page_title: Herb Kawainui Kāne
section_title: The Hōkūle‘a and its cultural impact
hierarchical_section_title: Herb Kawainui Kāne / The Hōkūle‘a and its cultural impact
caption_attribution_description: English: The Hawaiian voyaging canoe,Hokulea, arrives at Kailua Beach, May 1, 2005. Photographed by Eric Guinther.
context_page_description: Herbert "Herb" Kawainui Kāne, considered one of the principal figures in the renaissance of Hawaiian culture in the 1970s, was a celebrated artist-historian and author with a special interest in the seafaring traditions of the ancestral peoples of Hawaiʻi. Kāne played a key role in demonstrating that Hawaiian culture arose not from some accidental seeding of Polynesia, but that Hawaiʻi was reachable by voyaging canoes from Tahiti able to make the journey and return. This offered a far more complex notion of the cultures of the Pacific Islands than had previously been accepted. Furthermore, he created vivid imagery of Hawaiian culture prior to contact with Europeans, and especially the period of early European influence, that sparked appreciation of a nearly forgotten traditional life.
context_section_description: In Honolulu, Kāne attracted a group of sailing enthusiasts, including University of Hawaiʻi anthropologist Ben Finney and Tommy Holmes, author of The Hawaiian Canoe. Together they founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society and began work on the Hōkūle‘a, a voyaging canoe based on historical Polynesian design, capable of sailing between Hawaiʻi and Tahiti. Their purpose was to prove that ancestral Polynesian voyagers could have purposely navigated in vessels of similar type to settle Hawaiʻi. Kāne has said his goal was also to spur a revival of cultural identity among Hawaiians and peoples of the Pacific islands. He wrote that in 1973 he, with a number of others at the time, realized that “if a voyaging canoe were built and sailed today, it would function as a cultural catalyst and inspire the revival of almost-forgotten aspects of Hawaiian life.” 
  
  "What intrigued me was to see, if by building this canoe and putting it to active use and taking it out on a cruise throughout the Hawaiian islands, introducing it to the Hawaiian people, training Hawaiians to sail it, if this would not stimulate shock waves or ripple effect throughout the culture- in music and dance and the crafts. And we know it did.”
  Kāne designed and named the Hōkūle‘a, which was launched on March 8, 1975. Technically, the craft is a performance-accurate full-scale replica of a waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. The name Hōkūle‘a came to Kāne in a dream, he has said. It is the Hawaiian term for the star Arcturus, which is of critical importance to celestial navigation in the Pacific, and the zenith star of the Hawaiian Islands. He served as the skipper for two years as the canoe sailed trial cruises among the Hawaiian Islands to attract crew and support for its maiden international voyage.
  Kāne’s role in the creation and promotion of the Hōkūle‘a helped restore pride to the peoples of the Pacific, and his paintings of traditional Hawaiian scenes and historical events have helped restore lost identity and, in the words of the President of School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tony Jones, “rewritten the history of the Pacific.” Kāne’s colleague, Nainoa Thompson, navigator of the Hōkūle‘a, says Kāne was "the visionary, the dreamer, and he was the architect and the engineer. He's the one that carried the burden of building, and constructing, and sailing Hōkūle‘a.” Elsewhere, Thompson told an interviewer, “When you look at Herb’s legacy, it is transforming Hawaiʻi’s society because he brought pride and culture and inspiration back, through the canoe….He is the father of the Hawaiian Renaissance.”
  Kāne died on March 8, 2011, the 36th anniversary of the launch of the Hōkūle‘a.
caption: Hōkūle‘a at Kailua Beach, May 1 2005
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