Merrie Monarch

It’s a spring night in Hilo, Hawaii. Lei-Ann and her hula sisters are about to take the stage at the 1986 Merrie Monarch Festival. They’ve been practicing for months. But the gods have other plans.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Glynn Washington?

  Bow your head to me. I'll make you better. But how long will I live? Eternal life and forever. But will I be the G that I was? So much more than you can imagine, even dream of. So relax your soul. Give me control. Close your eyes, my son. Well, my eyes are closed. You've crossed over the spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:30Glynn Washington?

  Nine years old, sitting in this church, angry. And my parents angry at these brethren in this place. And now their preacher, all puffed up, red-faced, bug-eyed, steps to the podium, commands us to open your battle to Exodus 32. Hear! Brethren, Moses climbs the mountain to see God. Do the people wait patient? They do not. Instead, they work with their forges, their ovens, with wickedness in their hearts, with evil. And look right here, look here, look here, look here. They pull a golden calf from the flame. What do they do then?

• 2:15Glynn Washington?

  The very worst thing you can do. They call this thing, this abomination, a god. Who needs that other god? When this one gleams golden.

• 2:31Glynn Washington?

  Then they bow their heads before it blast me. But know this brethren, there is no sure way to summon the Lord than to mock him.

• 2:41Glynn Washington?

  The God that delivered them from slavery under Pharaoh stretches out his mighty hand and smites with fire and horror and pain for their betrayal. Remember that!

• 2:53Glynn Washington?

  If you want to see God face to face, you remember that.

• 3:02Glynn Washington?

  Later, anger has an idea. I snatch two hangers from the hall closet, bring them back to my bedroom, strip the wires from the hangers, bend them, fashion them. Wear it just so.

• 3:20Glynn Washington?

  Then I cover it, not with gold. I don't have any of that. Nah, instead, I wrap sheet after sheet of aluminum foil around it. Pinch and shape it into a face, into horns, the body of a calf.

• 3:41Glynn Washington?

  I admire it for a moment.

• 3:45Glynn Washington?

  Beautiful. My own graven image. Then I went for a lull and the ever-present noise of my household peek outside my bedroom, down the hall, push the front door open, quiet, quiet, quiet. Pad down the front steps of our trailer, aluminum calf wrapped tight in my jacket, then I run.

• 4:09Glynn Washington?

  Out to the middle of the woods, my secret, fast, fast, run, run, until I reach the spot reverently.

• 4:19Glynn Washington?

  Set the calf down on a patch of hard earth, but doubt stops me, fear.

• 4:28Glynn Washington?

  Then the anger returns, the fury. I have asked, begged their God to reveal itself as many ways as I know, still it judges me unworthy of even a word. Even a whisper, answer me.

• 4:48Glynn Washington?

  This is all I have left.

• 4:51Glynn Washington?

  So I steel myself.

• 4:55Glynn Washington?

  Look to the sky, one last chance, answer me.

• 5:02Glynn Washington?

  Then I drop to my knees.

• 5:05Glynn Washington?

  Bow my head.

• 5:08Glynn Washington?

  And I pray.

• 5:11Glynn Washington?

  To my own.

• 5:14Glynn Washington?

  Graven image.

• 5:19Glynn Washington?

  Sloop starts. Now.

• 6:05Glynn Washington?

  Now. How do you wake the god? Our next story begins on a spring night in 1986. Thousands of people have gathered in Hilo, Hawaii. Not just from around the islands. From the four corners of the earth to witness the largest, the most prestigious hula competition in the world. As the sun sets over Hilo. Rowers pack Eda Kanakaole Stadium. The rafters. Air tastes rich with the smell of Kalua pork and the sound of ancient drums. And in the distance. Dark clouds roll in.

• 6:41Glynn Washington?

