(instrumental music) Kohala.

A district of the northwestern portion of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi is a land of pictorial beauty, pivotal Hawaiian history and home to many artisans, musical performers, and contrasting lifestyles of new and old residents.

(instrumental music) Unifier of the islands and king of Hawaiian kings, Kamehameha was born in North Kohala where the original bronze statue cast in his honor and once lost at sea now resides.

(cattle running, music) One time adviser to King Kamehameha, John Parker began what is now America's largest individually owned ranch.

Headquartered in Kamuela, the Parker Ranch encompasses nearly 250,000 acres of mountains, streams and pastures.

Richard Smart, owner of the massive Parker Ranch maintains luxurious estate outside Kamuela.

His interests apart from ranch operations include the New York stage.

I was born in Honolulu.

I didn't happen to be born here on the ranch.

Most people think I was but no, I was born in Mānoa Valley a many many years ago, nearly 73 as a matter of fact.

But I was educated in California, mostly around San Francisco, and then went to Stanford University for a year and then had this awful hankering to tread the boards go on the stage.

So I ended up at the Pasadena Community Playhouse School of the theater.

And that was way back in the early 30s.

From there, I went on to the stage, you might say.

During the summers, when I went to school in California, I always came back here to the ranch for the summer vacations, I spent three months in the ranch, which was wonderful because I got to know the ranch, I wasn't forced into any jobs but I just kind of absorbed the ranch itself, the workings of it I say by osmosis maybe or just being there.

And for a kid it was great, you know, I love to ride horseback and, and it was a fabulous summer vacation for me always.

I enjoy working with the ranch and seeing that it's it's traveling in the right direction or as near possible as I may think it's in the right direction.

The whole operation will go goes into a trust upon my death, and therefore the ranch can continue in its entity.

If it hadn't been that if I'd left it to my family, they would have had to have sold it off to pay for the inheritance taxes unfortunately, and I prefer to have the ranch continue.

I think mainly because of the employees and their families who are third and fourth generation now on the ranch.

And they deserve some lengthy things.

So, with a group of trustees, and the ranch being entrusted can go on indefinitely.

Because of my interest in the theater when I retired from the professional theatre in 1959, it had always been my dream maybe one of these days to have a theater here in Kamuela and bring theater and it's a different presentations and productions right here to the people that I knew and the people that I enjoyed and loved.

And my hometown, you might say.

Richard Smart is probably the most fantastic person I've ever worked for.

I guess this is for a variety of reasons.

Richard himself has a very warm understanding human being.

But he is also someone that understands theatre, understands all the problems that are involved with it, which makes my job so much easier if something doesn't work.

Richard understands he's been in the business for many years.

So, he has great sympathy with when you say you've done everything possible to promote X event, and somehow it didn't work.

That's showbusiness.

Now, most people don't understand that when you're working for a board of 25 people as I have on the mainland, they don't understand that because they are working in their profit-making businesses.

And if you do everything, right, you're supposed to make a profit or it's supposed to be successful.

That's not the way it works in show business.

Everything you do is a gamble.

And to have someone to work for, someone like Richard that understands all this, it's makes my job, heaven.

My mother's name was Kahilu you see?

Kahiluonapuaʻapiʻilani was the whole thing, but they always called her Kahilu.

And that's why I named the theater after her because she loved the theater.

She used to go to the theater as a young girl in San Francisco.

And then they made a trip to New York and London and she saw a lot of theater.

I mean, this was at a very young age, she was about 19 and 20 at that time, but the theater was one of her interests, and it's always had been mine ever since I was at high it.

It just fascinated me that's all I guess.

(instrumental music) Author and lei specialist Marie McDonald grows most of her own flowers on the family farm.

I'm going to collect some flowers that I need to get some vase finished up this morning.

We grow all these strange looking things around here.

For a fronding material, actually.

A lot of the farmers think I'm crazy because I grow these strange materials.

I only need a little bit because I'm just doing short head lei.

I try to cut my lei material to the size that I want to use so I don't have to double prepare.

This material can take a beating, I can shove it down in a bucket and it won't hurt at all.

I'm going to I need some liko lehua and we grow our own liko lehua on the farm mostly because it's a long haul to go up to the mountains and get home.

And also, because we want to kind of preserve our forests.

And also, because I like lehua.

This is the nice young red leaf tips of the lehua that I'm gathering.

And you find that a lot of our lei makers today prefer using this than any other material.

You always say that the liko is beautiful, and there's all kinds of liko.

You see this one is a little different than the last one we picked.

They look like little roses and they're all very beautiful.

If you mix them all up, you get a terrific lei.

The farm started because it's an outgrowth of my lei making experience and my association with the lei and pretty soon it expanded to cut flowers but first because of the lei making.

And so, we grow a lot of stuff, baby's breath and this Australian tea.

Carnations in the greenhouse and other flowers in the greenhouse to other small type materials.

Pansies, akulikuli, the typical things that grow up here in Waimea.

We pick about 2,000 carnation heads every other day and there are sold to lei makers right here in Waimea.

