New digital exhibits explore Maui’s history
Celebrate Maui Museums new digital exhibits are a collaboration from the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum, Lahaina Restoration Foundation, Makawao History Museum, and Maui Historical Society to highlight diversity and history of Maui County.
The exhibits were created for National Preservation Month in May, but will be kept online indefinitely for the community. Through this digital format, viewers can explore the history of Makawao town, learn a plantation era Portuguese bean soup recipe, and discover the struggle of Lahaina’s Native Hawaiian prisoners.
Katie Matthew from the Makawao History Museum shared her passion for bringing this diversity to the forefront.
“Both historic documentation and physical research documenting the history of (Makawao) sparsely exist and with the changing times, the history is being lost,” said Matthew.
“It is important for people to learn about Maui’s history so they can understand Maui today,” said Holly Buland, assistant director of the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum. “We hope people will come away with a better understanding of the lives of the immigrants who came to Hawaii: How they got here, what they did here, and what they left behind.”
The Old Lahaina Prison highlights what little is known about the Native Hawaiian prisoners in a virtual tour. While the prison was built to detain rowdy whalers on shore leave, it also housed Hawaiians who had been arrested. Whalers wrote of lounging about until their ship captain claimed them, but native prisoners often had to do backbreaking labor during their incarceration.
“In fact, sailor’s had a very different experience in the prison than Native Hawaiians, especially commoners, did,” said Lahaina Restoration Foundation Deputy Executive Director Kimberly Flook. “We hope that by viewing this exhibit, the visitor will have a clearer picture of prison life in Lahaina, seeing that the removal of freedom and choice from an individual is never an easy thing.”
Maui Historical Society celebrated its annual Lei Day Heritage Festival with a virtual lei contest on May 1. The lei contest entries and winners are displayed as part of their digital exhibit, made of a variety of styles and mediums. Maui Historical Society Director Sissy Lake-Farm hopes to reinforce the “importance of lei in Hawaii, that the symbol of a lei shows as a gesture of aloha. Make a lei, give a lei and wear lei. A rich tradition that we can uniquely call our own.”
To view all of the Celebrate Maui Museums virtual exhibits, visit lahainarestora tion.org/celebrate-mauimuseums/. Funding for Celebrate Maui Museums is made available by the County of Maui Office of Economic Development.