Chapter XX: Part II (2)

I have already stated that I consider the Polynesian word Hawaii as corresponding to, or representing the word Jawa, as applied to the second island of the Sunda group. From the pronunciation of the word in the different Polynesian dialects I was led to believe that its original name in Polynesian mouths was “Hawa-iki” or Little Jawa. It is possible, however, that it may also have been, as pronounced in some dialects, Hawa-ii or Sava-ii,—the raging furious (as applied to volcanic mountains) Hawa or Sava or Saba. How far this name was applied to the western islands of the Sunda group I am unable to say. We know that Ptolomy, the geographer, designated Sumatra as “Jaba-din.” It may therefore very probably in times anterior to him have included a portion or the whole of the latter island as well as the present Java. Be this as it may, the frequent allusions made in the chant referred to, to the sea of Hawaii (te tai o Hawaii)—the Jawa sea, points with sufficient accuracy to this island as the western terminus of the world as known to those who composed that chant.

In this way the expression used in the chant regarding the wind receives a force and application, which under no other construction it could have received. It then applied to the regular monsoons which blow over that part of the world: “Blow wind from Vevao (from the east) and cool the sea of Hawa: blow back wind from Hawa (from the west) and cool the region or air of Vevao.”

The Hawaiian appellations for the same cardinal points, while they differ in name, tend to the same result. In the Hawaiian group the North is called, among other names, “Ulunui,” “Uliuli,” “Hakalauai,” “Melemele,” but these are known by tradition to have been names of lands, situated to the north of some former habitat of the people, of which all knowledge and remembrance was lost save that they were situated to the north of them, and were visited at one time by that famous voyager, whose exploits survive in song and saga, Kaulu-a-Kalana. Among the names for the South occurs that ancient one of lipo, also of lepo. The former signifies blue, black or dark, and hence the deep water in the sea; the latter is synonymous with moana, the deep open ocean. Now, there is no land to the north of the Hawaiian Islands within reach or ken that could have suggested these names as cognomens or epithets for the North, while moana lipo, the dark, bottomless ocean, approaches them not on the south only, but on every side. Those names, therefore, bespeak a foreign origin, and that origin I hold to have been in the Sunda Islands. No other configuration of land can account for it.

Though none of the above statements, singly, amounts to a positive proof, yet, taken together, I think they furnish sufficient induction to warrant the conclusion that the Polynesian family in the Pacific, from New Zealand to the Hawaiian group and from Easter Island to the outlying eastern portion of the Viti Archipelago, is descended from a branch that was agnate to, but far older than, the Vedic branch of the Aryan race; that it had entered India long before the Aryans; that, while there, it became moulded to the Cushite-Arabian civilization of that time and more or less mixed up with the Dravidian branches, who either were in India before it, or entered there from the northeast; that, whether driven out by force or leaving for colonizing purposes, it established itself in the Indian Archipelago at an early period and spread itself from Sumatra to Timor, from Borneo to Manila; that it was followed into this archipelago by Brahmanized Dravidians and other tribes from Deccan who, in their turn, obtained the ascendancy and drove the Polynesians to the mountains and the interior of the larger islands or compelled them to leave altogether; that no positive time can be assigned for leaving the Asiatic Archipelago and pushing into the Pacific—it may have occurred centuries before the present era, but certainly was not later than the first century of it, or thereabout; that the diversity of features and complexion in the Polynesian family—the frequent high forehead and Roman nose and light olive color—attest as much its Aryan relation and Cushite connection, as it does its intermixture with the Dravidian and Malay branches before and subsequent to leaving India; and that if the present Hindu is an Aryan descendant, the Polynesian is, a fortiori, an Aryan ancestor.

TRADITIONAL HAWAIIAN HISTORY.

I have read with a great deal of interest the efforts made by various writers in the Hawaiian journals to restore and to publish the traditions, histories, songs and sagas, pertaining to the Hawaiian people. They have a value and being far greater than many would at first conceive of, whether historically, ethnologically or philologically considered; and their preservation and critical collation and analysis are objects well worthy of the time and trouble of men of leisure and ability. I have every reason to believe that what has so far been published is but a small part of the material that may yet be collected, if proper inquiries were made. It would be as absurd and incorrect to date Hawaiian history from the time of Captain Cook, as it would be to date English history from the time of the Norman Conquest, while the previous national life of the Hawaiian people is laid bare to the critical observer in numerous meles, kaaos, and moolelos, preserved and handed down from generation to generation, not by foreign dilettante or men of no standing, but by the most jealous care of chiefs, priests, and bards, independent in their source and preservation, crossing, clashing or confirming each other. Though the historical thread which underruns these traditions is often overlaid with fables, superstitions and exaggerations, yet I contend that from the very nature of their independent sources they are a most valuable material from which to rehabilitate Hawaiian history for centuries anterior to Capt. Cook. The critical canon which refuses to build up history from tradition, and receives nothing but contemporary writers or monumental records as evidences of fact, seems to me more nice than wise under certain circumstances. When Niebuhr ran his pen through Roman history previous to the sack of the city by the Gauls, it was not on account of the worthlessness of the Roman traditions, for he never had them in their pure and simple archaic form, nor yet a trust-worthy translation of them in either Greek or later Latin, but only such as the prejudice, credulity, ignorance and uncritical manipulation of Troy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others, had made them. And I am fain to believe that had either Niebuhr or Sir Cornwall Lewis stood face to face with the Roman, Etruscan and Sabinian traditions in their original, unadulterated form, while yet presenting a living impress of their respective peoples, so far from rejecting, they would have turned them to the best account in elucidating the times of which they treated.

