Aloha

Aloha – A magic word of the South Seas one is welcomed or adopted, it can express sympathy or love and is often combined with other words, whereby it constantly changes its meaning. The approach of a ship or a shoal, which announces itself to the trained eye of the scout by the rippling of the water long before, is communicated from the outlook high in the palms with the loud call “Aloha”.

“Aloha” is sung to irresistible seduction, which painter – Paul Gauguin, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, Henri Matisse, Walter Spies –, the ethnologist Margaret Mead and the directors Flaherty and Murnau followed. The variety of the word corresponds to the multi-faceted artistic design with which musicians, writers, scientists, painters and filmmakers tried to capture the diverse culture of the South Seas. They all draw from the rich source of local cultures in which dance and music, sculpture and painting, and even the wickerwork used in everyday life, serve as offerings for the ancestors and gods of protection.