haoles, locals, anyone. She didn't care who you were. If you wanted to learn, she taught you.

Then in 1972, she did the one thing every traditionalist swore could not be done. She put an ad in the newspaper. Not for hula students. For TEACHERS. Anyone interested in becoming a kumu hula could apply.

People were furious. You don't ADVERTISE for masters. You can't train kumu hula in a class. It was sacred. It was secret. It was DYING.

She did it anyway. Twenty-six students graduated from the Papa Lehua class in 1973: Robert Cazimero, Leina'ala Heine, Kaha'i Topolinski, Kalena Silva. The first new generation of kumu hula in decades.

Then she did it again. And again. By the early 1980s she had personally graduated 42 kumu hula. They started their own schools. Their schools started graduating their own teachers. Her hula grandchildren.

She called them her hula brothers and sisters. She invented the term. She invented the "hula book," where every dancer writes down every chant and motion they learn. Every halau in Hawaii uses one today. And she coined three words that have outlasted her by more than 40 years.

Hula is life.

She died on June 19, 1984. She was 59.

Over 3,000 people came to Kawaiaha'o Church. Her student Puakea Nogelmeier called the funeral an affair of state. Years later he would say it like this: "When I say that I was dirt and she was light, the light went out."

Robert Cazimero said her death changed everything for him. He stopped doing hula for himself. He started doing it for her. To this day his rule is one sentence. "I would never want to do anything to embarrass my kumu."

Her halau is still there. Run by her daughter Coline. It has been teaching for almost 80 years. In 2005, Cazimero's all-male halau swept the Merrie Monarch festival. He did it for her, twenty-one years after she died.

Every halau in Hawaii today, every hula book on every shelf, every dancer who calls another dancer her hula sister, all of it traces back to one Christian girl who was given away and then chose to mother a tradition the world had nearly killed. "I don't know if hula would've survived without her," her daughter said.

Some women raise children. Maiki Aiu Lake raised a culture. She mothered the dance. She mothered the teachers. She mothered an entire renaissance.

The girl nobody kept became the mother nobody forgets.

We are so very blessed by our two "uncles" Alan & Irv, who take time out of their busy lives to come to some of our classes to practice. They provide beautiful accompaniment to our mele hula 'auana at our family & friends picnic & ho'ike.

We're so happy to be back in session and preparing for our annual backyard ho'ike on May 30th.