Now as regards Hawaiian traditions, we have, or may have—if proper and speedy means are taken before the present generation of quinquagenarians becomes extinct,—a number and various series of traditions, genealogies, songs, histories, tales, prayers, rites of worship, land divisions, social and economical rules, agricultural and maritime instructions, all of them in the original language, bearing intrinsic and unmistakable proofs not only of their genuineness and great age, but also of different epochs of composition; and all of them issuing from and attached not to one grand overshadowing dynasty of chiefs to whose vanity, ambition and pretensions they might have been made subservient,—but to three, four, sometimes five or more equally independent rival dynasties, scanning each other’s claims and pretensions with jealous care and asserting their own with the fullest freedom.

Of the almost incredible tenacity and faithfulness with which these traditions were preserved and handed down, abundant proofs exist in the uncorrupted exactness with which they are repeated even at this late day, when collected and written down as delivered by the old people in various parts of the islands. I have two independent sets of the prayer and chant of “Kapaahulani” (“He Elele kii na Maui”), recounting the genealogy and exploits of Kualii, a famous King of Oahu,—one collected on Hawaii, the other on Oahu—and yet—though it is perhaps the longest poem in the Hawaiian language, having six hundred and eighteen lines—the two versions do not differ to a word; so tenacious was the memory, so faithful the preservation of the original composition. I have also a double version of the remarkable chant or prophecy of Kaulumoku (“O Haui ka lani etc.”) regarding Kamehameha I, composed years before the conquest of the islands by the latter, and containing five hundred and twenty-seven lines; one version collected on Maui, the other on Hawaii, and the only difference between the two is the omission of one line in the Hawaii version. Though parts of the first poem are evidently of older date than the others, yet the poem as a whole can not well, from merely genealogical consideration, be less than two hundred years old. The latter poem was evidently composed before the year 1786, the approximate date of the author’s death, while Kamehameha I was still ruling over only one third of Hawaii and struggling with no marked success against the combined forces of Keawemauhili and Keoua. And thus with many other meles and chants of much older date, bearing record of contemporary events and of the past reminiscences of this people.

It is historically on record that a Spanish vessel under Capt. Gaetano, sailing from Acapulco to Manila, did about the year 1542 discover certain islands in the North Pacific, corresponding in latitude to the position of the Hawaiian Islands, though over ten degrees too far east in longitude; and that one of them, thought to be Hawaii, was called La Mesa by the Spaniards. But that record, and no subsequent or preceding record yet known in the Spanish archives, make any mention that these islands were ever visited by the Spanish navigators. [291] Here the native tradition comes to our aid; and that tradition is clear and positive and was well known before the arrival of Captain Cook, and is in substance this, that, in the time of Keliiokaloa, the son of Umi-a-Liloa, a vessel was cast away on the southwestern coast of Hawaii and three persons were saved from the wreck, viz: two men and one woman, who were kindly received and remained the balance of their lives in the country, marrying and having children with the aborigines. The first question which arises is, when did Keliiokaloa live? We know from numerous native genealogies, original on different islands, attached to different dynasties and families, crossing and confirming each other, that Keliiokaloa was the eighth generation previous to the birth of Kamehameha I. Now Kamehameha I died in May, 1819, and was at his death about eighty years old, making the time of birth approximate to the year 1740, perhaps one or two years earlier. Deducting the generation of which Keliiokaloa was one, seven generations are left between the time of the shipwreck (and landing of the foreigners), mentioned in the tradition, and the birth of Kamehameha I. [292]

Whether that arrival of foreigners of European extraction was the only one which occurred during the time that the Spaniards monopolized the navigation in the North Pacific, I have found nothing positive in the native traditions, to either affirm or deny; though I have inferential reasons to believe that others besides those alluded to above did touch at some of these islands. In the well-known pule or chant of Kapaahulani, the King of Oahu, Kualii,—who during some portion of his life at least was contemporary with Keawe, the great grandfather of Kamehameha—is made to say of himself that he knew Tahiti. I quote the verse as it has been handed down:

Ua ike hoi wau ia Tahiti,
He moku leo pahaohao wale Tahiti.
No Tahiti kanaka i pii a luna
A ka iwikuamoo o ka lani
A luna keehi iho,
Nana iho ia lalo.
Aole o Tahiti kanaka;
Hookahi o Tahiti kanaka, he haole.
Me ia la he Akua,
Me oe la he kanaka
He kanaka no. [293]

At the time when Kualii lived and ruled, (say 1675 as the central epoch of his exploits,) the visits and excursions of the Hawaiians in their own canoes to foreign lands had been discontinued for many generations, and, while the memories of former journeys were kept green in numerous families, yet since the days of ... no song nor saga records such journeys by the boldest and bravest of Hawaiian heroes, until this avowal of Kualii stands forth in its solitary grandeur, awakening discussion on the following points:—1. Which was the Tahiti that Kualii visited? 2. Did he visit it in his own vessel, canoe or peleleu, or was he, like Kaiana in after years, taken away by a foreign vessel and returned by the same?

