Weaving in Rurutu vs. Hawaiʻi

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WEAVING

IN HAWAI’I & RURUTU

Welcome to the wonderful world of weaving—the art of ulana in Hawaiian or rara’a in Rurutu. The inspiration for this starts with my belle maman, which means Beautiful Mom—the expression for Mother-in-law in French, a commonly spoken language in Maohi Nui, sometimes called French Polynesia, where she’s from. Not only did she raise the man I am grateful to spend my life with, she is also a master weaver from her home island of Rurutu. 

Rurutu is an incredibly special place in the Austral Islands known for their intricate weaving and the humpback whales singing so loudly that you could hear them from land. 

Hawai’i is another island paradise in Polynesia with beautiful white sand beaches, grand mountains, and a melting pot of people who are passionate about reviving and revitalizing the traditional ways of Hawai’i and their kūpuna or elders who came before them.

In this piece I will discuss the similarities and differences of the cultural art of weaving in both Hawai’i, my first love and home, and Rurutu, an island I’ve fallen in love with.

In both Rurutu and Hawai’i it was necessary for every family to have proficiency in weaving to thrive in everyday life. Sometimes it would be necessary to carry more than they could with their hands and most enjoyed being able to have a place to sleep in their homes rather than sleeping on the bare ground. Ulana or weaving solved both of these problems along with many more. While it was a fairly common skill, as with anything, creativity can begin to grow and some became inspired to create their baskets, mats, & hats in unique ways that soon became as beautiful artistically as they were functional.

To this day, in Rurutu at around 6-7 years old children will begin learning simple weaving & by the time they’re adults most women are proficient in the art of weaving while many excel beyond that in ‘artisana’ or craftsmanship. These expert weavers design their own unique expressions of bags, hats, mats and more with intricate details and colors.

Local Cave in Rurutu (Crysta T.)

Rurutu is home to a population of less than 2500 people and still primarily subsists off of fishing, farming, & agriculture. However, one of the greatest contributions to their economy is related to weaving. Artisans sell both finished products and weaving materials to be resold in Tahiti and other islands, sell to visitors in shops around the island—which are not uncommonly in a front room of their home, and give their creations as gifts amongst the community. Whale mating season attracts the bulk of tourism who enjoy shopping for unique hand woven souvenirs as well.

In Hawai’i, the population today is over 1.4 million people and over time with colonization & modernization, many families stopped passing on the knowledge of how to weave. By the 1990’s more and more families were beginning to worry as they saw their moena—or woven mats—beginning to become damaged due to natural wear and realizing that they no longer had a weaver in the family. After reaching out to other community members about the problem, an even bigger problem was realized. Although the art of ulana had not been completely lost, there was a shortage of pūhala trees available to harvest the lau hala or hala leaves, needed to repair the mats.

This is when the very large and diverse community started to make a conscious effort to plant more hala trees and pass on the knowledge of weaving. Pu’uhonua Society is a non-profit organization led by three consecutive generations of Native Hawaiian women—grandmother, mother, and now daughter—who began a program specifically for teaching, sharing, & perpetuating lau hala weaving called Keanahala. I have had the great pleasure of spending some time with this collective of people passionate about ulana and talking with them while our hands were busy prepping lau hala for weaving.

Although a variety of materials may be used for weaving, a similarity between Hawai’i & Rurutu’s most common material to use is that they are both in the Pandanaceae or Pandanus family. Although the plants come from the same family, Rurutu weavers use a plant they call pae’ore which is a variety of thorn-less pandanus that they cultivate as a bush. The younger light green leaves from the bush are prized for their softer quality and the “ease” to work with. 

Differently, the Hawaiians preferred material comes from dried leaves of the pūhala tree or the Pandanus tectorius. This is a tree that would ideally be at a height that would allow for harvesters to stand on the ground and reach up to grab from. Today, some of the pūhala are full grown trees which are climbed into and stood on to harvest lau hala or hala leaves. Keanahala weavers have a preference for the thornless variety of pūhala for mat making due to its thickness and durability. This thornless pūhala is an introduced variety while the thorned native Hawaiian pūhala offers a softer quality preferred for hat or pāpale making.

Although the pūhala is not typically used for weaving hats & bags in Rurutu, it still is a very useful & appreciated tree whose leaves are used in traditional housing which they share in common with the Hawaiians. The name in Tahitian is similar as well rau fara, rau like lau meaning leaf and fara as hala in Hawaiian.

The way that the leaves are harvested are also distinctly different between Rurutu and Hawai’i. Weavers of Rurutu harvest their leaves when they are light green and fresh off the bush. After the leaves are cut, the spine is removed before the leaves are woven together from the tips into a sort-of curtain of leaves which is hung to dry. If you want the prized “Pae’ore Blanche” or the white colored leaves they would be boiled  with an abundance of limes in a special Tahitian style oven for around 6 hours. If you want a darker grey-green color, charcoal & dark green leaves would be added to boiling water and it would be cooked longer. After the boiling process the leaves will be woven together into the curtain of leaves which reminds me of a tī leaf skirt if hung from one end to the other to dry in a covered area. They will then be laid out to dry in the sun for an average of 1-3 weeks depending on the weather and then it’s ready to roll into a ready-to-work-with pipita pae’ore or wheel of prepared leaves.

