Post #547659 by Sabu The Coconut Boy on Tue, Aug 10, 2010 5:40 PM

Quite an impressive sight! I'm hoping to make it to the Bishop before October and see this rare assembly myself.

DC - The loin cloths harken back to the ancient days and were how the carved temple images were actually dressed on the day of their dedication in the temple.

(The following text is from "A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island" by Linda Wedel Greene, September 1993)

The priests awaited a sign that Ku was present at the ceremonies. The signal was the finding of the seaweed to be placed in the waiea. If it was found, a coconut fiber cord was wrapped around the principal image's belly as an umbilical cord. It was then cut and a feast held to honor the "birth" of this image. A confirmation ceremony followed. Just as a young boy was dressed in a bleached loin cloth at puberty, the new image was wrapped in bleached bark cloth and declared mo'i, lord of all the idols. The lesser images were then also wrapped in kapa.