Is there a craft native to your region of the planet?

The Merrie Monarch hula festival has many craft fairs that go along with it. There are many native crafts to see: musical gourds, drums, items made from native koa trees, and, my favorite, feather work.

Feathers were highly prized in ancient Hawaii for their beauty, and there were specialized feather collectors. They would put very sticky substances on a limb next to some bait to catch birds with very rare breast feathers. I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten the name of the birds. They had only two yellow feathers. They would get stuck in the sticky stuff. The collector would come along and pluck the two yellow breast feathers and set the birds free to grow more breast feathers.

So those capes you see in pictures of Hawaiian royalty required thousands and thousands of bird catches to produce.

Today, Hawaiian feather work is still practiced. If you click the links on the site I’ve linked, you can see the beautiful feather hatbands that are so popular here.

Are there native crafts where you live?

Aloha pumehana.