Forest Elegance by Sunny Seal
“This lei has feathers that are tied together to recreate the look of a lei acquired by Captain G.Murray in the 1700’s in the time of King Kamehameha’s life. Kamehameha’s legacy includes having feather work. The most impressive feather work is his cape of yellow feathers that may have taken 450,000 feathers to make.
He forbade his kia manu (bird catchers) from taking the life of the birds when removing some feathers so that the birds would survive and the future generations would know the beauty of the creatures as “living jewels.” In this lei, each feather is wrapped three times and tied by hand according to the traditional way I have been taught by my kumu Doreen Moana Henderson who has validated me in a uniki (graduation) ceremony in 2017. My kumu was taught the technique of wrapping and hand tying each feather to secure it to a cord by, Mary Kahihilani Kovich.” – Sunny
