LAWAI — Cool wind breezes rushed through Edee Bandemann’s garage in Lawai on Thursday as she and a group of eight people worked through the day to sew several dozen ohai alii and mokihana leis for Nalani Palama-Soares’ big day.
LAWAI — Cool wind breezes rushed through Edee Bandemann’s garage in Lawai on Thursday as she and a group of eight people worked through the day to sew several dozen ohai alii and mokihana leis for Nalani Palama-Soares’ big day.
That day, Palama-Soares said, will be Saturday when she will ride on her horse through Lihue for the first and last time as the Kamehameha Day Parade’s pau queen.
“It’s very emotional for me being that this is the end of my riding career as a princess,” the 48-year-old Hanapepe resident, mother of five children and a grandmother of two more said. “I’m very proud of my heritage and culture and proud to be Hawaiian. I hope the legacy will carry on forever.”
In addition to her title as this year’s pau queen, Palama-Soares has also held several other court titles over the last three decades, including the princesses of Kauai, Lanai, Hawaii and Molokai.
She accepted her court first title as the princess of Lanai when she was only 18-years-old — the minimum age required, at that time, by organizers to ride a horse in the parade.
It is a legacy that, she said, has come full circle from her hanabata (childhood) days when she helped her other family build floats and make leis for her mother, Lena Palama, who served as the parade’s pau queen in 1989 and grand marshal in 2002.
“I think she’s ready,” Palama said. “I just want her (Palama-Soares) to continue the traditions and I hope her daughters will follow.”
But the road to get there, Palama-Soares said, is one marked by hard work and dedication to the art of pau, which dates back to the early-1800s when horses were first brought to the islands by American trader Richard Cleveland as a gift to King Kamehameha I.
Bandemann, who has helped to organized past parades, paus were first used as a protective covering for women horse riders as they rode along dusty or muddy trails but its use, over time, evolved into a more display of horsemanship.
These preparations, however, makes many hours of horse training, pau wrapping, flower and seed gathering and lei-making.
“When you go in for a competition, for me, the prepping and making these leis — even though they are for our culture — gives you more ambition. You want to look your best, you want to win, just like any sport, so you’re going to come out looking your best.”
Palama-Soares said her hope, like her mother’s, is that her children and grandchildren will continue to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture through the sacred traditions, such as flower gathering and pau wrapping, that her mother passed down to her.
“After this parade, I really hope we will bring it back to life, because we need to,” Palama-Soares said. “This is our culture and there are so many people who are moving to the island who forget who the Hawaiians were — they’re bringing their culture here. Hawaiian (culture) is dying out — it’s not like the good ole days anymore, and I hope it comes back.”
The Kamehameha Day Parade begins at 9 a.m. at Vidinha Stadium and goes to the historic County Building.
• Darin Moriki, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-3681 or dmoriki@thegardenisland.com.
