A Brief History of Hula

 When Captain Cook arrived in Hawai'i in 1779, the Hawaiian people had been dancing hula for centuries. They even had a goddess of the hula, Laka. Hula was danced more by men than women in the old days. Hula was danced as part of a religious program. The men and women did not wear grass skirts. They wore skirts made of kapa cloth, or the men wore a malo (loincloth).

Bishop Museum Archives

Later, when the missionaries arrived in the 1830's, they were shocked by the open dancing. It was described like this - "The natives would practice in the hot sun for days on end. Drums pounded, gourds rattled, singers chanted, and hundreds of dancers wearing garlands of green leaves and flowers and dog-tooth anklets moved endlessly to and fro in lines, their brown skin glistening with sweat, with no sign of boredom or tiredness," (Daws, 1968). The missionaries convinced Queen Kaahumanu that hula was bad. It was outlawed in town, but the people out in the country still danced it.

After King Kalakaua made hula popular again in the 1870's, the Hawaiians have been dancing hula ever since.