By Daniel Geffre, Editorial Intern, Worlds of Words
The Worlds of Words Center exhibit, Stitching Stories: Hmong Customs and Symbols as Told through Storycloths, features traditional Hmong storycloths from the Worlds of Words Mary J. Wong collection along with children’s books and hands-on activities for all ages. This exhibit highlights the oral and textile storytelling traditions of the Hmong people. Examples of storytelling through textiles from Vietnam, Panama, Peru and Turkey are often also on display with this exhibit.
Kapaemahu is a multilayered picturebook that leaves the reader with much to contemplate. Based on a traditional Hawaiian legend, this captivating picturebook begins by transporting the reader to the days before recorded history, the time of storytelling, long before the colonization of Hawaii. In that long ago time, four Tahitians journeyed across the Pacific Ocean and arrived on the shores of Waikiki on the island of Oʻahu. These visitors were māhū, two-spirited beings who were neither male nor female but “a mixture of both in mind, heart, and spirit.” The māhū were favored by the Gods “with skill in the science of healing.” They healed many of the islanders and to honor the māhū, the people erected four great stones. Before vanishing from the island, the māhū transferred their healing powers into these four stones. Following the telling of the history of the māhū, the story moves the reader ahead seven hundred years in history to witness the impact of colonization upon the stones and subsequently the culture of the Native Hawaiians. The book ends with the call to remember the story of the māhū declaring, “When you share that story, you honor it.” 
Jane Goodall recently outlined, 