1. To the Hawaiian people, in their own language, Tahiti means generally a foreign country,—a country outside of and beyond their own group. When reference is made in the Hawaiian songs and sagas to any of the Tahitis with which they had frequent and intimate intercourse up to a certain period, the particular Tahiti is generally specified with some special epithet affixed, as Tahiti-ku, Tahiti-moe, Holani-ku, Nuumealani, Holani-moe, Lulokapu, etc., but these and others, representing islands to the south and southwest of this group, are nowhere spoken of as with a leo pahaohao—an entirely different language—not different in dialect, but different in kind. When therefore Kualii about the middle or latter part of the seventeenth century speaks of the Tahiti which he visited as being a country with a leo pahaohao, he did not and could not mean any of the Central or South Polynesian Islands. Moreover, when he says that he there saw the “haole”—the white-skinned man—the inference is plain that it was not a Tahiti inhabited by kindreds of his own race; for the South Pacific Tahitis had not then been taken possession of, or settled upon by Europeans. The probability therefore is strong that the Tahiti he refers to was either the western coast of Mexico or Manila where the Spaniards were settled and held possession.

I have no doubt that the ancient Hawaiians had a knowledge of the mainland of America—at present Mexico or California—and that they designated it under the rather indefinite appellation of Kukulu o Tahiti—the farthest ends of foreign lands;—but that knowledge was acquired before that coast was occupied by the Spaniard, for the meles and legends which refer to it make no mention of the “haole” up to the time of Kualii.

2. How did Kualii get to Tahiti? The intercourse between this group and other groups of Polynesia or the American mainland of which the older meles speak so frequently, had ceased many generations before Kualii’s time, and Hawaiian navigation was then limited to the seas and islands comprising the group. Even the Kauai rovers, noted as the most daring and skilful throughout the group, had lost the knowledge or the means of going to Tahiti. I have shown that Kualii lived within the period when the Spanish-Manila trade from the Mexican coast was at its height. It is historically on record that the Spanish discovered this group about 1542; it is traditionally on record that Spaniards (for no other foreigners or “haoles” then navigated the North Pacific) were cast away on Hawaii within a range of twenty years, above or below that period; and there are reasons for believing that more than one galleon, during the time of the Spanish monopoly of the Manila trade, either visited the islands directly, or went so near to them as to be able to pick off any natives who might have been at sea in their canoes at the time of the passing of the galleon.

Though Hawaiian tradition is silent as to the manner in which Kualii visited Tahiti the land of the “haole,” it is positive as to the fact; and the only reasonable explanation I can offer is that a Spanish galleon in passing these islands picked up Kualii, at sea or ashore, voluntarily or as a hostage, and returned him on its next trip. And what was thus done in one instance, and of which tradition has been retained because the object of it was one of the highest chiefs in the country, whose renown in after times filled the land from one end to the other, may have occurred in other instances before or since with men of lesser note of whom tradition is silent or has been lost.

Probably the best informed Hawaiian archaeologist of the present day is S. M. Kamakau, but even he is often very credulous, inconsistent and uncritical. He has published, through the various newspapers, several genealogies of the ancient chiefs, but beyond the time of Umi-a-Liloa of Hawaii, Piilani of Maui and Kaihikapu-a-Manuia and Kakuhihewa of Oahu, his love of antiquity often lead him into irreconcilable difficulties. For instance, when Lauli-a-laa, the son of Laamaikahiki, who is forty-sixth from Haloa on the Ulu and Puna-imua line of descent, is represented as having married Maelo (w), daughter of Kuolono, and who is thirty-fourth on the Nanaulu straight line from Haloa, there is evidently either a large gap in the Nanaulu line or a corresponding increase by the insertion of collateral branches in the Puna-imua line. When Kelea, the wife of Kalamakua, the thirty-ninth on the Nanaulu straight line, is represented as the sister of Kawaokaohele, the fifty-sixth on the Hema and Hanalaaiki line, the same discrepancy appears. The Kauai genealogies, which I have received from Hon. D. Kalakaua, make only forty-five generations from Wakea, through the Nanaulu-Muliele-alii-Kumuhonua-Elepuukahonua line, to Kamakahelei and to Kumahana who were contemporaries of Kamehameha I, the sixty-fourth, if not the sixty-fifth from Wakea through the Ulu-Hema-Hanalaanui line. The Kauai genealogy makes Kualii the forty-third from Haloa, whereas the Oahu genealogy, through Moikeha, the brother of Kumuhonua, makes Kualii the forty-ninth from Haloa; the discrepancy lying between the thirty-first and thirty-eighth of the Kauai-Elepuukahonua line. [294]

From comparing the various genealogies, sagas and meles it becomes evident that the time of Maweke’s sons and grandsons, on the Nanaulu straight line, was a time of great and general convulsion. It was the Homeric period of Hawaiian history. This was the period of grand enterprises; of voyages to and from Tahiti. This period is the principal starting point of most of the Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, and some of the Maui and Hawaii genealogies; and Maweke is the only line which keeps the correlation of its branches in any way consistent and conformable, not only to their natural relation, but also to traditional evidence and to historical requirements. [295]

