In 1894, Dutch-born Ditliv Thaanum sailed to Hawaii with the simple desire to see the volcanoes. A printer by trade, he ended up staying on, finding work at the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, a predecessor to The Honolulu Advertiser and, eventually, this paper, before discovering his true passion: snails and mollusks.
Over a lifetime, the collector, along with his brother-in-law Daniel B. Langford, amassed hundreds of thousands of shells of land and water snails, bivalves and mollusks that were eventually given to a number of mainland museums and Honolulu’s Bishop Museum, which received 70,000 of his land snail specimens and 57,000 marine shells between 1948 and 1950. About 100,000 more shells were left to the local institution when Thaanum died in 1963.
Their work forms the basis for a malacology collection that is one of several natural history and cultural collections maintained by Bishop Museum for researchers, offering a window to Hawaii’s past.
For Hawaii island-based artists and cultural practitioners Sig Zane and son Kuha‘o, the collections represent a trove of inspiration the elder Zane said is enough to fuel a decade of design ideas.
He visited the collections while working on his latest limited-edition release of limu and kupee (shell) designs. The designs were revealed Saturday at the museum’s sold-out "Ka‘ohinani o ke Kai: The Bounty of the Seas" event, during which Zane shared the story of his prints, inspired by family matriarch Edith Kanaka‘ole and her song "Ka Uluwehi o ke Kai." Fashions featuring the designs in different colors will be available in March at SigZane. com and at the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo starting April 5.
During Saturday’s event, guests were able to learn more about limu’s use in healing practices as well as its cultural roles and how it fits into contemporary nutrition while viewing some of the 750,000 specimens from the museum’s collections. These included species discovered by the late Isabella Abbott, an expert on Hawaiian seaweeds who identified more than 200 limu species and wrote eight books on the subject.
According to Botany Collections Manager Barbara Kennedy, cultural practices included avoiding the palahalaha seaweed if your aumakua (family deity) was the shark and gathering leaves of limu kala for hooponopono forgiveness sessions. People made peace by talking out their problems in a circle while eating this seaweed.
While there are some who might believe one shell is like any other, Zane has noted changes, including diminished size and dulling of colors over time.
"In our halau practices, we do firsthand research as we collect things ourselves," Zane said. "Going to the museum, we get to see what was here before, what our kupuna gathered in their time, that we don’t find anymore. We feel the mana of all the people who came before us, and it’s such a powerful experience."
One of the most beautiful examples of kupee shell jewelry is a necklace assembled by Queen Kapiolani of green and pink candy-stripe specimens that are rare today. The monarch received the shells as gifts as she traveled around the islands, documenting the place, date and name of each giver.
Marques Marzan, a Hawaiian fiber artist in the Bishop Museum’s Cultural Resources Division whose artwork is also often inspired by the collections, said, "It doesn’t look so different from any other shell jewelry, but wearing it, she was able to remember all the places she visited and the people she encountered, and that gave it meaning."
Simply gathering the nocturnal kupee meant the giver had gone to the trouble of going out at night to search for them by torchlight.
"Today we live in a disposable kind of way, where it’s just about what we can find in the store, and we don’t have to take care of it because it has no meaning," Marzan said. "When something breaks, you can always buy another one.
"Being at the museum always inspires me to keep pushing forward because the kind of skill practiced so many generations ago is rarely seen in today’s generation. It’s not necessarily because the skill has been lost, but there’s been a shift in perspective. When things were made for alii, as tribute, they had to be of the highest quality. There are few opportunities for that kind of tribute today."
Marzan said he feels lucky to have given the Zanes a tour of the kupee collections, and he witnessed their excitement as they saw specimens that most people get to see only on the rare occasions they are exhibited.
"Sig said he wanted to get home and start working right away. That’s the same feeling I have when I’m here."
