Herb Kane's Retrospective Exhibit

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Ancient Punaluʻu, Hawaiʻi Island

Painting in Public

Within Pele’s domain, the sparsely inhabited districts of Puna and Ka‘ū
probably produce more tales of “spooky stuffs” than any other areas of our Islands.

In 1973 I was living in Honolulu and working as a design consultant to C. Brewer, a major landholder in Kaʻū.  I had participated with my client’s architects and with designer-photographer Boone Morrison in the design of a restaurant and small history museum that was now being built at Punaluʻu, on the edge of a freshwater pond that lay behind a beach of black sand.  This was the site of the village that had been destroyed by the tsunami of 1868.

A planned feature of the “history center” was a mural depicting how Punaluʻu might have appeared two centuries ago, when it was a village of thatched houses.  The setting of the village, the pond, and the beach were to be shown with figures: women working under a thatched shelter; fishermen coming ashore, some working on a canoe; men preparing to bake a pig in an earth oven; chiefs and a priest on the beach awaiting the landing of the double-hulled sailing canoe of a visiting chief – all the activity that might have filled the scene at Punaluʻu on a sunny day long ago. On the far side of the cove, beyond the surf, the great rock platform of the heiau (temple), known as Kāneʻeleʻele, would be depicted as it may have appeared then, with thatched structures, fences of palings, and carved temple images.

Coming from the bustle of modern Honolulu to the rural island of my childhood, some culture shock was experienced.  I rented a little house in the countryside near the village of Waiohinu, and occasionally saw wild pigs crossing the road on my morning drive to the construction site.

While Boone and his crew were constructing the historical displays, and others were working on the restaurant and on the landscaping that was being installed around the cluster of buildings, I began the mural.

Soon I had visitors.  As word spread, residents of Kaʻū began to drop in to see what “da paintah” was doing.  Most were content to stand behind me silently while I worked.  My first impulse was to chase them all away, but they really were little bother to me.  Much of the time I was not aware of my audience until I would happen to turn away from the painting and see them, standing quietly and smiling.

I made friends, and I began to learn about Ka‘ū.  The subject matter of the painting brought out stories about Ka‘ū as it once was, especially from the older folk.  The elderly Mary Kawena Pukui, a distinguished Hawaiian scholar, dropped by on a visit to the place of her childhood, and told me the legend of Kauila, the gentle turtle-mermaid who once inhabited the freshwater pond that lay between the construction site and the beach.  This became the subject of a painting which would hang in the restaurant, overlooking the pond.

At night all doors were locked except the door that opened to the section in which I was working, and the security guard would lock this door also when I was not there.  One night, returning to work after dinner, I had him unlock the door for me.  He turned on the lights and together we walked through the building to see the progress that had been made.  Then he went out.  I turned out all the lights except my work lights, and went to work.

I had worked for perhaps an hour, when I turned from my work and saw an elderly Hawaiian woman standing in the shadows, looking at the painting.

Part Two of this story is continued next week.