In the old days,   they used to grow these outside used to grow carnations, outdoors they still do on Maui, but here in Waimea, we have to greenhouse them to protect them from the wind and extra rain.

The art of lei making hasn't changed over the years.

The traditional techniques are the same.

The only difference is that we're using introduced materials.

And this is to the credit of the people in Hawaʻii because this, this is creativity.

I want to make a point about the difference between a haku lei and wilil lei and hili lei.

Those are Hawaiian words for the technique, their terms for the technique that was used, not the finished product.

This is a simple technique called hili.

It's just braiding, pleating with one single material.

You know, when you add to that plate, another material and you lock it in place.

And I'm going to add some liko lehua.

I add this into the plate, and I lock it in place.

The Hawaiians in their specific language and specific use of language changed the name of that technique to haku because haku means to mount to set in place.

So, we're taking another material, putting it into the braid, and locking it in place.

So, this is a haku lei.

This part that I'm doing here right now.

What has happened over the years is we don't know the language so well.

And we've lost the use of the language.

So, we hear somebody call a lei outward appearance.

They look alike, and they call it haku lei.

And so, you think every lay that looks like that is a haku lei and it isn't.

It is a lei poʻo or head lei or a lei ʻāʻī, a neck lei, you know, or a lei kino, a body lei.

A lei that's can be one around the hips or across the front, you know.

And if you use those three general terms, you're never going to have trouble.

Kind of nice yeah?

Naalei Liana's hula hālau is one of very few dance schools in the Kohala district.

I just opened up my hula school because I felt with the knowledge I have, you know, I can teach the children here what I know.

I've worked under different teachers and I am very proud to say that I studied under five kumus.

Besides my mother, I was raised and brought up with my mother Speechy.

And I learned a lot from her and as I went out, I learned from different teachers.

I kind of put everything together and found my own way and style of teaching.

And I'm sorry to say that most of my teachers are no longer living.

And what I have here with me my knowledge, I want to share it with my children in my hula school.

I do have children in my hula school, that they love the hula and they want to learn and you know, I'm so glad that they feel this way.

It makes it easier for me as a teacher to teach.

I train them from like basic like everybody else do basic.

The thing is when you dance the hula to to give what you have, don't hide it and you know show it show everybody just tell everybody tell yourself in fact yourself you're beautiful you want to dance.

You beautiful and when you get up there you just dance.

Just dance.

Feel your dance and enjoy your dance.

(instrumental music) Young, promising, pen and ink artist   Tom Mehau sketches whenever farm chores allow him some free time.

(instrumental music) I just drawn as long as I can remember.

(instrumental music) I   want people to be able to get as close as they   want.

Look at anything they want and it's all right there for them.

(instrumental music) Until this point, it's strictly for myself.

I've never shown anything public or sold anything.

But one day I would like that to happen.

Island residents since 1936, Margaret Fleming Waldron's paintings are found in private collections throughout Hawaiʻi and the mainland.

I first started painting, outdoor sketching, and it's my favorite, because I love nature and being outdoors.

And it's to get the essence of a subject without too much unnecessary detail.

In other words, if you can get the effect with a few strokes, why put in a lot of messy detail because that gets into the photographic category of which artists do not claim to be in.

That's another art itself.

Feather lei making is not only artistic, but therapeutic as well.

My name is Tsugi Kaiama.

I started making feather leis for over 40, 40 years now since I first started.

The reason why I went into feather lei was I became very ill and was confined in the hospital for several months.

And before then I was a stenographer.

But being unable to go out to work, my older brother was shooting pheasants and he had a very nice friend from Maui, a Hawaiian, pure Hawaiian lady who was an expert at making feather leis.

And he taught him and while he was learning I learned from him and since then I have been making feather leis all these many years.

Many hunters bring me skins but I like to get them the whole bird because I like to get all the fat off the skin and treat the skin.

This way I have feathers that lasts for 30, 40 years and the sheen does not disappear and the bugs don't get at the skin of the bird.

When we have the skin in a full, full skin like this, it's easier to match to make a nice solid lei because a lot of people pluck feathers but it's like finding a needle in a haystack.

It's almost impossible to match the colors and the shapes and sizes.

A visit to Hawaiʻi's largest privately owned museum is a potpourri adventure back in time.

I was born in North Kohala 1905.

This museum was predicted in 1913 by my great grandmother and my grandmother.

They were great founders.

And so, this is a result of the museum.

In my 57 years collection with my wife.

I am Mrs. Harriet Solomon, great great granddaughter of John Palmer Parker.

He came to the islands in 1850 became an advisor to Kamehameha the first, married a chiefess of the Kamehameha line and had three children, Mary Ann, Ebenezer and John.

And I'm a descendent from Mary Ann Parker.

(instrumental music) The Kohala mountain road bridges the north and south districts through passage of color, beauty and time.

(instrumental music) Born just down the road at Niuliʻi, David Gomes builds his own guitar designs inspired by the great craftsmen he met while studying flamenco and classical guitar in Spain.

The real art of guitar making I think is in the making of the instrument.

