Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1992–1993
Hawaiian Gourd Crafts:
Aana Mitchell and Diane Ohata-Sims
As people move to Nevada from all over the
country and the world, they bring with them the
arts and cultures of their homelands and add them to
the increasingly diverse society here. The Hawaiian
community has already established a presence in Las
Vegas, with an active Hawaiian Civic Club, a hula
school and an annual Pacific Island festival, so it was
exciting to have NAC’s first Las Vegas apprenticeship
be in Hawaiian gourd crafts.
Master artist Aana Mitchell was born on Oahu and
raised in a traditional Hawaiian family. She was chosen
from ten children by her father to carry on the chants,
dances, crafts and other traditional knowledge, and for
45 years has taken the responsibility that came with
that training very seriously. She has taught children and
adults in California, where she has lived for 35 years,
and has also conducted craft workshops in Las Vegas,
where she met Diane Ohata-Sims. Diane teaches language
and crafts to the children of the Hawaiian Civic
Club, but is always looking to improve her knowledge
and skills, and saw the apprenticeship as a chance to
spend some more time with Aana.
Together they worked on making several traditional
gourd items, including the uli-uli, a
rattle used in hula, and a ceremonial
mask called kamaka ipu o Ku (the
gourd face of Ku). Aana grows the
ipu, or gourd, used for the mask at her
home in California, but other materials
must be brought from Hawaii. Aana
began her lesson with a Hawaiian saying,
which translates as “When you
create anything Hawaiian, do so with
much aloha. Transmit that aloha to the
finished product and you will have a perfect creation
every time.”
There has been a great revival of traditional Hawaiian
culture and language in Hawaii in recent years,
which Aana has been pleased to be a part of as an elder
teacher, or kupuna. “It’s not so much teaching them
and leaving them, it’s carrying it on and living it,” she
explains. “Don’t just say ‘I’m Hawaiian and this is my
culture,’ you must live it, in order to make it true to the
people and to yourself.” She would like to see that same
depth of understanding passed on to young people who
live on the mainland as well.
Diane, who was also born in Hawaii, says, “The
kids that are born away from the islands are the ones
that miss out, and when they go home, they know that
they’re Hawaiian, but they don’t know a lot, they don’t
know the language…because nobody else speaks.” And
as she wrote in her application to the program, “My
end objective is to learn these ancient crafts in order
to share my knowledge with the rest of the Hawaiian
community in Las Vegas and pass my acquired knowledge
to the younger generation to perpetuate our sacred
customs down through future generations.”
Aana Mitchell and
Diane Ohata-Sims
working on a gourd mask.
Diane Ohata-Sims
with her finished gourd mask.
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