Kaʻimiloa & Kēhau Chrisman

Of NotE

As practitioners of Hawaiian Culture, it is uncomfortable to declare our lifelong accomplishments on these pages. For many years we have been taught to be “haʻa” (humble) and to avoid bragging about what has been achieved in our own lifetimes. However, in this modern Western world, we realize that for us to establish credibility in this area of expertise, we must enable the reader to understand that our experience and education in the Hawaiian Culture has been extensive, and that we know much about that of which we speak.

About KAʻIMILOA CHRISMAN

B. Kaʻimiloa Chrisman, M.D. spent thirty-one years in Hawaiʻi leading a dual life as both physician and cultural practitioner before moving in 2003 with his wife, Kēhau to Arizona due to the volcanic “vog” - bringing Hawaiʻi with the both of them. Another eighteen years of cultural study, practice and teaching have now occurred (as of 2021) in Arizona as well.

Professionally, he was first a highly surgical Dermatologist, and later a well-known Cosmetic Surgeon in Honolulu, much involved in medical teaching. Culturally, he was deeply involved in the Hawaiian arena and over time became an expert in old-time Hawaiian culture, arts and values, and thus a continuing researcher, writer, practitioner and educator in these realms.

Having to retire early from medical practice for health reasons in 1993, and then moving to the country on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi in that year, gave him even more time for cultural pursuits. Since that year, he has been known by his Hawaiian name, Kaʻimiloa, which fittingly means “always seeking”.

Over the last ten years in Honolulu, he had become an expert at growing superb Hawaiian gourds - which were essential to the former Hawaiian culture from birth to death, due to the absence of pottery. He had also gotten well into reviving the unique Hawiian art of Ipu Pāwehe (decorated gourds). Moving to the Big Island allowed more intense gourd-growing and dye-experimenting. Finally, after fifteen years of tedious and sometimes frustrating trial-and-error work, he fully resurrected the unique and lost art of Hawaiian Ipu Pāwehe, using only natural, unheated Hawaiian dyes.

Vast amounts of research, close examination of artifacts, talking with Elders, crafting and “experimental archaeology” has made him expert as well in a great many of Hawaiiʻs arts such as stone-work, feather-work, hula instruments, wood and bone working, weaponry, dyes, and the bark-cloth called Tapa as well as tapa-stamping. He is very well-known in Hawaiʻi for these skills and for many years of cultural teaching. He is becoming increasingly known for these skills and teaching in Arizona as well.

His wife, Kēhau, is a Kumu Hula (Hula Master) in their central Arizona home area of Cottonwood in the Verde Valley, and the surrounding Northern Arizona communities of Camp Verde, Sedona, Flagstaff and Prescott. Together or separately, Kaʻimiloa and Kēhau continue to teach and demonstrate Hawaiian arts, crafts, culture and hula in many public, art and scholarly venues both in Arizona and Hawaiʻi.

About KĒHAU CHRISMAN

Kēhau Chrisman holds two Masters degrees (Speech Pathology & Audiology and Business Administration) and has become to be an accomplished teacher of Hawaiian arts, culture, language, and hula.

In hula, Kēhau Chrisman has been studying that deep cultural art since 1983 and is a veteran of various competitions and numerous performances in both Hawaiʻi and the Mainland, including many solo performances and a solo presentation on hula to a medical audience in Bali, Indonesia. In 1994, she was selected to be a part of Hawaiiʻs delegation to Belgium as part of Father Damien’s Beatification Ceremony, where ceremonial hula dancing was planned.

She completed training and ʻuniki (graduation) rites in 2000 to be a Kumu Hula (teacher and master of Hula). Her own Kumu Hula was William Kawaiponimoʻikapiʻolani Correa of the Maiki Aiu hula lineage. For those unfamiliar with hula, her title “Kumu Hula” is similar to the title “Ph.D.” for someone having very advanced skill in a specific field.

Moving to Arizona in 2003 was challenging, but her very successful hula school, Hālau Hula Nāpuaokaleiʻilima, has been highly active there since 2004. Culture and language is much a part of this Hālau. In addition, she teaches formal ʻukulele and Hawaiian language classes. Her Hālau and classes are another example of how Hawaiian culture can be found all over the world!

Additionally Kēhau is a graduate (Moʻolono Lāʻau Lapaʻau) of Papa Henry Auwae’s first Lāʻau Lapaʻau class (traditional Hawaiian healing and medicine). She has also spent countless hours as apprentice to Kaʻimiloa, her husband, in resurrecting the nearly extinct Hawaiian gourd varieties as well as the “lost” art of Hawaiian gourd decorating (ipu pāwehe). Kēhau is now an accomplished traditional gourd artist in her own right.

Assisting her husband, she has taught students of the Nā Pua Noʻeau gifted-and-talented Hawaiian students program in Hilo, Hawaiʻi. She has been a presenter of various Hawaiian arts and crafts at Cultural Festivals at Heʻeia State Park, O’ahu, as well as Hilo, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historic State Park and Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. She was an assisting co-presenter with her husband of a Hawaiian stonework workshop at the Kauaʻi Museum and a Hawaiian ornaments presentation for participants of the Pacific Culture and Arts Festival in Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

Most often, Kēhau has demonstrated traditional Hawaiian gourd decorating or drum making at cultural events, yet she is knowledgeable about various other aspects of Hawaiian material culture, tools, instruments, and arts and has taught and demonstrated them as well.

In 2010, Kēhau was awarded the Kōkua Award (one recipient annually at the huge Arizona Aloha Festival. This award “recognizes those Arizona residents whose actions foster better understanding of and/or serve South Pacific Islanders and the Arizona community at-large. Many are keepers of the culture through the arts and some show their dedication through education, community service and more. All are inspiring examples.”

Since September 2017, Kēhau has written educational articles in the monthly Lau Kanaka no Hawaiʻi Hawaiian Civic Club newsletter (Phoenix) about language (ʻōlelo) and sometimes other aspects of Hawaiian culture. These articles have been received very positively from the readership.