In my place this month, our Kumu Mālia shares this touching tale for our Life at the Center story. Mahalo to Malia! – Director, Renée Tillotson
By Kumu Mālia Helelā
I have long revered and held great aloha for Queen Lili’uokalani. I was a young girl when I discovered that my own family had a surprising personal connection to her.
When my maternal great grandmother, Tutu Emma, (pictured here with little me) was in her 80s, my dad realized that she had attended St. Andrew’s Priory while Queen Lili’uokalani still lived next door at Washington Place. Curious, he asked her, “Tutu, did you ever see the Queen?” He was shocked at her answer. “Why yes,” she responded with a mischievous smile. “I used to steal her flowers.”
My tutu stole flowers from the queen of Hawai’i?!? I was about ten years old when I heard that story – perhaps the very age when my great grandmother was creeping into the queen’s garden.
Tutu Emma was born in 1899 on Hawai’i Island and lived there until coming to Honolulu to attend St Andrew’s Priory from about 1906-1914. Young Emma sang in the school choir. She explained to my father that when Queen Lili’uokalani came to the Priory from her neighboring home to listen to the girls sing, they needed a lei to present to her. And all the good flowers grew on the other side of the Priory wall, in the Queen’s garden. Emma, nicknamed Keko (“monkey” in Hawaiian), would slip over the wall and return with enough flowers to make a lei for her Queen.
As I grew older and began learning more about the Queen and the trials she faced, she grew and grew in my esteem, this last monarch of the sovereign nation of Hawai’i, so dignified, so protective of her people, and so beloved.
I recall a moment in 2002 when I found myself intensely drawn to Mauna’ala (the royal mausoleum), resting place of Queen Lili’uokalani here in Honolulu. Despite my best intentions, I had missed the plane that took my hula sisters to the uplands of Kōke’e on the island of Kaua’i. And I had missed that chance to harvest maile for our upcoming Merrie Monarch performances.
Alone, I descended the stairs to the royal crypt, sank to my knees at the bottom landing, and dissolved into tears.The memory stings, as I have still never gathered maile in the wild to this day. Yet the memory emboldens me. I remember my feelings of deep personal unworthiness, and my kneeling before these Hawaiian queens and kings and finding strength through their example.
Like all plants, maile seeds are ephemeral sparks of potential that require the right set of conditions to thrive. Seeds of stories exist all around us. Some are flourishing, some are surviving, and many lie dormant, ready to unfold at the slightest regard. I think of the role of storytelling, and more importantly, storykeeping, in helping us understand our place in the world. Or put more simply, stories are vital to understanding who we are.
And I still had this humorous story of my family’s connection to our last queen. Never did I expect how this endearing little family story might grow like the maile seed…
As a kumu hula (traditionally trained teacher of Hawaiian hula dancing) I incorporate stories and history into the many hulas that we dance. Every hula contains layers of meaning.
Naturally, when I teach “Makalapua”, a lei song for Lili’uokalani, I tell our family story of Tutu Emma in the queen’s garden. In the dance, we reach out to gather flowers to place into a basket, and we lift our lei high in honor of our queen. Along with Tutu Emma’s startling admission that she “stole” flowers from the Queen, I also tell the story of Lili’u’s supporters, who in 1895 gathered flowers for her while she was imprisoned at ‘Iolani Palace. They would wrap the flowers in the day’s newspaper (which was forbidden to Lili’u) and then in plain paper, to smuggle in the news.
I never imagined that telling this story in class would spark the idea for a short film about my Tutu. However, one student of mine, Concepcion Saucedo-Trejo, heard me tell these stories and got inspired. She began interviewing me and my family to create a script and build the story into a film. Imagine that!
Concepcion’s original concept was a flower heist film with live actors, featuring Lili’uokalani’s pet tortoise and beloved dog Poni – pictured here at her feet.
But then the pandemic upended her initial endeavor. Working under the limitations of stay-at-home orders, Concepcion searched for the right team to switch from live acting to an animated film. She engaged Ciara Lacey as writer and director to shape the project, which was rendered beautifully by animation artist Daniel Sousa.
