copyright 2004 Jacqueline Windh

By Toni Dabbs

What began as a three-hour event, during which canoes were displayed, has become a two-week cultural celebration, during which canoes are made, according to Jerry Kunimoto, co-founder of the International Festival of Canoes.

The festival, which draws master canoe carvers from around the Pacific, has become a popular annual event on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The 2005 version is scheduled for May 14 to 29 along Front Street in the town of Lahaina.

Canoes have been important to the people of Polynesia since ancient times, when they were the only form of transportation between far-flung islands. As the most isolated group of islands in the world, Hawaii relied on canoe craftsmanship and seamanship skills for its development.

The International Festival of Canoes honors the traditions of canoe making and voyaging, which allowed the early Polynesian people to explore and settle the distant corners of the Pacific.

"This event is important," says Michael Tavioni, a self-taught carver from the Cook Islands, "because it’s the only one in the Pacific to showcase the carving of canoes, as opposed to canoe racing or merely exhibiting the vessels."

Tavioni is among master carvers from such places as the Cook Islands, Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest, the Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Tonga who have participated in the festival over the years. During the course of the event, each carver creates a canoe in the style representative of his cultural group, using both old fashioned hand adzes and modern power tools.

Carvers work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. most days and are open to answering questions and talking with visitors. When all canoes are complete, they are paraded along Front Street, given a ceremonial launch, and paddled in an ocean voyage procession.

In addition to canoe carving, the festival features demonstrations of Hawaiian house thatching, Hawaiian drum making, and surfboard shaping. Other components include a week-long arts and crafts fair plus performances by Polynesian musicians and dancers.

It’s hard to say who gains the most from the International Festival of Canoes, the participants or the visitors.

Co-founder Kunimoto tells the story of participants from the Duff Islands, a part of the Solomon Islands so remote that they had to paddle almost all day to reach an air strip, who met with festival planners on Maui. As the Duff Islanders spoke in their native language, the Hawaiian speaking planners were surprised to discover that they could understand much of what was said.

But as the meeting progressed, the Duff Islanders became very emotional, and Kunimoto, awaiting translation, began to worry that something was wrong. Then the interpreter, an anthropologist studying the Duff Islands culture, explained.

"The king is without words," he said "It is beyond his understanding that he would be sitting on the ‘aina (land) of their creator Laka."

The Hawaiians were amazed to learn that Laka, a goddess often associated with Maui and the hula, had such a prominent place in a culture so far away.

"This kind of thing is at the core of the event," says Kunimoto, "forming connections."