It is well known to tradition and recorded in songs and sagas that before the time of Pili-Kaaiea there was a vacuum in the Hawaii-Hanalaanui-Hema line of aliis, and from the antiquarian lore of S. M. Kamakau, throwing light on the ante-“Pili” period, I am forced to conclude that at least seventeen generations, as quoted in the Hema genealogy of the Hawaii chiefs, must be thrown out in order to make subsequent well-known generations fall into their places as indicated by the Oahu, Kauai or Molokai lines of descent from Maweke and his sons. Thus when all the traditions and meles make Kaaipahu the forty-ninth on the recognized Hawaii-Hanalaanui-Hema line, the husband of Hualani, the great-great-granddaughter of Keaunui-a-Maweke and thirty-third on the Nanaulu line, then inferentially but effectively confirm the statement of Kamakau of the displacement of the seventeen generations interpolated on the Hawaii line, either immediately preceding Pili, or between Ulu and Aikanaka. At any rate it makes Pili,—who, it is well known, arrived from Tahiti with Paa and became the founder of the new and later line of Hawaii aliis—contemporary with the grand period of migrations recorded in the meles and sagas of the sons and successors of Maweke.

The Maui-Hanalaa-iki line must suffer a similar curtailment in order to bring its prominent historical figures in consonance with Oahu and Kauai genealogies. Thus when all accounts agree in making Kelea, the sister of Kawaokaohele of Maui and aunt of Piilani, the wife of Lo Lale—brother of Piliwale of Oahu—there can be no doubt of their contemporaneity. But the Oahu-Nanaulu line makes Lo Lale the thirty-ninth or forty-first from Wakea, and the Maui-Hanalaa-iki line makes Kelea the fifty-sixth from Wakea, thus showing the same irreconcilable difference of from fifteen to seventeen generations as we encountered in the Hawaii-Hanalaa-nui line.

I am further more inclined to consider the Oahu-Nanaulu straight line of descent as the most correct and reliable, inasmuch as I find it corroborated by an examination of nearly all the correlative branches originating from the children and grandchildren of Maweke, the twenty-eighth on the Nanaulu line from Wakea. Thus the line of Kalehenui-a-Maweke, culminating in Kaakaualani, the wife of Kakuhihewa, corresponds exactly with the line of Mulielialii-a-Maweke ending in Kakuhihewa. Thus the line of Keaunui-a-Maweke, through Nuakea, Kalahumoku, Moku-a-Hualeiakea, to the children and grandchildren of Umi-a-Liloa in Hawaii, the uncontested contemporaries of Kakuhihewa, is equally full and correct. I am therefore inclined to consider the Nanaulu line, including its branches, not only as the most correct, but as the main trunk of Hawaiian genealogy. And that it was so considered by the ancient Hawaiians themselves, I infer from the evident and repeated desires of the Hawaii and Maui chiefs to connect themselves with the Kauai and Oahu branches of this line, and by the fact that Kauai was looked upon by them as the cradle of knowledge, skill, laws and religion.

Between the different genealogies, as I have received them, the following discrepancies appear, which in my opinion, indicate either gaps in one line, or additions in another. There are certain luminous points of coincidence or contemporaneity, well established by the uniform tradition accompanying all the lines of descent, which in a measure will help to correct some of the lines of descent. The discrepancies are these:

1. From Wakea to Kakuhihewa, on the straight Nanaulu line, through Mulielealii and Maelo (w), there are forty-five generations, Kakuhihewa included.

2. From Wakea to Kakuhihewa, on the Ulu-Puna-imua line, through Laulialaa—Maelo’s husband—there are fifty generations, the difference lying between Ulu and Laulialaa.

3. From Wakea to Kahoukapu, on the Ulu-Hema-Hanalaanui line, there are fifty-one generations; but from Wakea to Laakapu (w) (the wife of Kahoukapu and sister of Laulialaa) there are only forty generations on the Ulu-Puna-imua line. The difference lying probably between Hema and Pili-Kaaiea, whom all the traditions correspond in asserting as having come from Tahiti with Paao the Kahuna about the time of the great migration which characterized the age of Moikeha, Olopana, etc., children of Mulielealii and their contemporaries.

4. The traditions all agree that Kanipahu of Hawaii married Hualani (w) of Molokai. But Kanipahu stands forty-sixth on the Ulu-Hema and Hanalaanui line, whereas Hualani stands thirty-fourth on the Nanaulu straight line through Keaunui-a-Maweke and his daughter Nuakea. Kaakaualani (w) the wife of Kakuhihewa, stands forty-sixth on the Nanaulu straight line, through Kalehenui-a-Maweke; but her mother, Kauhiiliula-a-Piilani, stands fifty-eighth on the Ulu-Hema and Hanalaa-iki line; thus showing that notwithstanding the era of commotion, displacement and migration, above referred to, the Nanaulu straight line, through Maweke, his children and grandchildren, not only maintain a wonderful correspondence and regularity between themselves, but each and all of them unite in pointing out the discrepancies and probable interpolation on the Hema-Hanalaa lines of descent. The first mentioned contemporaneity is those of Auanini on the Ulu-Puna-imua line, and of Mua and her husband Kaomealani on the Maweke-Kalehenui line from Nanaulu. Auanini stands thirty-first on his line from Wakea, and Mua stands thirty-second on the other line. Tradition is circumstantial that in their time the first foreigners (haole) came to this group—to Oahu, off Mokapu.

