In Praise of the Goddess

By John Skow

An old woman wearing a crown of green mountain ferns and drapery that looks vaguely Grecian stands alone, arms upraised, and chants in a strong voice to ancient gods. This is polite and also prudent. Kau'i Zuttermeister, 78, is a hula dancer, and she accepts mainland Christianity, first brought to the Hawaiian Islands in 1820 by missionaries. But her uncle Sam Pua Haaheo, an elderly kahuna, or expert practitioner, who taught her the chants, dances and drumming patterns of traditional hula 60 years ago, told her to "pray first to the gods of your forefathers. They were here first."

Some still endure. Most of the ancestor gods are gone now, but on the Big Island, the fire and volcano goddess Pele still lives. She is not worshiped, say modern-day Hawaiians, but she is acknowledged, and in the fiery and overflowing caldera of Kilauea she rules. The first hula, it is said, was chanted and danced in Pele's praise by her younger sister Hi'iaka. Recently Zuttermeister and some 25 other splendid hula performers, the spiritual descendants of Hi'iaka, brought their art to the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C. It was not modern dance, which is what the festival customarily explores and celebrates. But there were some similarities; the hula is earth seeking, like most of modern dance, not aerial, like classical ballet. It is done with the knees flexed, and, of course, in bare feet. So, often, is modern dance.

When Zuttermeister was young, the ancient, traditional hula -- hula kahiko -- had nearly died out. Islanders with Hawaiian blood took little pride in their ancestry, and cellophane-skirt-and-ukulele imitation hulas were staged mostly for tourists. But her husband Carl, a German immigrant, was proud of Kau'i's Hawaiian blood and persuaded her to learn what her uncle had to teach.

A few others of that generation also learned from their elders, and by the early 1970s mainland ethnic-pride movements had strong echoes in the islands. Now there is little danger that the old hula forms will die. Zuttermeister has passed on the chants and dance movements, exactly as she learned them, to her daughter Noenoelani Zuttermeister Lewis, 43, and her granddaughter Hauolionalani Lewis, 20. Public schools today teach hula as part of the cultural history of the islands. Teams taught by hula masters compete in hula dance-offs that are approximately as well attended as high school basketball tournaments in Indiana. Such top-ranked groups as the four who traveled to Durham have little chance to grow rusty. This week on the Big Island, for example, the Kanaka'ole sisters will invoke the gods for a space conference and take part in the Kilauea Dance Exhibition.

Noenoelani, kneeling, chants and finger taps the puniu, a small coconut- shell drum lashed to the thigh, and thumps the pahu hula, a larger sharkskin- covered drum. Hauolionalani, leis at wrists and ankles, head erect, chants a formal request -- "Let me in, I'm cold" -- to be admitted to the halau, or dance school. Noenoelani replies as the teacher, "Come in, all I have to offer is my voice . . ." Her daughter begins the rhythmic, liquid swaying of the hula.

It is not hard to see why missionaries in the early 19th century were horrified by the hula. Not only did the dances glorify false gods, but many of them were explicitly and joyously sexual. There were niceties; it is | considered vulgar, for instance, to thrust your opu, or lower abdomen, forward when you are performing the ami, the characteristic revolving hip motion of hula. But even done with good taste, traditional dances celebrating the genital endowment of kings or queens -- Your Oversized Ma'i is the name of one that compares the ma'i of King David Kalakaua with an eel -- were too much for the stern mainland men of God.

The preachers succeeded in having the hula banned, and the dances stayed underground until Kalakaua's coronation in 1883. He brought about a public revival, with one concession to puritan sensibilities: male dancers could wear their traditional elaborate loincloths, but women, who had worn skirts of tapa (beaten bark) and no tops, could perform only when covered from neck to knee.

This compromise hardened into tradition. Women are heavily swathed, wearing voluminous outfits or skirts traditionally made of ti plant leaves, sanctified by precautionary over-the-knee bloomers. The result is that male energy and loincloth-flipping impudence are expressed powerfully and directly, while the grace and erotic force of the women are somewhat muffled.

Thus it seems that the missionaries' kapu (prohibition) has won. Or has it? The most vivid images a beguiled mainlander takes away from the hula are of Kau'i Zuttermeister, arms raised to the old gods, and the rumbling power of two sisters, Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele and Nalani Kanaka'ole, big mountain- shaped women, sitting splaylegged and barefoot on the stage, each beating ancient rhythms on an ipu (gourd drum) held between her thighs. A two-volcano percussion section, these Kanaka'oles, and, yes, Pele lives!