Spooked - Merrie Monarch

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

It’s a spring night in Hilo, Hawaii. Lei-Ann and her hula sisters are about to take the stage at the 1986 Merrie Monarch Festival. They’ve been practicing for months. But the gods have other plans. Thank you, Lei-Ann, for sharing your story with us. The 2026 Merrie Monarch Festival is days away -- this Sunday April 5!  Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Clay Xavier, scouted by Ixchel Lopez, artwork by Teo Ducot. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bow your head to me. I'll make you better. But how long will I live? Eternal life. But will I be the G that I was? So much more they could imagine and even dream of. So relax your soul. Give me control.

Cross over the smooth. Nine years old. Sitting in this church, angry. And my parents, angry at these brethren in this place. And now they're preacher. All puffed up, red face, bug-eyed, steps to the podium, commands us to open your Bible to Exodus 32. Here, brethren, Moses climbs the mountain to see God. Do the people wait patient?

They do not. Said they work with their forges, their ovens, with wickedness in their hearts, with evil. Look right here, look here, look here, look here. They pull a golden calf from the flame. What do they do then? The very worst thing you can do. They call this thing, this abomination, a God. Who needs that other God?

When this one gleams golden, then they bow their heads before it blasts me. But know this, brethren, there's no sure way to summon the Lord than to mock him. The God that delivered them from slavery under Pharaoh stretches out his mighty hand and smites with fire and horn pain for their betrayal. Remember that. If you want to see God face to face,

you remember that. Later, anger has an idea. I snatched two hangers from the hall closet. Bring them back to my bedroom, strip the wires from the hangers, bend them, fashion them. Work it just so. Then I cover any of that.

Now, instead, I wrapped sheet. After a sheet of aluminum foil around it, pinch and shape it into a face, into horns, the body of a calf. I admire it for a moment. Then I went for a lo, in the ever-present noise of my household, peek outside my bedroom, down in the hall, pushed the front door open, quiet, clown the front steps of her trailer, aluminum calf wrapped tight with my jacket that I run. Out to the middle of the woods, my secret fast, fast, run, until I reached the spot. reverently, not to reveal itself as many ways as I know, still it judges me unworthy of even a word.

Now, this is all I have, last deal myself. I had one last chance. It begins on the spring night in 1986. Thousands of people have gathered in Hilo, Hawaii, not just from around the islands, from the four corners of the earth, to witness the largest, the most prestigious Hula competition in the world. As the sun sets over Hilo, rollers pack either the Kanaka, L'A Stadium, the rafters.

Air tastes rich with the smell of kalua pork and the sound of ancient drums. And in the distance, dark clouds roll in. The 23rd annual Mary Monarch Festival Hula Competition. We are here live at Hilo. Tonight, the Cahiko competition, where 30 halos will be sharing the ancient dancers of Haviki. Leanne Durant is backstage with the other dancers in her Halao, or Hula school. After nine months of practice and preparation, they're about to take the stage and perform their rendition of the three windstorms of Hina. The women's chant, Hima, speaks of the goddess Hina from Molokai and her three devastating winds that were able to bruise skins and devastate lands.

And so we should get from these dancers, male and female, very strong, emotional Cahiko, ancient dances. Should be very interesting this evening. And we were all ready to go and we're standing in a circle. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out. It's pitch black. The storm is going crazy. That's when the dread really comes.

Like, I had bad feelings from the very beginning of learning the dance. I was like, okay, what do we do to stop this? Leanne has been dancing Kula for almost as long as she can remember. As a girl growing up in Honolulu, she learned to dance a version of Hula called Hula Awana. It's an instrumental style of Hula that became popular after the Hawaiian language was banned in the islands. I grew up in the generation where Hawaiian language, Hula was not accepted. During the overthrow of our monarchy, we were illegally taken by the United States. And once that happened, as a people, we were in the United States.

allowed to speak our language. Ancient hula was underground because we were not allowed to dance it. And then when I came home from college in 1977, there were things happening here in Hawaii, which they called the first renaissance of things Hawaiian. And it all started with the hula. All over the islands, young Hawaiians were reviving hula kaha'iqig. and bringing back those traditional dances and chants. It looked exciting, so I asked my neighbor if she was dancing hula anywhere,

and she said she was. So I went down with her to a hula class with Kumuhula di Silva. She was teaching Cahiko, which is the ancient hula. those chants go back way back. It tells those stories of our ancestors. What kind of beauty did they see in a flower? What kind of beauty did they see in a rock? What did they do if things weren't right?

What kind of battles did they have? I just fell in love with it. One day not long after she started studying Hulukahiko, Leanne remembers overhearing her Kumu, or teacher, Mapawana de Silva, talking about entering the Mary Monarch Festival. I was like, what is that? That's how out of touch I was. I didn't even know about the festival.