5. The second recognized contemporaneity, that I have been able to find in the meles and kaaos in my possession—saving and excepting always what may hereafter come to light—is that of Kanipahu and his wife Hualani. According to the genealogy published by D. Malo, Kanipahu was the forty-ninth from Wakea, and according to the Nanaulu-Keaunui-a-Maweke line Hualani was the thirty-fourth from Wakea.

6. The next recognized contemporaneity is that of Kalaunuiohua, according to D. Malo the fifty-second from Wakea on the Hema-Hanalaanui line, and Kukona of Kauai with whom he made war, and who is the forty-third on the Ulu-Puna-imua line.

7. The next is that of Luakoa of Maui, forty-eighth or forty-ninth on the Hema-Hanalaa-iki line, who made war on Mailikukahi who stands thirty-ninth on the Nanaulu straight line through Mulielealii and Moikeha.

8. The next is that of Kahoukapu of Hawaii, standing fifty-fourth on the Hema-Hanalaa-nui line, who married Laakapu, daughter of Laamaikahiki, and who consequently stands fortieth on the Ulu-Puna-imua line.

9. The next is what may be considered as the historical, though medieval, period of Hawaiian national life, viz: that of Piilani of Maui, Umi of Hawaii, and Kalaimanuia of Oahu. The second stands fifty-eighth from Wakea, according to D. Malo; the first is fifty-seventh on the Hema-Hanalaa-iki line, and the third is forty-third on the Nanaulu straight line.

From this time the different lines run with great regularity and correspondence, and were proper authorities available, I think every apparent discrepancy could be satisfactorily explained.

I regret that I have only two genealogies of the Kauai chiefs: one furnished me by the Hon. D. Kalakaua, the other published by S. M. Kamakau. The first gives only forty-four generations from Wakea to Kualii of Oahu and Kauai; the second gives sixty generations during the same period. The first counts through Mulielealii, Kumuhonua and Elepuukahonua; the latter through Ulu and Puna-imua, and Ahukini-a-laa. The first falls five generations short of the Nanaulu line through Moikeha to Kualii. The latter over-runs six generations, counting from Laulialaa and Ahukini-a-laa who were brothers, besides the discrepancy of five generations already noticed between the Nanaulu and Puna-imua lines, previous to Laulialaa.

But, if we cannot reconcile the line of Hema-Hanalaa-nui with that of Nanaulu in descending the two streams from Wakea, let us ascend the streams of two such well-known contemporaries as Kualii of Oahu (Nanaulu) and Keawe of Hawaii (Hema-Hanalaa-nui). If we thus ascend sixteen generations on each line, we shall meet again with Hualani (w) on the Nanaulu-Keaunui-a-Maweke line, and with her husband Kanipahu on the so-called Hema-Hanalaa-nui. Thus showing that from Kanipahu, perhaps even from Kaniuhi, there has been no break or discrepancy in the latter line. Sixteen or seventeen generations upward from Kualii, however, bring us to the grandchildren of that boisterous period in Hawaiian history when Moikeha, Kumuhonua and Olopana, the children of Mulielealii-a-Maweke, filled Hawaiian tradition with their exploits and adventures abroad and at home; when voyages to and from Tahiti were of common occurrence; and when many changes and additions to the customs and worship of the people were introduced.

That Pili-Kaaiea was not the son of Laau-a-Lanakawai, that he was not even a Hawaiian at all, but a Tahitian chief of high birth and great wealth, all the traditions and the meles referring to the subject unmistakeably prove. That he established himself on Hawaii, obtained a quasi supremacy there, founded a dynasty and a family by intermarriage with Hawaiian chief-families, descendants of Nanaulu or of Ulu, is equally clear. [296]

Are we then to conclude that the so-called Hanalaanui line of Hawaiian chiefs does not go any further back on Hawaii than the time of Pili? I think not. The traditions tell us fully and circumstantially that both Olopana and Kumuhonua, the sons of Mulielealii were established and living on Hawaii, that Moikeha’s son Kila, their nephew, settled there. They tell us that Hikapoloa (k) and his wife Mailelaulii were noted chiefs in Kohala before this time; that their granddaughter Luukia was the wife of Olopana, and that their grandson Kaumailiula married Olopana’s daughter, Kaupea. Although, therefore, it is impossible at this time to say with which of the Ulu or Nanaulu branches Kanipahu or Kaniuhi were related; yet that they were so related and that directly, is a certainty beyond doubt, to those who are acquainted with the tabu systems and the social institutions and customs which, however modified at different times, never abated an iota of their rigour as affecting the laws of descent.

From the fact that Ouanini, the grandson of Puna-imua, was contemporary with Mua, on the Nanaulu-Kalehenui line,—their standing respectively thirty-first and thirty-second from Wakea on their different lines—inclines me strongly to look for the difference or discrepancy between these two lines among the names that follow Paumakua until Ahukai, the father of Laamaikahiki.

Although there certainly are not a few persons on these, the principal, lines of descent from Wakea, to whom tradition has affixed a local habitation and a name; yet I think it in vain to look for genealogical precision or historical data before the period of Maweke and his affiliations on the Nanaulu line, or his probable contemporary Paumakua and his near predecessors on the Ulu line.

That the social and religious condition of the Hawaiian people underwent at about that time several great and important changes,—caused no doubt by the influx of foreign material and the intercourse with foreign lands [297]—may safely be concluded from express statements and more or less plain allusions in the traditions now extant. Thus the custom of circumcising is plainly traceable up to the time of Paumakua, while it is nowhere spoken of or alluded to as forming a religious necessity or a social custom among chiefs or common people before that time, unless in the Moolelo of Kumuhonua.

