Royal banners belonging to the last king of the Hawaiian monarchy will return to Hawaiʻi next month after undergoing a year of preservation treatments in San Francisco.
The banners, which are approximately 20 inches wide and 36 inches tall, were made specifically for King Kalākaua's 50th birthday jubilee in 1886. They were processed by Queen Liliʻuokalani's Educational Society and Queen Kapiʻolani's hula hālau.
State Archivist Adam Jansen said he is picking up the banners next month and will help display them for the Keiki Hula Competition in Honolulu from July 25-27.
"We thought as their keiki perform, how amazing it would be for them to see a banner from Hawaiʻiʻs history," Jansen said. "Kalākaua, the Merrie Monarch who helped return hula to a wide participation, to have that banner at the event."
The restoration of the historical banners was a community effort, with donations exceeding $10,000, according to Jansen. The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the Kalihi-Pālama Culture & Arts Society played a significant role in fundraising.
Jansen said the banners have been in the state archivesʻ care for decades, and the fabric has worn down.
"Because they're made of silk and were originally stored in the heat humidity, the silk itself had broken down," he said. "The backs were becoming unraveled, and the threads were pulling out around the fringe, so that's why we're having them conserved."
But he said the banners were in better condition than Queen Liliʻuokalani's royal standard, or her personal flag, which returned to Hawaiʻi after 130 years and was under threat of being auctioned off.
Jansen told HPR last July that the queen's "flag itself is in desperate need of conservation" and that it had various holes.
He said that the state archives are examining the costs of preserving the flag under the same fabric conservators that treated the banners. He also said the state archives may consider funding from the Legislature next year.