They started it as a little competition with a few halal. And over the years, it just, by word of mouth, by, you know, more the Renaissance was bringing more and more halal into being. and it just became one of the biggest things ever, and that's kind of like our big gold star, you know, in the spring, is going to marry Monarch. The first time Leanne went to marry Monarch, it was 1981. She was in her 20s and having the time of her life,

preparing for the festival with her hula sisters. Her Hulow didn't win that year. But it was just really a fun time. It was a really bonding time. each halah would have their own fundraiser with their own little signature to it. And because even though we were in competition, we would support each other. We would go to each other's fundraisers. We would help them.

They would help us. It was like a huge, huge family. But there's a lot of work. We'd make our own costumes. We'd make our own lay. We have to raise money. to get there and be able to pay for hotels or vans. Not to mention the hours each week spent practicing the dances they were going to perform.

They would have a dance of your choice, and then whoever the committee was would choose a dance where every halal dance the same, but each kubu brought their own spirit to it. They'd start rehearsing their dances in September and work on them all the way through to the competition in the spring. But for Leanne and the other dancers in Hala, Mohala, Ilima, the point of all this hard work wasn't just to win. Although, in her first five years with the group, they did win three times. What we would strive for was to share our hula and our interpretation with everyone.

And then came 1986 in the three windstorms of Hina. It was about the goddess Hina. She's one of the oldest goddesses in Hawaii and she was the female that could generate force in Hawaiian cosmology and she was kind of a protector of the land too. She had this gourd and if the people wouldn't take care of the land

she would open her gourd just a little bit. When she opened that gourd just a little bit, the rain got stronger, the wind started to pick up. And it was kind of like a warning to the people that you better take care of business. And so as the chant goes on, the people still don't heed her call or, you know, pay attention. So she opens her gourd a little more. That's when you start getting lightning, thunder, the rain gets harder, the wind starts whipping up. And on the third time, when she opens the gourd, it's the destruction of man.

Layan was a really experienced dancer at this point. And she was a mentor to some of the newer Hula sisters. But when she got into the studio to start practicing this one, something was just weird. I remember going to Hula and we learned the second verse. I all of a sudden just felt, I don't know how to explain. I was a little frightened. I couldn't really explain why,

but it was just a feeling I had in my gnao in my gut. And that feeling carried through the whole, what I call the marabonic season, starting in September. Leanne hoped that with time, should get more comfortable with the routine, and the feeling would fade, but it didn't. When the spring rolled around, that unearmonicely, that uneasy feeling in her gut was still there whenever she practiced.

She didn't mention it to her kumu or anyone else in her halau. She just kept pushing, trying to get it right. I just couldn't get it. I couldn't get the dance. I couldn't get the chant. I made mistakes all the time. It just didn't feel comfortable to me. I never had struggles like that, learning a hula.

Finally, the week of Mary Monarch arrived. layanne and her hula sisters flew to helo and checked in to the nani loa hotel that night they sat in the audience in edith canakaoli stadium and watched the miss aloha competition the next day it was their turn to compete cahiko night lay anne remembers waking up that morning to perfect hilo weather blue skies with a cool mist coming off the ocean the dancer spent the day rehearsing on the hotel lawn before heading over to the stadium when they got there they had some time to kill before they had to get ready, and most of the dancers wanted to watch the first groups perform. But Leanne decided that she needed some time alone and fresh air to clear her head, so she made her way back outside. I was super nervous because I had a hard time with the chat. I needed to calm my nerves. So I remember going down. I sat on the sidewalk kind of along the fence. I would just keep kind of just taking a deep breath.

I would always just tell myself, just let it go. Just let it go once you get on that stage. You're going to forget all your worldly worries. As she sat there, breathing in and out, Leanne could hear the first women's group take the stage inside the stadium and start to perform Hina's chant. We welcome you the people throughout the state of Hawaii from all of the Hawaiian Islands.

And now, from Las Vegas, Nevada, under the direction of Kulhuwa, Wayne Panoke. This is our first opportunity to see the Wahine competition chant, which will always be performed first. And then as I could hear the chanting on the stage, it started to rain. It came so fast. pretty soon it was pouring rain. At first I didn't think anything because Hilo is unpredictable. It always does things like that, you know?

So I went in and I started dressing. And then my wholen sisters came. We dressed under the bleachers so we could hear what was going on on the stage. Making their first appearance at the Mary Monarch Festival, another opportunity to see Hina and her devastating ways.

As I was dressing my hula sisters, I kept watching the rain. And I was noticing, like, the gutters of the tennis stadium was... The water was just gushing out, and it was coming really quickly. All of a sudden, I just felt like this is the story.

The rain kept coming, and the rain kept coming. It seemed like every time I heard the chat, The rain got worse and worse and worse. I was just like observing and thinking, wow, this is like the first storm. Clouds were really dark and heavy, and I could hear the chanting and I would see lightning or hear the thunder. And then I went to, this is like the second storm. We're dancing about the story. And the story is coming true.

Everybody's on stage, like they're chanting and their energy is there and they're bringing this to life. So I felt very uncomfortable and I did not want to go on that stage. What if we were the ones that she decided then and there let's open the gourd the third time and it would be destruction of, man. Stadium was full of man. So I really felt dreadful. But I was not going to

disappoint my Kumo or my hula sisters. Like I didn't want to be the one that was like, I don't want to do this, you know, because not performing on Cahiko night automatically disqualified us from the competition. And we've worked so hard, you've sacrificed. You know, we've had girls sacrifice being in sports, going to proms, you know, doing all the things that you do as young people, because we loved it so much. And what if I was wrong? So I talked myself back into it. It's just like, okay, you're here.

