The history of hula begins long before stages, audiences, or visitor lūʻau. In the Hawaiian world, hula was chant in motion — a sacred way to remember chiefs, gods, place names, and the lineage of the islands themselves. To understand hula today, you have to walk back to a time when the dance was not entertainment but archive, prayer, and politics moving as one body across the lava floor of a thatched hālau.
Where the history of hula begins
Hula's origin stories vary by island and by hālau, the houses of learning where the practice is kept alive. Some traditions point to the goddess Laka — patron of the dance, of the flowering forest, and of every offering placed on the kuahu altar. Other accounts honor Hiʻiaka, Pele's youngest sister, who is said to have danced the first hula on the black sand of Puna to soothe her older sister's volcanic temper. In other tellings, the demigods Kapo and Pele herself preside over different aspects of the form.
That visual vocabulary — bold linework, tapa-style patterning, figures wrapped in symbols of fire and wave — has carried Hawaiian story for centuries, on barkcloth then and on modern pieces like our Pele canvas now. Hawaiians passed knowledge through mele, chants whose lines were memorized and danced rather than written, and a single dance could carry several lineages at once. What unites the origin stories is that hula was first a form of worship and remembering — a way to keep history present in the body.
Hula kahiko: the ancient practice
The oldest form of the dance is hula kahiko, "ancient hula." A kahiko performance is built on chant (oli or mele hula) rather than melody, and it is accompanied by percussion: the ipu heke, the pahu drum, the ʻulīʻulī feather rattle, the puʻili split bamboo. The dancer's movements echo what the chant says — a gesture for rain, a gesture for a chief's house, a gesture for the wind that runs along a particular cliff.
Before contact with the West, kahiko was learned inside a hālau hula under a kumu, a teacher whose authority came down through generations. Training was strict. Students observed kapu — ritual restrictions on what they ate and how they lived — for the duration of their study. Graduations were ceremonial. Hula was a serious office, closer to a priesthood than a hobby.
When hula was driven into hiding
Hula's public life nearly ended after Western contact. American Protestant missionaries arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1820 and read the dance as pagan — too physical, too tied to the old gods, too dangerous to a Christian island. By 1830, regent Kaʻahumanu, a recent convert, had imposed an effective ban on public performance.
The dance did not disappear. It moved into back valleys and quiet rooms. Practitioners passed mele in private, taught their children, and waited. The history of hula across the nineteenth century is largely a story of stewardship under pressure — a generation keeping a fire low so that it would not be put out.
King Kalākaua and the revival
Public hula returned with King David Kalākaua, who took the throne in 1874 and made cultural revival central to his reign. Kalākaua is often called the Merrie Monarch for this — a king who staged hula at his coronation, who collected the old mele, and who set the stage for the dance to be performed openly again. His sister, Queen Liliʻuokalani, was herself a composer and an advocate for Hawaiian arts.
A second wave of revival came in the 1970s with the broader Hawaiian Renaissance — a return to language, to wayfinding, to kalo, and to hula as serious cultural practice. The Bishop Museum in Honolulu became one of the major centers archiving Hawaiian dance and chant in this era, and the Merrie Monarch Festival, held every spring in Hilo, became the most prestigious hula competition in the world.
Hula ʻauana and the modern stage
Out of that long history, two main forms now coexist. Hula kahiko keeps the ancient line: percussion, chant, and traditional attire of kapa and lei. Hula ʻauana — "to wander," "to drift" — emerged in the late nineteenth century when stringed instruments entered the islands. ʻAuana is what most visitors first see: the slack-key guitar, the ʻukulele, the melodic Hawaiian song, the softer flowing movement.
ʻAuana is not a lesser form. It is hula adapting to new sound while keeping the same intent — to tell a story with the whole body. A well-danced ʻauana piece about a beloved place can carry as much aloha as the oldest kahiko mele.
The instruments and gestures that carry the dance
Hula's vocabulary is built on objects you can hold and movements you can name. The ipu is a hollow gourd struck with the heel of the hand to mark time. The pahu, a hardwood drum traditionally covered in sharkskin, gives kahiko its low temple weight. The ʻulīʻulī feather rattles add a quieter percussive sheen. The puʻili, split lengths of bamboo, rattle in pairs.
A dancer's hands speak as clearly as the chant. The basic vocabulary is unmistakable once you learn to read it:
- a flat palm rolled forward — a wave moving across the reef
- fingertips trailing down through the air — falling rain or long hair
- a high arc above the head — a mountain ridge or the rising sun
- a sweep across the chest — embracing, aloha, an island held close
To watch hula well, watch the hands and listen to the chant. They are saying the same thing in two languages at once.
Watching hula today
If you visit Hawaiʻi, look past the resort show and find the local performances. Free Sunday afternoons at the Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikīkī, community hula in Lahaina, hālau gatherings on Molokaʻi, and the spring competitions in Hilo are where you see the form at its strongest. The Merrie Monarch Festival in particular — three nights of kahiko and ʻauana judged by an exacting panel — is the highest stage hula has.
You don't need to be an expert to feel it. Pay attention to which mele moves you, ask what the chant is about, and you will find that the history of hula is not in a book somewhere. It is on the stage in front of you, still telling the islands their own story.
Shop the story
Hula Instruments Tee
— ipu, pahu, ʻulīʻulī, puʻili
ʻUkulele Tee
— the voice of hula ʻauana
Pele Canvas
— linework worthy of the chant
Hula is one of many living threads that run through Hawaiian art and craft. Browse our Hawaiian mythology canvas collection and our kakau-inspired line-work pieces to keep more of this story close to home, and see more stories from the islands on the journal.
Bring the islands home: Explore our Mythology & Akua tees — original designs from our Native Hawaiian–owned studio in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i.