Johanna Keaioana Drew was born in Honolulu on October 6, 1895. Her father was Levi Drew and her mother was Kate Stillman both of part-Hawaiian and English ancestry. Her siblings were Benjamin, Levi and Hamlet.  She attended Central Grammar School. Baptized at Pius X Church in Mänoa, she remained a devoted Catholic throughout her lifetime. She married William Allen Cluney on November 28, 1914 and they had eight children. The five who survived into adulthood were Caroline, Benjamin Drew, William Allen, Donald Filmore and Johanna. The Cluneys lived in Kalihi, Island of Oÿahu.  Johanna was a member of the Kaÿahumanu Society, Hui Poni Moi and Daughters of Hawaiÿi. [1]   

            “Whoever goes to buy featherwork…will find her, muumuu-clad and often barefooted in her cottage in Kalihi. The lei she is working on will be anchored to a flannel binding on a wooden chair back, held in place by the prong of a large safety pin.” [2]

 “To work with feathers, ‘the beauty of the bird,’ requires a special mana…or right. When she began, three Hawaiians tested her and concluded, ‘The work is with you’…She reached that point only after she had struggled against and overcome the many negative forces …around her. Utterly destitute, she prayed not for material aid, but for a peacock lei which she seemed to see before her eyes.” [3]   A friend’s gift of a blue peacock feather lei was the answer to her prayer and the encouragement she needed to pursue her craft. The lei became the model for subsequent lei.

The extinction of native birds species once used to make the chiefs’ capes, helmets and lei and her own poor financial circumstances led her to experiment in other kinds of feathers and dyes for color. She says, “I had no money. I was glad just to have a job ironing clothes.” [4]   How was she going to acquire the thousands of feathers needed to begin experimenting and learning her craft?  She decided to create elegant objects from common feathers. “And in the face of poverty, she pioneered the use of less expensive duck, rooster and gooney bird feathers. She also experimented with dyes…she often would visit the old King Street market and wait for the butchers to skin the live ducks that were for sale.  She learned her art from an elderly Hawaiian lady who told her how to select, wash and dry feathers…” [5]

Each lei had a special story and sometimes she gave them names for the circumstances under which they were created. She also believed that her featherwork was imbued with sacred, spiritual power and that her abilities were divinely inspired.

Because she believed that God guided and inspired her work, she jealously guarded the secrets of her craft. “Birds accomplish their long migrations, not by flapping their wings, but by sailing on the winds. Similarly, one should not think that Ms. Cluney herself is acting as her fingers move, but instead should recognize the spirit given her which works within and through her.

Her own experience proves to her that the Hawaiian world is not dead. Native animals considered extinct have merely returned to the divine kapu (sacred place) from whence they sprang until a time when we learn to miss them.

                Two oÿo  birds from which yellow feathers used to be plucked for capes and helmets, appeared recently. One was shot and dissected in a museum. The other escaped to report that the time was not yet ripe. Even more recently a special shrimp was detected in a photograph of a pool. Ms. Cluney sees the shadows of the birds flitting before her eyes and hears their chirping.

                She has the faithful conviction that the talent which she is endowed will pass on to another…’What will be done then, I do not know.’ Because the work is spiritual, it will be necessarily new, unique and creative. The work will be Hawaiian, but in a changed world. ” [6]

Mrs. Cluney described her work this way, “I tell a story with my needle and thread. The feather leis that I make are the symbols of the expert toil of people of long ago, of leis that decorated chiefess’ heads, of magnificent cloaks and helmets that warrior chiefs wore into battle.” [7]