I have seen no mention of human sacrifices, before this period, either of captives in war or on other solemn occasions. To this period is to be referred the powerful priestly family of Paao, who came with Pili from Tahiti; and Kaekae, Maliu and Malela, who were brought by Paumakua from abroad and are said to have been white people and kahunas. The “Aha Kapu o na ’lii” is not of older date than the time of Paumakua—the “Kapu moe o na ’lii” is of much later origin.

Taking then thirty years as the measure of a generation, and the Nanaulu straight line, as the least inflated and most reliable, we have twenty-six generations from the time of Maweke to the present time, which places Maweke at the commencement of the twelfth century, say A.D. 1100. And during that century those great migrations to and fro with their resultant influx of new men and new ideas occurred. It was an era of intense restlessness and great activity and daring. Up to this time Hawaiian history is merely a register of names with only here and there a passing allusion to some event, barely sufficient to give a locus standi to some prominent name, such as the building and inauguration of Kukaniloko as a royal birth-place by Nanakaoko and his wife Kahihiokalani. This however must have happened close upon the twelfth century, for their son and grandson—Kapawa and Heleipawa—were no doubt contemporaries with Maweke or with Pili-Kaaiea. After the time of Maweke of the Nanaulu line, and after Paumakua of the Ulu line, however, Hawaiian history commences to flow with a fuller tide, and most of the principal names on either line have some account or mele connected with them; the traditions and songs become more numerous and circumstantial in their details, and, by crossing or confirming each other, enable the critical student to arrive at a considerable degree of precision in eliminating facts from myths and placing names and events in a proper succession and in an approximately correct time.

What the gradually growing or abruptly determining causes of this national restlessness of these series of migrations may have been, either here or in central and western Polynesia—perhaps also to and from the North American coasts—Hawaiian traditions and meles throw no light upon, so far as I have been able to ascertain; and with the history and traditions of those other countries I am not sufficiently acquainted to offer an adequate or precise answer. The only corresponding movement in Central and Southern Polynesia that I can now refer to is—I believe, but have not the authority by me—the settlement of New Zealand by its present Polynesian race. Their traditions and genealogies bring that event the fifteenth century of our era, and they came from Savaii, one of the Navigator’s Islands. Our own traditions refer the advent here of Paao and Pili from Wawau and Upolo, to an earlier period. Both were probably cases of expulsion caused by civil wars.

It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance that the first appearance of white men in this Archipelago refers to this same period of migrations. The traditions state that in the time of Auanini, the grandson of Puuaimua, and a chief living at Kapalawai in Kailua, Oahu, and while Mua-o-Kalani and her husband Kaomealani were chiefs at Kaopulolia in Kaneohe, Oahu, a vessel arrived off Mokapu; that the name of the vessel was “Ulupana;” the name of the captain was Molo-Lana, and of his wife, Malaea; that the names of the people on board were Olomana, Aniani and Holokaniakani; that these however were not their proper names, but names given them by those chiefs on whose territories they landed; the tradition however does not say whether these people went away again or whether they remained and settled in the country.

The next account of white people arriving here is found in the tradition and mele of Paumakua, grandson of Auanini aforesaid, and an Oahu chief, who is said to have visited numerous foreign lands (“Kaapuni ia Kahiki”), and who brought back with him two white men, Auakahinu and Auakaaiea, who afterwards were called Kaekae and Maliu and were said to have been kahunas (priests). Paumakua also brought back with him another stranger called Malela who was a kaula (prophet), but as to whether this latter was also a white man the tradition is not so explicit. The two former however are described in the tradition as “Ka haole nui, maka alohilohi, ke aholehole maka aa, ka puaa keokeo nui maka ulaula.” These, it would appear, remained and settled in the country, as in later times we find several priestly families claiming and proving their descent from the two former.

I have taken the above notices of the first arrivals of white foreigners in this country from S. M. Kamakau’s summary of the traditions and meles referring to that subject. To what branches of the Caucasian race, if to that race at all, these “white people—with bright eyes and white cheeks,” belonged, who in the twelfth century were found on the borders or among the islands of the Pacific, may be a rare question for archaeologists and ethnologists to settle. That they were looked upon by the natives here as people of another and a lighter colored race than their own is evident. Whether they were Japanese or some other Mongol variety, extended along the western shores of the Pacific, or Toltecs, from the eastern rim of the Pacific and the Mexican coast, conquered and expelled by the Aztecs towards the close of the twelfth century,—the fact however stands forth in archaic simplicity, and becomes of historical importance, that, during this period—genealogically computed to have fallen within the twelfth century—the Hawaiians received large infusions not only of Polynesian blood, from the island to the south and southwest, but also of alien races, from one or both continents bordering on the Pacific, and leaving their traces in the physique as well as in the customs and worship of the people. [298]

