LEI MAKING AND LAUHALA WEAVING
The makers of leis—the beautiful garlands of carnations, ilima, ginger or hydrangea interwoven with maile, forming the hat and neck-encircling masses of fragrance and color which speed departing friends, or bedeck luau and poi luncheon guests—enliven the street corners of the shopping district at all times, sitting in the shade of nearby buildings with their ti-leaf covered baskets by their sides, busily making the more durable leis of paper, shell or seeds, and almost invariably discussing suffrage. On steamer days the downtown districts and piers are alive with men and women vendors of this most characteristic native ornament.
Usually the women of the family make the leis, the men cultivating the flowers for their manufacture in the home garden patches. There are perhaps two dozen of these women in Honolulu, each of whom has her regular stand on one street corner or another. But the leis themselves are made everywhere. A trip through a tenement block at eleven o’clock at night disclosed an entire family, men, women, half-grown girls and children,—eight in all,—asleep on the floor, while an older woman, an aunt, sat on the floor in the farthest corner making yellow paper leis for a suffrage meeting, by the light of an oil lamp. It is the most general home occupation of the Hawaiian woman, and the lei itself in one form or another, usually of red or yellow paper, decorate picture frames and mantels at least in every other home one enters. It was found even on the occasion of a visit to the high-perched cottage of a Black Forest German iron-worker, married to a French woman from the Pyranees, who owns a homestead at the head of one of the beautiful valleys, with an outlook sweeping from the crest of one hill to the next, the sound of a nearby waterfall always accompanying the soughing of the trade wind. The crescent moon, accompanied by Venus, topped one of the hills as our host settled himself back in his veranda chair and grunted comfortably:“I think I don’t know any better place as Honolulu for a working man.—No?”
Lei making is evidently a profitable occupation. The vendors say that the usual receipts are $9.00 a day on steamer days, and from $2.00 to $3.00 or $4.00 on other days. It is taught by the older Hawaiian women to the next generation, and I fancy any newcomer to the ranks would have much the same sort of fight for place as would a newsboy on a rival’s route.
The garlands sell at twenty-five cents each, and the blossoms are either gathered up in the hills or are raised at home. Only one lei-maker talked with purchased any of her flowers. She said she bought about half her supply from a Japanese gardener.
Lauhala weaving is a passing native industry, and while mats, fans and pillow-covers are found in the curio shops, dealers and some of the older Hawaiians say that the rush to turn land into pineapple and sugar cultivation has eradicated the lauhala until it is not now obtainable in any quantity sufficient for commercial uses, from every island but Molokai.
The mats, of a soft, light tan color, are the ideal covering for bungalow floors. They are woven in inch or two-inch squares, and have a dull, satiny finish that is very attractive. They are scrubbed with soap and water, and the lauhala fiber may be preserved indefinitely for mending purposes, if moistened with water occasionally.
There is undoubtedly a good local market for these mats, and their beauty and durability ought to make them popular elsewhere if a sufficient supply of raw material were guaranteed. Most of those in use here are made to order, although a few of the shops have a small stock for sale.
The training of a corps of workers in this industry and an organized plan for marketing the product in the furniture and dry-goods shops might convince property owners that here is an additional opportunity for industry.
The Federal Bureau of Forestry and Agriculture says that lauhala will grow on almost any sort of rocky land that wouldbe available for no other agricultural purpose; and that it requires very little moisture, growing down almost to the sea in some places.
The weaving process is not laborious and can be carried on in the open air. Patience and care are required, however, in selecting and moistening the dried leaves for weaving.
If this industry could be placed on a sound basis it would not only give continuous employment to a corps of workers, but would serve the interesting purpose of keeping alive a characteristic folk-occupation.
Also, as Miss Addams has so often pointed out, in speaking of the national museum of occupations in Hull House, the stimulation of the workers’ respect for their own national occupations is always healthy.