This is a commitment. You can do it. Intermission was ending. People were going back to their seats. Welcome back to Hilohavei and the beautiful Edith Kanaka-Ola. We're about to go on. My stomach is in knots. We were all ready to go on.

We're standing in a circle. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out. You hear the audience say, oh. And then there was silence. It's pitch black. And the storm is going crazy. I start to kind of panic because, I felt like the lights were the warning.

And I just kept thinking in my mind, we need to break the cycle. We have to do something to stop, to stop the momentum of this storm. And the only way I knew how to break the cycle would be to not dance. One of my wholen sisters that was standing next to me, she told me that she was afraid and she didn't want to go out and dance. and several other people came up and told me that I went into care, nurturing mode. So I said, okay, I'll go talk to Kumu

and see what happens. So I left the circle, and I went up to her and I said, Mopu, I have to tell you something. We don't feel good about dancing. There was no anger. She just said, okay, so she came, to the group and she talked to us and said, do you not want to dance?

You know, of course, everybody's kind of like, oh, what should I say? And then I just said, well, I don't want to. And then the majority of the girls were like, yeah, we don't want to, we don't want to. Meanwhile, out in the audience, somebody had started to sing. I don't remember what song, but just to take the tension off, I think. Someone started to sing, and then everyone was singing. So despite the festive mood, it was haunting, if not coincidental, to think that the night's intense lightning and thunderstorm literally shook Edith Kanaka-Ole

indoor tennis stadium. The storm caused a 40-minute blackout. Eventually, the lights went on. With the storm raging against the black sky, the announcer got on the mic. He says, I'd like to announce our next halau, halalamo, halaima, under the direction of Maupuana de Silva. She comes up, goes up the ramp by herself, goes to a mic in the middle of the stage. And nobody knew what she was going to say.

But then she said, we have decided that our girls will not be performing this evening. My concern and care is first for my ladies. Thank you. Then everybody was clapping. I think they were clapping because she made her students number one. It mattered. What we felt mattered to her and that we were willing to be disqualified. So this Mopwana came back from being on stage.

stage and making that announcement, the rain just stopped as we were undressing and putting our costumes away and taking care of everything. It went back to being a light mist with a little breeze. And it was no rain for the rest of the competition. I don't know what would have happened if we went up. There were a whole bunch of halal after us. They danced. No problem. But I felt it's not meant to be danced by us. It didn't matter that we missed this competition, that we got disqualified. None of that mattered.

Because I feel that we broke the cycle. Thank you, Leanne, for sharing your story. Leanne told us that even though her group was disqualified from the 1986 competition the next night, they did have another chance to dance and after all the ups and downs of the festival they rocked the stage with one of the best performances ever and spokeser you should know

the next Mary Monarch Festival is just days away there'll be a link in our show notes where you can learn more this piece was scouting by Ishael Lopez the original score was by Clay Xavier was produced by Zoe Frigno but just a moment let's talk about

babies, tiny little bundles of joy, fat cheeks, that smell, that baby smell, the other baby smell, makes your heart grow three sizes too big, but long-time listeners to this show know that it often starts at the beginning, and if you know an infant, or a small child that demonstrates knowledge, powers, understandings, or memories, that they didn't learn in nursery school, tell me about it, Spooked at Snap Judgment.org, because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Spook Studios stand century between this world and the next cloaked by KQED in San Francisco. Don't seek to find it.

Does it seek to find you? No snap studio content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission on team spooked. The union represented producers, artists, editors, and editors. engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications, Work with America, AFL, CIL, Local 51, and this is brought to you.

By the team that loves to Hula dance except for Mark Ristich. No, Mark refers to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight. There's David Kim, Zoe Ferrigno, Eric Yanyas, Marissa Dodge, Regina Berriaco, Miles Lassie,

tailed decat, Suuichu, even stern, Eve Jeffcoat, Eschelle Lopez, Jack Darrow, Doug Stewart, Nicholas Marks, the spook theme song is by Pat Massini Miller. My name is from Washington. And you know, I'm a boy to my auntie's place. I'm contemplating my little quest for the divine.

The search I know she would think was silly. My auntie, she always wanted kids of her own. I think she did. I think that she did. But it never happened that way for her. So I believe this was my personal stroke of good fortune because when I was in the crazy at my house, she could sometimes be the escape,

the respect, the hug, hot meal, the field trip fee, the couch to sleep on, the kind word, the new kicks, the gas money, the good book, the scum, the scy, The screaming from the stands at the graduation, they addressed her right down when I didn't have an address. The emergency contact. Well, I didn't have an emergency contact.

All these little things I think about this, walking to her tiny apartment, busy searching for the divine, but here the divine is shining bright in front of me, and now the divine is gussing me out, flitting all that cold air inside, leaving her door wide open. Never ever.