Eoe Emmalani I Alaka’i

 

A festival celebrating Queen Emma’s 1871 mountain trek.

 

Halaus (hula schools) from all the islands come each year (for the last 23 years anyway) on the second Saturday to the meadow near Kokee Lodge. Presentations began at 10 am and lasted until about 4 pm. Cindy, one of the ladies who comes to hularobics, participated this year and invited the class to attend. Lucky for me, Hua and Katie wanted to go, Hua would drive, and I could go along.

The only live hula I’d previously seen was on tv or at luaus where the dancers were always young and beautiful. In real life, people of all ages and sizes get together to learn a wide variety of dances and enjoy the grace and beauty of hula.

Queen Emma - it’s a huge honor to be selected to represent her - arrived at noon on horseback accompanied by two attendants.

She welcomed everyone and sang a pule (prayer):

 

 

A gift about to be presented to Queen Emma before this halau performs.



 

Auntie Hannah, seated, composed the songs, played the ukelele and sang:

From the Kona side of the Big Island, a men's halau performs:

From the same halau, keiki (children):

Gifts were presented to Queen Emma's attendant

Queen Emmalani, 1836-1885.

At the end of the day, my personal water taxi driver came to pick me up:

Thank you so much, Hua and Katie, for inviting me.  I had a great time!  With this post, I also accomplished another blogging skill: posting video.  Yay!