An open page from the Hawaiian Catholic hymn book recently rediscovered at the Damien archives in Leuven, Belgium. (Photo © Eric Dewaersegger)
Large, old handwritten book of Latin and Hawaiian hymns found among Damien artifacts
A large, old handwritten book of Latin and Hawaiian hymns, bound in woven lauhala, was discovered recently in an old chest of objects associated with St. Damien stored in the archives of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in Leuven, Belgium.
According to two research colleagues at the Damien Documentation and Information Center of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts in Leuven, the site of St. Damien’s shrine, tomb and archives, the chest had been locked “for more than 30 years” and had contained “discarded objects once on display” in the museum in Damien’s Belgian birthplace of Tremelo.
St. Damien, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, worked at the Hansen’s disease settlement in Kalawao on Molokai’s isolated Kalaupapa peninsula from 1873 until his death in 1889.
The two researchers, Ruben Boon and Patrik Jaspers, provided information about the rare and fragile manuscript to the Hawaii Catholic Herald by email.
According to Boon and Jaspers, the book contains “15 large sheets” on which is handwritten Mass texts in Latin, and liturgical and religious hymns, with musical notation, in Latin and Hawaiian.
The Hawaiian music book as it was discovered, rolled up in a lauhala mat. (Photo © Eric Dewaersegger)
Judging from photos on the project’s website, the book appears to be about 20 inches high and 12 inches wide.
It is not clear how the manuscript ended up in Belgium, but Boon and Jaspers speculate that it was part of a collection of objects acquired in Hawaii by Sacred Hearts Father Paul Vanhoutte in 1937.
According to the Belgian researchers, Father Vanhoutte visited the Islands in 1937 to thank those associated with the transfer of St. Damien’s body in 1936 from Kalawao, Molokai, where he had been buried 47 years earlier, to his birth country of Belgium.
Father Vanhoutte also used the Hawaii trip to collect artifacts from the Bishop Museum and Kalaupapa for a Damien museum he was planning for Leuven.
According to Boon and Jaspers, the priest “dismantled Father Damien’s altar” from St. Philomena Church in Kalawao for transport back to Belgium and also obtained objects from St. Philomena’s sacristy including “an ostensory (monstrance), a procession banner, a little painting of Christ on the cross by the Belgian Sister Ignatius Cavanagh.”
“We presume that he acquired the music manuscript together with these objects at that time,” the researchers said.
They said that the earliest documentation of the book was in a list of objects, dated 1947, from the Damien Museum in Tremelo: “1 old Hawaiian music book bound in Pandanus.”
“We assume that it has been used as a choir book during the liturgy and as a didactic tool to teach Latin and Hawaiian religious songs to the people,” they said.
Hawaii liturgical musician and composer Robert Mondoy agreed that it was probably a choir director’s teaching book. He traced some of the hymns back to the Hawaii Catholic Mission in Father Damien’s time.
As to whether St. Damien actually used the book himself or even created it, that would require further research, Boon and Jaspers said. However, Mondoy said, judging from the few photos he saw, he does not think the handwriting matches that of Father Damien.
The book is all the more significant, Boon and Jaspers said, because of the important role music played in Kalawao and Kalaupapa during St. Damien’s time and the joy it brought him.
St. Damien established a band which played for “funerals, processions and important visits,” they said. “Visitors were always impressed by Father Damien’s musicians.”
They quoted letters Father Damien wrote to his brother Pamphile: “I invite you to come and listen when my children sing at Sunday’s Mass. There are two of them at the harmonium. They play together because both of them have lost some fingers. Four sick hands instead of the two hands of your skilled organ players.” (Nov. 26, 1885). And: “I wish you could come and listen to my children on Sunday. From time to time they start singing a hymn in Latin or Hawaiian.” (July 14, 1872)
Among the Mass parts in the book are the “Kyrie,” “Gloria,” “Credo” and “Agnus Dei.”
The Latin hymns include “Magnificat,” “Tantum Ergo,” “Vivat Cor Jesu,” “Ave Maris Stella,” “Stabat Mater” and “Regina Coeli.”
The Hawaiian songs include “O Maria Kamakua,” “O Luolu Kou Malu,” “Ua Hiki Mai,” “I Mele Lanakila,” “O Kapakoa Ia” plus six unidentified songs or song fragments.
Mondoy said that most of the hymn titles can be found in other 19th century published collections, in particular “Lira Katolika,” a Hawaiian Catholic hymnal first printed in 1886.
He said that “O Maria Kamakua” is included in the “Lira Katolika” as “O Maria Ka Makua” (“Mary Our Mother”). “O Luolu Kou Malu” is also in “Lira Katolika” as “Oluolu Kou Malu” (“Our Sweet Shelter”) a Marian hymn with the same melody as “Come Holy Ghost.”
“Ua Hiki Mai” (“Come Thou Almighty King”) is also in “Lira Katolika” and can be heard on the 1961 album “A Tribute to Father Damien” recorded by the choir of St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa whose membership was made up exclusively of settlement patients. (To hear the recording, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiwnQxRTbu0)
The Damien Documentation and Information Center is raising money to restore the book so that it can be put on public view.
“We don’t want to restore the manuscript to hide it again in the archives afterward,” Boon and Jaspers said.
They are planning a concert and video in 2015 of the music contained in the manuscript.