  Sloop.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Good evening and welcome to the 23rd Annual Merrie Monarch Festival Hula Competition. We are here, live in Hilo.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Tonight, the Kahiko Competition, where 30 halau will be sharing the ancient dances of Hawaii.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Leanne Durant is backstage with the other dancers in her halau, or hula school. After nine months of practice and preparation, they're about to take the stage and perform their rendition of the Three Wind Storms of Hina.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  The women's chant, Kimo, speaks of the goddess Hina from Molokai and her three devastating winds that were able to bruise skins and devastate lands.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  And so we should get from these dancers, male and female, very strong, emotional Kahiko ancient dances. Should be very interesting this evening.

• 8:01Speaker 05

  And we were all ready to go, and we're standing in a circle. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out.

• 8:11Speaker 05

  It's pitch black. The storm is going crazy.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  That's when the dread really comes, like...

• 8:21Speaker 05

  I had bad feelings from the very beginning of learning the dance.

• 8:27Speaker 05

  I was like, "Okay, what do we do to stop this?"

• 8:37Speaker 04

  Leanne has been dancing hula for almost as long as she can remember. As a girl growing up in Honolulu, she learned to dance a version of hula called Hula Awana. It's an instrumental style of hula that became popular after the Hawaiian language was banned in the islands.

• 8:54Speaker 05

  I grew up in the generation where Hawaiian language, hula, was not accepted. During the overthrow of our monarchy, we were illegally taken by the United States. And once that happened, as a people, we weren't allowed to speak our language. Ancient hula was underground because we were not allowed to dance it.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  And then when I came home from college in 1977, there were things happening here in Hawaii, which they called the first renaissance of Things Hawaiian. And it all started with the hula.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  All over the islands, young Hawaiians were reviving hula ka hiko and bringing back those traditional dances and chants.

• 9:47Speaker 05

  It looked exciting. So I asked my neighbor if she was dancing hula anywhere. And she said she was. So I went down with her to a hula class with Kumuhula Mapuanadi Silva. She was teaching ka hiko, which is the ancient hula.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  Those chants go back, way back. It tells those stories of our ancestors. What kind of beauty did they see in a flower? What kind of beauty did they see in a rock? What did they do if things weren't right? What kind of battles did they have?

• 10:31Speaker 05

  And I just fell in love with it.

• 10:53Glynn Washington?

  This episode is sponsored by Vinted. Imagine opening my closet, looking for a shirt, and I see that jacket. That jacket, that jacket I got for that party I never went to three years ago. That jacket, it's still there. It's still mocking me. Well, it was still there.

• 11:14Glynn Washington?

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• 12:13Speaker 04

  One day, not long after she started studying hula kaheko, Leanne remembers overhearing her kumu, or teacher, Mapowana de Silva, talking about entering the Mary Monarch Festival.

• 12:25Speaker 05

  I was like, what is that? That's how out of touch I was. I didn't even know about the festival. They started it as a little competition with a few halau. And over the years, it just, by word of mouth, by, you know, more the Renaissance was bringing more and more halau into being. And it just became one of the biggest things ever. And that's kind of like our big gold star, you know, in the spring is going to Mary Monarch.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  The first time Leanne went to Mary Monarch, it was 1981. She was in her 20s and having the time of her life, preparing for the festival with her hula sisters. Her halau didn't win that year.

• 13:16Speaker 05

  But it was just really a fun time. It was a really bonding time. Each halau would have their own fundraiser with their own little signature to it. And because even though we were in competition, we would support each other. We would go to each other's fundraisers. We would help them, they would help us. It was like a huge, huge family. But it was a lot of work. We'd make our own costumes, we'd make our own lei. We have to raise money to get there and be able to pay for hotels or vans.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  Not to mention the hours each week spent practicing the dances they were going to perform.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  They would have a dance of your choice. And then whoever the committee was would choose a dance where every halau danced the same. But each kubo brought their own spirit to it.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  They'd start rehearsing their dances in September and work on them all the way through to the competition in the spring. But for Leian and the other dancers in Halau, Mohala, Ilima, the point of all this hard work wasn't just to win. Although, in her first five years with the group, they did win, three times.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  What we would strive for was to share our hula and our interpretation with everyone.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  And then came 1986 and the three windstorms of Hina.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  It was about the goddess Hina. She's one of the oldest goddesses in Hawaii. And she was the female that could generate force in Hawaiian cosmology. And she was kind of a protector of the land, too. She had this gourd. And if the people wouldn't take care of the land, she would open her gourd just a little bit.

