An expert is someone who has a special skill or knowledge in a certain area that nobody else has. There are many experts on the island. Some are really good at finding water, knowing what the animals are going to do, or fixing things that break. Sometimes people argue about who’s the best expert at certain things but when it comes to shark-toothed weapons everyone agrees. Nobody is as good as Auntie Oki. When I learned that we had to spend a day with an expert for this assignment, I knew right away that I wanted to spend a day with her.
Oki and her sister Pana run the armory. Before the fracture the armory used to be a museum. Lots of people would come to look at all kinds of old stuff, not just weapons. Since the accident, the sister’s family have made it the best place to buy the equipment you need to protect yourself and keep you alive if you’re out exploring.
Leiomano is an old Hawaiian word that means “lei of the shark”. Today it’s a word that means any kind of shark-toothed weapon and it is Oki’s specialty. She says that making leiomano is a form of art and she tries to make each of her weapons as suitable for framing on the wall as they are at slicing through a Nightmarcher.
Every morning Oki puts on her beach hat and sets out just before sunrise to look for shark teeth. “You find the best ones right at dawn,” she says. Oki prefers tiger shark teeth but says you can use any heavily serrated species like dusky, bull, or even great white teeth. Even though the pointy teeth of the different kind of reef sharks look cool, Oki says they don’t cut very well so she only uses them for decoration or toys.
She carries the teeth back home in specially made bundles of hau tree cloth and palm fibers to avoid the teeth cracking or becoming dull by rubbing against each other. In her workshop, Oki lays out all the teeth, grades them, and decides what color schemes, patterns, and weapon types each tooth would be good for.
Oki says that every tooth, tusk, and antler she finds has a place and that there are a numerous opportunities in every home to “tastefully weaponize the decor”. She is almost as well known for her nontraditional creations as she is for her leiomano work. Every night Oki teaches a class on creative armament design for anyone interested in the subject. She says her exclusive line of boar-tusk brooms are, “easy to use and are as deadly as they are elegant.” But when it comes to shark teeth she does things the old way.
Oki treats the teeth with a special process handed down through her family to make them hard and less brittle. Even though I asked politely, she wouldn’t tell me what it was. She only uses koa or milo wood in her weapons. She says that they are the most durable and fit in well with almost any color palette.
Some people say that the best way to secure a tooth to a weapon is to lash it without drilling holes or use a strong epoxy or glue. Oki says those methods are lazy and can lead to tooth or life loss in battle, as well as a missed opportunity to add exciting accent features to a weapon. Auntie Oki uses a small laser drill to score her treated shark teeth before punching a hole with a handmade sandalwood awl. She says you can’t make beautiful weapons unless you’re using beautiful tools.
The ancient Hawaiians believed a lot of weird things about teeth. They believed that shark teeth could protect you from shark attacks and made warriors more brave. They also believed that if you took a molar from a fallen enemy and inlay it in a club, the mana from the slain warrior was transferred to the weapon, giving its owner more spiritual power. Owning a shark-toothed weapon was a great honor and would make its wielder almost impervious to harm. But Oki says her creations are for display and devastation purposes only, not for spiritual protection.
If you are looking for: a Koa axe, a niho knife, a hoe leiomano paddle, or just a simple shark-toothed club, there is no better place to look than the armory. My mom says that I’m still too young to get a pololu spear, but when I grow up, I know Oki will make me a beautiful one that will match my favorite boots.
Akamai Mahelona
4th Grade
Pu`u School Lahaina