Hawaiians on the other hand harvest leaves that are already at least 75% dried from the tree or sometimes even the ground around the trees as long as they are regularly picking from and caring for the tree. In a traditional oli, or chant originally from the collection of Theodore Kelsey and reprinted in the book Nā Pule Kahiko shared before we begin hana or work from the practitioners of Keanahala called Pule Ola Lō’ihi, it says: 

O kau ola e ke akua

E nānā mai kāu mau pulapula

E ola a kaniko’o

A haumaka’iole

A pala lau hala

A kau i ka puaaneane

A laila, lawe aku ‘oe ia’u

I ke alo o Wākea e

Bestow life, o Akua

Look to us your descendants

Grant us health until the cane is sounded

And we grow bleary-eyed as the rat

And withered like that of the hala leaf

Until the extremity of old age is realized

Then take me to dwell

In the presence of Wākea

Practitioners at Keanahala relate this with aging gracefully like their beloved hala leaves. What an outsider may see as a dead leaf on the ground or dangling from a healthy tree is seen as a prized and special material through a Hawaiian lens. These dried leaves are gathered with pretty open standards taken generously while avoiding only those darkened with mildew or aged to the point where the po’o or larger thicker part of the leaf begins to separate from itself & become multiple layers. While avoiding mildew is standard practice it doesn’t stop some sustainable and creative modern day weavers from picking already mildewed leaves and dying them, commonly with store bought Rit dye which can provide bright and fun colors to incorporate into their designs. 

After the leaves are gathered the ones who didn’t make the cut are composted and the rest are on to be prepared to take on their second life. When I had the opportunity to prepare with the community of weavers in Keanahala we sat in a circle in the shade outside with rags submerged inside bowls of water as the first part of our tool kit. We grabbed one dried and shriveled leaf at a time and carefully flattened the widest, thickest part—or po’o meaning head—of the leaf between our thumb and pointer finger and pulled the leaf through to clean off the dirt accumulated over its lifetime and also begin to soften and flatten it with the wet towel. This is repeated as many times as needed while flipping the leaves on both sides till it is nice and clean. After all the leaves were clean and in a pile at our feet it was time for step 2, where we got a piece of wood which was shaped as a smooth cylinder with a slit about 3-4 inches from the top. One end of the leaf would slide into the slit to hold it and then the rest of the leaf would be rolled around and then twisted tightly to flatten and begin softening the leaf. After all leaves went through these processes the prepped leaves would be rolled into a kūka’a or wheel of weaving materials to move onto the next steps of its journey to what it may become. 

While we prepped kūka’a for around 3 hours we talked and shared. I asked if they had a story of the origin of weaving and one of the weavers shared that the Hawaiians had used the art of weaving on their navigation journey to Hawai’i so they already knew how to weave before their arrival to the islands and wasn’t familiar with an origin story of weaving. During my time spent with my mother-in-law & during my visit to Rurutu, their weaving origin story was recounted multiple times. I wonder if the fact that Rurutu was inhabited around a hundred years before Hawai’i has anything to do with this?

As stories or mo’olelo are a powerful and important tool of information being shared in Polynesian cultures I feel it’s fitting to include a couple stories from each of these special places in regards to this topic. 

Here’s the origin story of weaving in Rurutu. I’d love to preface this by saying when I asked my mother-in-law if she believed this was a legend or a true story, she answered she believes it is a true legend. A large, beautiful woman named Hina, described to have long dark hair and long nails arrived in Rurutu without anyone knowing. She lived in a cave which was common for people of Rurutu at that time. However, following her arrival children began to go missing. After families were devastated by their kids not returning home, they began to look for answers until one day a man saw Hina capture a child on the reef and take him up to her cave. There, she made him dance and then she ate him. The people of Rurutu formulated a plan to capture her in order to protect their kids and began working together to tie a huge net made of Purau or Hau fiber to catch her. “Rurutu Tu Noa” is the island’s original name from ancient times which means “gather and raise together” because when the people had a project in mind, they always succeeded in a unified manner. This story also gives me the impression that they were already quite skilled with their hands for this to be the solution they decided on. Working together, their net was ready and they went to Hina’s cave to prepare their trap. What they found there amazed them deeply—outside the cave there was an abundance of pae’ore planted and inside the cave it was covered in the most beautiful and miraculous woven creations they had ever laid eyes on. They successfully captured Hina and brought her to the town of Avera where a deal was arranged—in exchange for her life she would teach the people of Rurutu how to weave and she would stop eating children. The community began learning the art of Rara’a—weaving, with Hina. Unfortunately, children continued to go missing so with their newfound knowledge the people completed their mission of killing Hina and lived on to expand their weaving skill set in mats to sleep on, baskets, hats & more, which lent a wonderful advantage to the islanders' lives.