• 15:20Speaker 05

  When she opened that gourd just a little bit, the rain got stronger, the winds started to pick up.

• 15:28Speaker 05

  And it was kind of like a warning to the people that you better take care of business. And so as the chant goes on, the people still don't heed her call or, you know, pay attention. So she opens her gourd a little more. That's when you start getting lightning, thunder. The rain gets harder, the winds start whipping up.

• 15:53Speaker 05

  And on the third time, when she opens the gourd, it's the destruction of man.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Leann was a really experienced dancer at this point, and she was a mentor to some of the newer hula sisters. But when she got into the studio to start practicing this one...

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Something was just weird. I remember going to hula and we learned the second verse.

• 16:26Speaker 05

  I, all of a sudden, just felt, I don't know how to explain it, I was a little frightened.

• 16:32Speaker 05

  I couldn't really explain why, but it was just a feeling I had in my na'au, in my gut.

• 16:40Speaker 05

  And that feeling carried through the whole, what I call the meribonic season, starting in September.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Leann hoped that with time, she'd get more comfortable with the routine and the feeling would fade, but it didn't.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  When the spring rolled around, that uneasy feeling in her gut was still there whenever she practiced. She didn't mention it to her kumu or anyone else in her halau. She just kept pushing, trying to get it right.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  But I just couldn't get it. I couldn't get the dance, I couldn't get the chant. I made mistakes all the time. It just didn't feel comfortable to me.

• 17:26Speaker 05

  I never had struggles like that, learning a hula.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Finally, the week of Mary Monarch arrived. Leann and her hula sisters flew to Hilo and checked into the Nani Loa Hotel. That night, they sat in the audience in Edith Kanakaoli Stadium and watched the Miss Aloha competition. The next day, it was their turn to compete, Kahiko Night. Leann remembers waking up that morning to perfect Hilo weather, blue skies with a cool mist coming off the ocean. The dancers spent the day rehearsing on the hotel lawn before heading over to the stadium. When they got there, they had some time to kill before they had to get ready, and most of the dancers wanted to watch the first groups perform.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  But Leann decided that she needed some time alone and fresh air to clear her head, so she made her way back outside.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  I was super nervous because I had a hard time with the chant. I needed to calm my nerves. So I remember going down. I sat on the sidewalk, kind of along the fence. I would just keep, kind of just, taking a deep breath. I would always just tell myself, just let it go. Just let it go. Once you get on that stage, you're gonna forget all your worldly worries.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  As she sat there, breathing in and out, Leann could hear the first women's group take the stage inside the stadium and start to perform Hino's chant.

• 19:05Speaker 06

  We welcome you, the people, throughout the state of Hawaii, from all of the Hawaiian islands. And now, from Las Vegas, Nevada, under the direction of Kuhulah, Wayne Fanoke.

• 19:22Speaker 06

  Hula halau o ka hoonei.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  This is our first opportunity to see the Wahine competition chant, which will always be performed first.

• 19:55Speaker 05

  And then, as I could hear the chanting on the stage,

• 20:00Speaker 05

  it started to rain.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  It came so fast, pretty soon it was pouring rain.

• 20:11Speaker 05

  At first, I didn't think anything because Hilo is unpredictable. It always does things like that, you know?

• 20:19Speaker 05

  So, I went in and I started dressing. And then my hula sisters came. We dressed under the bleachers so we could hear what was going on on the stage.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Making their first appearance at the Merrie Monarch Festival, another opportunity to see Hina and her devastating wings.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  As I was dressing my hula sisters, I kept watching the rain. And I was noticing like the gutters of the tennis stadium was... The water was just gushing out and it was coming really quickly.