This charming film illustrates the unlikely and touching connection between a young girl (Tutu Emma) at the Priory and an elderly Queen Lili’uokalani. In keeping with our family’s story, young Emma sets out to gather flowers to make a lei for the Queen’s birthday.
Director Ciara made the brilliant decision to eliminate dialogue from the film, ensuring that viewers of all ages and language abilities can connect and comprehend the story. The story thus becomes a universal experience of bravery, vulnerability and resolve.
Research for the film uncovered pivotal family records for our ‘ohana. We discovered that Tutu Emma was named in three copyrights for music in the 1930s. In 2024, I visited the Library of Congress and got to hold two of her original song sheets in my hands. I can’t quite describe the feeling of seeing her name on these papers, especially since nobody in the family had even known these songs existed. This precious addition to our family records is invaluable. My connection to my Tutu deepened with the new insights into her musical compositions.
Meanwhile, Conception and her team managed to bring our family’s oral history into the format of an internationally recognized animated film called “The Queen’s Flowers”. Amazing!
On a bright October morning last year, I again found myself at Mauna’ala (the Royal Mausoleum). The Queen’s Flowers had just had its Hawai’i premiere at the 2024 Hawaii International Film Festival, where it took the award for Best Made in Hawaii Short Film!
Concepcion and I were at Mauna’ala to offer our tribute to the Queen. Concepcion held an adorable character cut-out of Emma from The Queen’s Flowers film. I carried a ho’okupu (offering) of crown flower lei wrapped in ti leaves to honor Queen Lili’uokalani.
Last week, our story made a full circle at our Ku’u Pua, Ku’u Lei 2025 May Day event. Connie (Conception) screened her animated film in the same Barefoot Ballroom where her original idea was born during one of our hula classes. Connie introduced the film to our audience, then sat at the front while the movie played.
As all eyes turned to the screen, I let mine sweep the audience. Keiki (children) who had spent the previous hour scooting and tumbling across the stage area drew up, alert and watchful as they followed Emma’s story. To say they were entranced is an understatement. My eyes traveled from the keiki, to Connie, to little Emma on the screen, and I marveled at how each reflected the other. It gave me chills. Stories have the power to do that.
Renée adds her experience of watching The Queen’s Flowers, “This whimsical animation somehow captures deep reverence for a brave, beleaguered queen, deprived of her kingdom and her throne. In the film, the flowers that young Emma dares to borrow from the garden are what we call “crown” flowers. As little Emma humbly gives the lei she has crafted for the queen, and the queen graciously accepts this child’s loving gift, magic happens! Those small purple flowers fly up into the air, transformed before our eyes into tiny crowns, each like a golden crown that a queen might wear. And in our imagination, we see Queen Lili’uokalani as the regal monarch she truly was and is in our memory.”
Conception and I have talked extensively about Lili’uokalani’s love of keiki. Crafting this film for all children is the perfect tribute and gift of love for a Queen whose legacy still supports local keiki. At the Queen’s final resting place, we read a plaque to the her and her fellow ali’i (royal family members):
“Harbingers of aloha, through a black lace veil shimmering.
Unlock our love lest we forget from whence we came.
And as we too slip the surly bonds of earth, fly with iwalani.
Let our children join hands here and touch the soul of aloha.”
Who knows what stories will unfold when we are touched by the spirit of aloha. What stories will you store, nurture and share? The seeds of stories are inside and all around us. Look what the seed of our family’s story grew into!
Aloha e, aloha e. May love be with you, may love be with you.
Kumu Mālia Helelā
Kumu Mālia Ko’i’ulaokawaolehua Helelā strives to live a life of grace. Her halau, which meets at Still & Moving Center, is Na Hula Ola Aloha. Completing her uniki under Kumu Hula Puluelo Park in 2002, she now teaches hula and oli to a wide range of students, from infants and toddlers to kupuna. Mālia studied oli (traditional Hawaiian chant) under Kumu Hula Keola Lake. She began her formal training in lomilomi as a teenager. She was licensed by the State of Hawaii as a massage therapist in 1998 and as an esthetician in 2002. Her hula practice and lomilomi practice, she says, are the same. She continues to look to the beauty and grace of the Hawaiian environment for grounding and inspiration.
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