Dalani has recreated kapa making using only the tools and finished kapa pieces left behind by her ancestors. She teaches our class at Leeward Community College from 6-9pm each Thurs. eve.
Six of us in the class. We are all teachers. Hawaii has 10% LDS, and we find that all but 1 student are LDS. And the teacher is too. Greg has her beautiful daughter in law in his lit. class at BYUH.
The first evening Dalani unloaded an 8 ft tree (wauke trees) and a large river stone for each of us. We sat on mats outdoors as she showed us finished kapas and hardwood pounding tools. The Hawaiians sit Indian style neatly. Greg and I rudely stretch a leg or two our straight. Then she set us to work. We scraped the dark bark off our trees with the edge of a large round shell. Then we sliced the inner bark from top to bottom with a shark-tooth knife and peeled the pliable 3/8 inch thick inner white bark away from the center core of the tree. We threw away the inner core, accordion folded the inner bark, placed it on a river stone, and pounded it to break down fibers. When class ended, we put our kapa into a large Ziploc bag labeled for each student. (There’s no way I can exchange Greg’s perfect intact piece for mine with shredded half length.) Dalani took the bags home, added water, and set them in the sun to ferment nicely.
Linda
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