• 21:13Speaker 05

  All of a sudden, I just felt like this is the story.

• 21:22Speaker 05

  The rain kept coming and the rain kept coming. It seemed like every time I heard the chant, the rain got worse and worse and worse.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  I was just like observing and thinking, wow, this is like the first storm.

• 21:41Speaker 05

  Clouds were really dark and heavy and I could hear the chanting and I would see lightning or I'd hear the thunder.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  And then I went to, "This is like the second storm."

• 21:56Speaker 05

  We're dancing about the story. And the story is coming true.

• 22:04Speaker 05

  Everybody's on stage, like they're chanting and their energy is there and they're bringing this to life.

• 22:13Speaker 05

  So I felt very uncomfortable. And I did not want to go on that stage. What if we were the ones that she decided then and there, "Let's open the gourd the third time." And it would be destruction of men.

• 22:38Speaker 05

  And stadium was full of men.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  So I really felt dreadful.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  But I was not going to disappoint my kumu or my hula sisters. Like, I didn't want to be the one that was like, "I don't want to do this," you know? Because not performing on kahiko night automatically disqualified us from the competition. And we've worked so hard, you've sacrificed. You know, we've had girls sacrifice being in sports, going to proms, you know, doing all the things that you do as young people because we loved it so much. And what if I was wrong? So I talked myself back into it. It's just like, "Okay, you're here. This is a commitment. You can do it."

• 24:07Speaker 05

  Intermission was ending, people were going back to their seats.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Welcome back to Hilo, Hawaii in the beautiful Edith Kanakaole Tennis Stadium.

• 24:18Speaker 05

  We're about to go on. My stomach is in knots. We were all ready to go and we're standing in a circle. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out.

• 24:32Speaker 05

  You hear the audience say, "Whoa." And then there was silence.

• 24:41Speaker 05

  It's pitch black and the storm is going crazy.

• 24:48Speaker 05

  I start to kind of panic because I felt like the lights were the warning. And I just kept thinking in my mind, "We need to break the cycle." "We have to do something to stop, to stop the momentum of this storm." And the only way I knew how to break the cycle would be to not dance.

• 25:16Speaker 05

  And then, one of my Hula sisters that was standing next to me, she told me that she was afraid and she didn't want to go out and dance. And several other people came up and told me that.

• 25:32Speaker 05

  I went into care, nurturing mode. So I said, "Okay, I'll go talk to Kumu and see what happens."

• 25:43Speaker 05

  So I left the circle and I went up to her and I said, "Mapu, I have to tell you something. We don't feel good about dancing."

• 25:58Speaker 05

  There was no anger. She just said, okay. So she came to the group and she talked to us and said, "Do you not want to dance?"

• 26:09Speaker 05

  You know, of course, everybody's kind of like, "Oh, what should I say?"

• 26:15Speaker 05

  And then I just said, "Well, I don't want to." And then the majority of the girls were like, "Yeah, we don't want to. We don't want to."

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Meanwhile, out in the audience, somebody had started to sing.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  I don't remember what song, but just to take the tension off, I think. Someone started to sing, and then everyone was singing.

• 26:41Speaker 07

  So despite the festive mood, it was haunting, if not coincidental, to think that the night's intense lightning and thunderstorm literally shook Edith Kanaka Ole Indoor Tennis Stadium. The storm caused a 40-minute blackout.

• 26:56Speaker 05

  Eventually, the lights went on.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  With the storm raging against the black sky, the announcer got on the mic.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  He says, "I'd like to announce our next halau, halau mo, hala ilima under the direction of Ma Puana de Silva."

• 27:16Speaker 05

  She comes up, goes up the ramp by herself, goes to a mic in the middle of the stage.

• 27:24Speaker 05

  And nobody knew what she was going to say.

• 27:29Speaker 05

  But then she said, "We have decided that our girls will not be performing this evening."