It's not the instrument itself.

You can't hang a guitar on the wall and go there's a nice piece of art you know.

It's not, it doesn't work like that so much.

There are a lot of aesthetic aspects of the appearance of the guitar.

But I think the real art lies in the making of it.

And it seems like when you're, when you're choosing the wood, putting the guitar together, you're always making these little tiny micro decisions about how is the grain running in this piece of wood?

Can you visualize the three-dimensional aspect of how the grain runs in the wood?

Would it be better flipped around or on its side in order to get the best cut out of the wood.

And you're always making these decisions.

And it seems like after 10 years, they're almost unconscious.

It's one thing to be able to build a guitar that looks great, sounds great and has will last a long time.

But it's another thing to be a success or to be able to just survive and doing it over any extended period of time.

And it just boils down to being able to reduce your expenses without hurting quality at all.

And I prefer to instead of buying pre made parts or pre machine wood, or milled wood, the more raw the material for me is a better way to go.

Like for instance, abalone shell inlay, I just use the shell itself and work it down with a metal cutting blade on the bandsaw and end up with a small pieces for inlay around the edge of the sound hole.

It's probably a 20th of the cost of buying the actual pieces from a guitar supply wholesaler.

Well like the humble ʻopihi hanging on a rock, when somebody comes along and touches it that little guy just sucks down on the rock harder.

He probably doesn't even know why he does it and I think I'm the same way you know if I could never really leave Kohala.

I'm kind of stuck here.

And I plan to be building guitars for a long time.

It's not the kind of thing like construction where you kind of wear out your back when you're 40 you know you could do guitar making until you're 80 probably.

Probably be doing your best stuff at that time.

(instrumental music) At the end of the road in North Kohala lies Pololū Valley, once home to Hawaiian villages and taro patches, then later to Chinese rice growers.

In 1946 the valleys crops and lifestyles all came to an abrupt halt when the same tidal wave that affected so many island communities, leveled the land.

The Sproat family knew the valley then, and still watches over it today.

My name is Clyde Halemaʻumaʻu Sproat, but they call everybody call me Kindy.

K-I-N-D-Y.

In the first years of my life was down back in the third valley, Honokāne Iki.

And I think my first remembrance of any kind of life was in Honokāne Iki, down in the valley.

We lived in the valley by ourselves, just our family, my mom and my dad, my brothers, sisters.

Just us.

We had pigs and chickens.

We were really self-sufficient in there.

We raised pigs.

We had chickens and all the eggs we could eat.

We had avocados, papayas all kinds of garden vegetables.

I mean, we lived high on the hog back there, you know.

It was really a good life.

And I didn't realize how great that life was, you know.

Now looking back on my mother now until I I got married, you know, I learned a lot of things about women after I got married.

Now my mom she washed clothes in a stream with a stick, you know.

She washed clothes, she carried water from the well.

She baked.

We lived and then she baked all our bread.

She made, she milked cows.

She made butter, you know and then we had no cooling system so we put the butter down in the well and keep it cool.

And my mom went up every day walked up the hill.

We put the cows out up the mountains.

She walked all the way up there.

She got those cows brought them down.

She caught the cows.

She milked the cows.

And then she fed.

We had pigs.

She fed oh, I don't know, chickens.

She had a lot of hogs.

She raised these hogs, you know, fed them, slopped them and she and on top of that, she raised all us kids, she washed the clothes.

We never went to the doctor because my mom was a first board of health nurse on this island of Hawaiʻi.

Took care of us.

Took care of all our needs, you know, everything.

And we just just lived and we lived really good.

And now we take a bath you know, in the, in the evening, after we had took a bath and we had supper, my mom did all the dishes and everything.

And she came and sat on the porch.

And she sat on the on the porch on a little trunk that we had on the porch and she played a four-string banjo and we sang every song that was in the book you know.

I mean we sang all the patriotic songs.

We sang all the nursery rhymes songs.

We sang all the old cowboy songs everything that we knew all the old Hawaiian songs.

A lot of old Hawaiian songs we sang so by the time I went to school, I was six years old and I went to school I say I knew somewhere in the area of about 300 to 400 songs.

And I had to learn from my mom so I never lacked for for singing material in school because I learned all this at home and we sang a lot and whenever it was time to go to bed at night you know that's when we sang the Owl's Lullaby.

Our way of life is changing, you know.

Like the Hawaiians says u halalakou kou ino napua.

Means I will never in my eyes I will never see the things that my father have seen or my grandfather have seen.

And my kids, my grandkids will never see this time that I saw because it's this time it's changed.

All the time that I saw it's changed it's no longer here.

Probably when my grandkids grow up and live around here they're be probably be tenement houses around somebody say hey boy you know this used to be country.

Kohala used to be a great country, you know, but I can see it coming and I just hope I'm dead and gone and buried by then.

Who will talk to me?

Who will answer me?

Who knows why I say who, who, who?

Who knows the reason why I sing this lullaby?

Who, who, who?

Who will talk to me?

Who will answer me?

Who knows why...