For the Hawaiian weavers I had the pleasure of sitting with, instead of sharing an origin story of weaving they shared a story about how the pūhala tree made its way to the islands. One of the women sitting around our circle shared the story that there was once a pūhala tree that grew out of the depths of the ocean, named Ohiohikupua. On Pele’s journey from Tahiti to Hawai’i she accidentally got caught in the thorns of the pūhala tree and it frustrated her. One of the weavers laughed a little and said “she got all hot and bothered—as she does'' and she began ripping off the ule hala or aerial roots of the Pandanus and throwing them in every direction in an effort to free herself which is how the pūhala tree began growing in various places including Hawai’i. Without luck getting free from the thorny leaves of the tree, Pele desperately sought help from one of her brothers Paao. He got a gourd of seawater and climbed up to pour it over the top of the tree which proved successful in freeing her. They said some Hawaiians believe that this mention of water relates to how the leaves require water in their preparation process to soften them for use in weaving. 

A concept I’ve observed with various Polynesian art forms is that positive mana or energy must be put into the preparation process just as much as is put into what may be considered the “actual art form” and these two things should not be too far separated. With that being said, let’s talk about what some may consider the fun part—let’s begin weaving. 

In Hawai’i & Rurutu to get your lau or leaves ready to weave from your kūka’a lauhala in Hawaiian, pipita pae’ore in Rurutu, or roll of Pandanus leaves in English, you must first make your strips to weave with.

The style I was taught on my first weaving project of a Rurutu style fan & the style which I observed weavers in Rurutu using utilizes a simple needle as their stripping tool. On the thicker part of the leaf which was once the part attached to the plant they will poke the leaf about 1-2 inches from the end and then drag it down to the edge on the short side. They then poke another hole & drag down at the width of whatever thickness they want for their strips. For lack of a better term they “eyeball” it & continue this poke pull method till the entire width of the leaf is frayed on one side. After, they hold the leaf upside down, put their needle within one of the slits and quickly pull it down the long side to the opposite end until they are left with multiple strips to use.

In modern Hawai’i the method of stripping the leaves is much more precise using a tool called a koe. The tool I got to use had 3 blades measured at 3/4 inches apart. We started at one end of the leaf, typically the po’o or thicker side & we’d poke the blades through with the guard of a small piece of rug underneath and then gently pull the leaf through for straight & even strips. If a leaf wasn’t wide enough for multiple pieces we would focus on getting one clean measured strip and the leftovers or the “koena” are saved for future weaving projects which require thinner strips such as bracelets.

Woven Bucket Hat with Tavere Moulin (Crystaylor Photography)

The style known as Tavere Moulin in Rurutu, which appear like a woven square made of 4 pieces woven together, are very popular in Rurutu and surrounding Polynesian islands such as Tahiti. The hats and bags made with numerous of these squares woven together are pieces locals wear proudly and visitors appreciate alike for their beautiful intricacy. Although they look similar to the “love knots” in Hawai’i, the method of weaving used to create them is different.

A more modern style of weaving has also emerged where thin pieces of pae’ore are woven into a 1-inch strip that you continue to add to and weave until you have a hearty roll of woven strip. These strips are then sewn in a spiral like motion to form hats & other times as bags. It takes about 6-9 feet of woven strip to sew into a hat and typically the start of the weave will be saved to continue weaving after. They produce

Woven Bag (Crystaylor Photography)

many different styles and variations with these “easy to weave'' strips. I would describe their style as maximalist as they love big, bold designs with decorations of bows and flowers made of pandanus attached to their hats. They also commonly form hats where the brim is shaped in deep waves around.

Hawaiian’s weave their own versions of intricately detailed pāpale or hats with lauhala along with fans, mats, & more! However, what continued to come up as a most special part of weaving from members of Keanahala was the hīna’i or baskets that are made specially to hold the remains of their passed loved ones. For Hawaiians, the bones or iwi hold a person’s mana and the traditional burial of the remains is considered a planting followed by physical and spiritual growth. With this, these baskets are incredibly special and hold something of utmost importance. This practice is actually being brought back for iwi kūpuna that have been dug up, often times to make room for development or returned from other places back to Hawaiʻi.

Another, wonderful and purposeful basket weaving project of Keanahala is part of an experiment led by Corinne Okada Takara who is working to create locally-driven solutions to the land and water contamination caused by the devastating 2023 Maui wildfires. She hopes to empower the youth to learn more about bioremediation—the use of microorganisms or other life forms to consume and break down environmental pollutants. Research has shown that fungal mycelium can successfully remediate harmful chemical compounds. The baskets woven will be used as mycelium grow chambers and it’s hypothesized that the Pleurotus cystidiosus myco-sheets will grow more quickly in the natural material than they would in another type of growing chamber.

Many different forms of weaving exist today in Hawai’i, Rurutu, and many other places in the world. The art is alive and continues to evolve with new styles and designs coming into fruition from the imagination of passionate artisans across Polynesia and the globe. 

I am deeply grateful to the community of weavers at Keanahala who are taking the time to share their knowledge of the ulana Hawai’i and to my mother-in-law & family of Rurutu who openly share their art of rara’a with me. May this be just the beginning of the knowledge I may gain of this beautiful & meaningful art form.