• 27:38Speaker 03

  My concern and care is first for my ladies. Thank you.

• 27:51Speaker 05

  Then everybody was clapping.

• 27:55Speaker 05

  I think they were clapping because she made her students number one. It mattered. What we felt mattered to her. And that we were willing to be disqualified.

• 28:11Speaker 05

  So this Mopwana came back from being onstage and making that announcement. The rain just stopped.

• 28:22Speaker 05

  As we were undressing and putting our costumes away and taking care of everything, it went back to being a light mist with a little breeze. And it was no rain for the rest of the competition.

• 28:41Speaker 05

  I don't know what would have happened if we went up.

• 28:48Speaker 05

  There were a whole bunch of halau after us.

• 28:53Speaker 05

  They danced, no problem.

• 28:56Speaker 05

  But I felt it's not meant to be danced by us. It didn't matter that we missed this competition, that we got disqualified. None of that mattered.

• 29:08Speaker 05

  Because I feel that we broke the cycle.

• 29:25Glynn Washington?

  Thank you. Thank you, Leanne, for sharing your story. Leanne told us, even though her group was disqualified from the 1986 competition, the next night, they did have another chance to dance. And after all the ups and downs of the festival, they rocked the stage with one of the best performances ever.

• 29:45Glynn Washington?

  And Spookster, you should know the next Merrie Monarch Festival is just days away. There'll be a link in our show notes where you can learn more. This piece was "Scouting" by Ishal Lopez. The original score was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by Zoe Fregno.

• 30:07Glynn Washington?

  Now, for just a moment, let's talk about babies.

• 30:15Glynn Washington?

  Tiny little bundles of joy, fat cheeks, that smell, that baby smell, the other baby smell. Makes your heart grow three sizes too big, but longtime listeners to this show know that it often starts at the beginning.

• 30:31Glynn Washington?

  And if you know an infant, or a small child that demonstrates knowledge, powers, understandings, or memories that they didn't learn at nursery school, tell me about it. Spooked at SnapJudgment.org because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener.

• 30:53Glynn Washington?

  Spook Studios stands center between this world and the next, cloaked by KQED in San Francisco. Don't seek to find it.

• 31:03Glynn Washington?

  Let's it seek to find you.

• 31:09Glynn Washington?

  No Snap Studio content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team Spooked, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIL Local 51, and Spooked is brought to you by the team that loves the hula dance, except for Mark Ristich. Now, Mark prefers to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

• 31:45Glynn Washington?

  There's David Kim, Zoe Fergino, Eric Yanez, Marissa Dodge, Regina Berriaco, Miles Lassie, Taylor DeCott, Suichu, Evan Stern, Eve Jeffcoat, Yeshal Lopez, Jack Darrow, Doug Stewart. Nicholas March, the Spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. My name is from Washington.

• 32:09Glynn Washington?

  And you know, on the way to my auntie's house, my auntie's place, I'm contemplating my little quest for the divine.

• 32:18Glynn Washington?

  A search I know she would think was silly. My auntie, uh, she always wanted kids of her own. I think she did, I think, think that she did. But it never happened that way for her. So I believe this was my personal stroke of good fortune because when I was in the crazy at my house,

• 32:44Glynn Washington?

  she could sometimes be the escape,

• 32:47Glynn Washington?

  the respect, the hug,

• 32:50Glynn Washington?

  the hot meal, the field trip fee, the couch to sleep on, the kind word, the new kicks, the gas money, the good book, the screaming from the stands at the graduation they addressed her right down when I didn't have an address.

• 33:09Glynn Washington?

  The emergency contact.

• 33:12Glynn Washington?

  Well, I didn't have an emergency contact. All these little things, I think about this, walking to her tiny apartment, busy searching for the divine, but here the divine is shining bright in front of me and now the divine is cussing me out, putting all that cold air inside, leaving her door wide open.

• 33:34Glynn Washington?

  Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never turn out

• 33:46Glynn Washington?

  the light.