This period of great migrations, of national activity and restlessness and of grand enterprises, having passed, comparative quiet seems to have succeeded for several generations; and the meles and legends become silent upon the subject of foreign voyages or foreign arrivals until the time of Kakaalaneo, King of Maui and brother to the great-grandfather of Piilani—about fourteen generations from the present—at the close of the fifteenth or the commencement of the sixteenth century. The traditions as written down by S. M. Kamakau runs thus: “In the time of Kakaalaneo several foreigners (haole) arrived at Waihee in Maui, two of whom only were or became remarkable, viz.: Kukanaloa and Pele, who was Peleie, and the name of the vessel was Konaliloha. They landed at Kiwe in the night and when discovered in the morning by the natives, they were taken to the village and fed and brought to the king and the chiefs who treated them kindly and made friends of them (hoopunahele) and admitted them to all the privileges of the kapu. They settled in the country, married some of the chief-women and became progenitors of both chiefs and commoners, and some of their descendants survive to this day.” “They were called Kanikawi and Kanikawa after the beautiful flowers of Haumea.”—“Their speech sounded like a bird’s, like the lale of the mountain, a chattering, vociferous bird.”—“They said they came from Kahiki, from the very interior.” “Their land was a fertile land with plenty of fruits and large animals.”—“Their parents dwelt far inland (uka) on the side of the mountain, away up in the forest (ukaliloloa, i ka waonahele).”—“They were acquainted with the banana, the breadfruit, the ohia-apples, and the kukui nuts.”

The tradition which refers to the wrecking and landing of the foreigners (haole)—two men and one woman, at Keei, South Kona, Hawaii, in the time of Keliiokaloa, the son of Umi-a-Liloa, before the middle of the sixteenth century,—is well known and has long been recorded. There is some obscurity however thrown over both this and the foregoing tradition, inasmuch as the names of the vessel (“Konaliloha”) and of the principal personage (Kukanaloa) are the same in both traditions, and also some of the attending circumstances. But whether it was only one and the same event, adopted—mutalis mutandis—on both islands, or two separate occurrences, the fact of the arrival, and the retention of that fact in the Hawaiian memory, are none the less established.

How these voyages were accomplished will not now excite any surprise when we know, not only from the traditions, but from the ocular testimony of the grandparents of the present generation, that the canoes of those times were of an enormous size compared with the canoes of the present day. Double canoes carrying eighty men were not uncommon; and it is reported by eye-witnesses that, as late as the year 1740, the favorite war canoe, or admiral’s ship, “Kaneaaiai,” of Peleioholani of Oahu carried on board from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty men, besides their provisions, water, etc. And it is further reported that this canoe, and possibly others of similar dimensions, was made of pieces of wood or planks fastened together, somewhat after the manner of Malay proas or Western Polynesian canoes at the present day. Though the Hawaiians had not the compass or any substitute for it, yet they were fully and correctly acquainted with the bearing and rising and setting of a large number of stars, by which they steered during the night. It is reported as of no uncommon occurrence, for instance, that the Kauai sea-rovers would make their descent on the Hawaii or Maui shores, plunder or slay or capture whatever or whomsoever they could lay their hands on and then, in order to elude pursuit, stand off, straight out of sight of land on the open ocean, for two or three days, and return to their own homes by some circuitous route, either to the windward or the leeward of the islands. There is now, or was not long ago, the wreck of a large canoe lying on the shore near the southern point of Hawaii, which measured one hundred and eight feet in length, and was said to have been one of a double-canoe belonging to Kamehameha I.

The Hawaiians being thus possessed of vessels capable of performing long voyages in open sea, possessed of sufficient astronomical and practical knowledge to navigate them, and of daring and enterprise to match with the boldest, it is but natural that their traditions, sagas and songs, should be replete with their adventures and exploits in foreign lands. In that they are overloaded with marvels, fables and exaggerations, they only resemble the early and medieval periods of other countries. But when all these are stripped, there still remains an undisputable residium of facts to show that from the eleventh and during the twelfth century, and subsequently, not only were these islands visited by people of kindred and alien races whether arriving here by accident or design, but also that the Hawaiians, themselves, performed frequent though desultory voyages to the countries and islands lying south and west from their own group; that from this period dates the establishment, or at least the prominence of the principal dynasties and chief-families in the islands; and that from this time the genealogical succession on Hawaiian soil may be pretty accurately ascertained.

I know that Papa and Wakea, the reputed progenitors of the Hawaiian race of chiefs, were also considered as gods, demi-gods, heroes and progenitors in nearly every other Polynesian group of islands. I have seen it assumed that the twelfth or thirteenth first names of the Haloa line were common to the Marquesan pedigrees and considered as their ancestors. I know that Maui-a-kalana, who is said to have collected the sun’s rays, to have discovered the fire, and to have nearly succeeded in joining these islands together into one large continent, and whose name stands twenty-second on the Ulu line,—I know that he is the hero of the same legends in the Samoan, Society, Marquesan and New Zealand islands. While therefore I have no means of disputing the correctness of the succession of names borne on Hawaiian pedigrees from Wakea to nearly the period of Maweke, I am yet strongly of the opinion that those names, their legends and meles, were introduced into this group about the time of Maweke and his contemporaries and compeers, and during some of the next following generations. I am inclined to that opinion from the fact that, while almost every Hawaiian chief-family that at some time or other obtained prominence or influence in the country traced their pedigree up to Maweke, his contemporaries or successors, and claim their descent from Wakea through some one or other of the numerous branches springing from Maweke, Kapawa, Paumakua or later offshoots from these, not one family, that I am aware of, pretends to connect with either the Nanaulu or the Ulu lines beyond this period; thus proving to me that these heroes were the first and actual progenitors of the Hawaiian families of chiefs on Hawaiian soil, and that they brought with them from Kahiki their own pedigrees up to their own time.

