Moana Surfrider · Waikīkī
He named his club on this lawn
Hui Nalu, the Club of the Waves, around 1908. Duke Kahanamoku, Knute Cottrell and Kenneth Winter sat under a hau tree by the hotel bathhouse and gave it a name. The bathhouse was the clubroom. Dues were a dollar a year and bought you a clothes hook.
What this is
A gallery. Work by island makers, on the walls and on the tables. Exhibitions about Duke’s life that change through the year. Chairs, and a film. The gallery is authorized to carry his name.
Who made the work
Named people, from named towns, credited every time. Every piece carries the maker’s name, where it was made, what it is made from, how long it took, and how many exist. The same words appear on the wall label and on the website.
Where it is
Inside the Moana Surfrider, 2365 Kalākaua Avenue. The bronze of Duke on Kūhiō Beach is a few hundred steps down the street. Kalia, where he grew up, is at the far end of the same beach.
The short version
Who he was
Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku was born on 24 August 1890, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The Kingdom was overthrown in January 1893, when he was two. His family moved that same year to Kalia, at the far end of this beach, to be near his mother’s people, the Paoas.
His grandfather Hoʻolae Paoa had claimed the Kalia land as a kuleana in the Māhele of 1848 and received it. About eight thousand Hawaiians received kuleana awards, on under one percent of the land. The Hilton Hawaiian Village stands on the Paoa ground now. We have not established how it left the family, and we would like to know.
He was named for his father, who was christened Duke by Bernice Pauahi Bishop in honor of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who was visiting Hawaiʻi. It is a given name, not a title.
In August 1911, in Honolulu Harbor, he swam a hundred yards in 55.4 seconds, 4.6 seconds inside the world record. The course had been measured four times, once by a professional surveyor, and five certified judges timed it. The Amateur Athletic Union refused to ratify the swim and suggested the judges had used alarm clocks rather than stopwatches. He broke the record again the following year, on the mainland, under their supervision.
He won five Olympic medals, three gold and two silver, at Stockholm in 1912, Antwerp in 1920 and Paris in 1924. Hui Nalu paid his way to the first trials by subscription and donation. He swam for the United States, which had annexed Hawaiʻi in 1898.
Surfing is heʻe nalu. It is Native Hawaiian and centuries older than him, and he did not invent it. What he did was take it with him. On Christmas Eve 1914, at Freshwater in Sydney, he shaped a board from local sugar pine and paddled out. Australia dates its surfing to that afternoon, and the board is still at the club there. He carried it from Waikīkī to the world.
On 14 June 1925, off Newport Beach in California, a fishing boat called the Thelma capsized. He went out on his board and brought eight men in alive. Three other men brought in four more.
He served thirteen consecutive terms as Sheriff of Honolulu, from the mid-1930s until the office was abolished around 1960. He died on 22 January 1968. Jan Gordon Fisher’s nine-foot bronze of him was dedicated at Kūhiō Beach on 24 August 1990, his hundredth birthday, a few hundred steps from this door.
That is the short version. alohatoyou.com is the long one: the whole life, the creed in his own words, the film, and the foundation that carries his name.
Inside
What is in the room
Two kinds of thing in here, and they are labeled differently on purpose.
Work by island makers carries a full label: the maker’s name, the town, the year, what it is made from and how it was made, how many were made, and the price. That label is the product page, word for word. If you photograph a label and search for it later, you will find the same sentences.
Anything carrying Duke’s name is ours, and its label says so. The signature goes on once, small, usually somewhere you would not think to look for it.
Sit for the film
A condensed cut of Waterman, the documentary about Duke’s life, runs in the alcove. It is about ten minutes. There are chairs. You do not have to buy anything.
Screening rights are being cleared with the film’s producers before the room opens.
The makers
Named, and from somewhere
The roster is not finished. When it is, every name here will carry a town and a handle, and the same words will appear on the wall label and on the website.
If you make things on these islands and you want them seen in a room on Kalākaua, write to us. aloha@dukekahanamokugallery.com, once the mailbox is open.
Visit
Where and when
Moana Surfrider 2365 Kalākaua Avenue Honolulu, HI 96815The room is being built. The opening date is not set yet.
Come in. You do not have to buy anything.
Visit us at the Moana Surfrider