Join BirdNote tomorrow, November 30th!
Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!
Recreating a Princess’s Feather Skirt
Carrying on a long tradition of Hawaiian featherworking.
© Savannah Harriman-Pote
Rick San Nicolas is a master featherworker, carrying on a tradition of making elaborate feather garments that dates back centuries in Hawai’i. He’s recreating the famous pā‘ū, or skirt, given to Hawaii’s Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena nearly 200 years ago on Maui. The original pā‘ū was made mostly from the feathers of a bird called the ʻōʻō. Now, all ʻōʻō species are extinct, due to the effects of invasive species and habitat loss. That makes the original pā'ū a remarkable sign that ʻōʻō’s were once present on Maui. Learn more on the Threatened podcast.
BirdNote®
Recreating a Princess’s Feather Skirt
Adapted from the Threatened podcast
This is BirdNote.
Rick San Nicolas is a master featherworker, carrying on a tradition of making elaborate feather garments that dates back centuries in Hawai’i.
Rick San Nicolas: The Hawaiians felt that all the native Hawaiian birds were the most sacred, the feathers were the most sacred because they would be able to be the closest to heaven.
[Apapane song, ML 6072]
Rick is recreating the famous pā‘ū, or skirt, given to Hawaii’s Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena nearly 200 years ago on Maui. The original pā‘ū was made mostly from the feathers of a bird called the ʻōʻō, says Marques Hanalei Marzan, the Cultural Advisor to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.
Marques Hanalei Marzan: What is recorded is that the people of Lahaina went and gathered the feathers on Maui itself as a symbol of their love and commitment to their chief. And, you know, historically, there are very few examples of sightings of the ʻōʻō on the island of Maui.
Now, all ʻōʻō species are extinct, due to the effects of invasive species and habitat loss. That makes the original pā'ū a remarkable sign that ʻōʻō’s were once present on Maui. Rick’s replica version will allow Native Hawaiians to experience what the pā'ū was like when it was first made.
[Apapane song, ML 203926411]
Rick San Nicolas: So if you look at it at the finished form, it'll be well over 200,000 individual feathers and maybe closer to a quarter million individual feathers that'll be on, on a piece like this, too.
You can hear more about Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena’s pā'ū on the Threatened podcast. Listen in your podcast app or at BirdNote.org. I’m Ari Daniel.
###
Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Apapane ML 6072 recorded by T. Burr, and Apapane ML 203926411 recorded by J. Del Hoyo.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2022 BirdNote July 2022
Narrator: Ari Daniel
ID# feather-07-2022-07-18 feather-07