Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 5, 1 May 1988 — Heritage Center's Lauhala Mat Big Challenge for Noted Weaver [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Heritage Center's Lauhala Mat Big Challenge for Noted Weaver

Soon to grace the "parlor" of the new Bernice Pauahi Bishop Heritage Center at the Kamehameha Schools campus will be a room-size, 16-by-32 foot lauhala mat woven through months of labor by noted weaver Esther Kakalia Westmoreland. The Center and Memorial Chapel were dedicated Apr. 3. Working constantly in between her regular job teaching lauhala weaving at Bishop Museum's Atherton Halau, Aunty Esther plaits and weaves as the mat grows row by row in the eool, quiet basement of Kawaiaha'o Church. She is using lauhala from Moloka'i, and expects to use between 60 to 80 rolis of the lauhala leaves. Westmoreland's mat is the first she has ever woven in an unusual style of a wide-weave border that merges smoothly and precisely, without seams, into a finer weave center. She says she first saw this type of mat in 1937 and has wanted to weave one like it ever since. She first practiced her technique with samples, and began the mat by weaving the outer border first, then filling in the center. Westmoreland first learned to weave mats as a teenager at a girls' school in Moiliili. A native of

Hilo, Westmoreland lived for many years on the mainland before returning to Hawaii.

Master weaver Esther Kakalia Westmoreland strikes a lonely pose in the basement of Kawaiaha'o Church as she works on giant lauhala mat for Bernicē Pauahi Blshop Heritage Center at The Kamehameha Schools.