Whoever knew this people some forty or fifty years ago, and more so if further back, could not fail to observe the remarkable difference of appearance between the chiefs and the makaainana (commoners) and the Kauwa-makauuli (slaves) indicating the former as, if not of a different race, at least of a different and superior class to the common multitude. And the feeling, solicitude and pride, with which that difference was kept up, show that they looked upon themselves not only as a different class politically, but also as of different birth socially. It was an heirloom from their ancestors and came with them from Tahiti. No poverty, misery or misconduct could efface it. Though there are many instances where chiefs were slain by their subjects in revolt, or were deposed from supremacy by their peers or subordinate chiefs, yet there never was a Bill of Attainder in those days, nor is there an instance of a chief who ever forfeited his own rank as a chief (of the “Papa Alii”) or that of his children. Those chiefs, those ancestors of the Hawaiian aristocracy, did not however, as I have endeavored to show, appear on Hawaiian soil much earlier than the period of those great migrations, that national or intertribal displacement of the Polynesian race which occurred during the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era. It may have commenced a generation or two before Maweke,—it certainly continued several generations after him—but I use his name as a kind of central figure, seeing that the line upon which he stands (the Nanaulu straight line) is probably the most correct of existing genealogies.

What preceded this time will ever be a blank in Hawaiian history. There are traditions, no doubt, which refer to a period previous to this, but they all seem to bear the impress of Tahitian origin: There are no legends more common or more generally known throughout these islands than those of Kamapuaa and of Pele; and Koolauloa on Oahu, and Hilo, Puna, and Kau on Hawaii, abound in places and names connected with these stories. Yet Kamapuaa’s grandparents came from Kuaihelani (wherever that island may have been), and he himself visited Kahiki and married there; and Pele also came from Kahiki and, after traversing this group, finally settled on Hawaii. A better acquaintance than I possess, with Samoan, Tahitian, Marquesan or New Zealand legends, would enable the critical student to decide whether these and other legends of the pre-historic times were original and exclusive to the Hawaiian group, or whether they had their root, prototype or correspondent in those other groups and were only adapted to Hawaiian locality in the course of time and the process of naturalization, thus illustrating the Latin poet’s remark that “qui trans mare currunt, coelum non animam mutant.” It is noticeable, moreover, that all the heroes and heroines of these pre-historic legends stand out in bold relief from the genealogical tree of Haloa, singly and disconnected, and that none of the numerous chief-families of after-ages ever claimed their descent from Wakea through these personages. Not having had the opportunity of more fully comparing these legends with those of other Polynesian groups, I have compared them with each other and with legends of a later date, which no doubt belong to the oft-referred-to period of migrations, however much enveloped in myths and fable, and I have found, as I think, internal evidence that if these prehistoric legends were of Hawaiian origin at all, and not merely Tahitian legends adapted to Hawaiian localities,—then their origin can not be older than this period of influx of the Tahitian element. Thus, for instance, a number of chief-families, on the different islands of this group, trace their pedigrees with great accuracy and evenness up to Maweke through his grand-daughter Nuakea, daughter of Keaunui-a-Maweke and sister of Laakona of Ewa. These genealogies concur in representing Keoloewa-a-Kamauaua of Molokai as the husband of Nuakea. They also indicate Kaupeepee-nui-kauila as brother of Keoloewa and of the man who abducted Hina, the wife of Hakalanileo. Hina’s sons, Kana and Niheu-kalohe, afterwards rescued their mother and slew Kaupeepee, demolishing his fortress at Haupu on Molokai. Thus Niheu-kalohe becomes contemporary with the grand-children of Maweke, and, moreover, his grandmother Uli was a Tahitian woman. There are probably few legends of older or of fuller details than this of Kana and Niheu-kalohe, yet it is ostensibly and really, both as regards the persons and the time, of post-Maweke origin. If we now turn to the equally well-known and equally circumstantial legend of Pele’s sister, Hiiakaikapoliopele, we find that, when she was resting at the house of Malaehaakoa in Haena, Kauai, previous to ascending the Pali of Kalalau in search of Lohiau, Malaehaakoa offered up a prayer or chant, [299] than which few Hawaiian meles bear stronger evidences of a comparatively genuine antiquity: and yet this mele, prayer or chant, makes special reference to Niheu-kalohe and to Nuakea—an anachronism showing fairly that the mele as well as the legend originated after the time of Maweke’s grandchildren.

I would not be understood as asserting that there were neither chiefs nor people on the island of this group before this period of migrations. The meles and legends are full to the contrary. This very family of Kamauaua and its kindred on Molokai; those of Pueonui and Kealiiloa on Kauai; those of Hikapoloa on Hawaii and Kaikipaananea and Puna on Kauai, and others, whose names and whose pedigrees have never been transferred or connected with the lives of Haloa, attest the presence, and previous occupation of the islands by both chiefs and people. But these chiefs were gradually displaced, and disappeared before the new element, the Tahitian influx, with its new gods, its new tabus, and its greater vigour and moral and intellectual power. Whatever the causes that brought these latter ones here, yet, to judge from the case of Pili and Paao, they were not low-born adventurers, but men of mark in their own country, alii kapu, with whom alliances were sought, to whom the vacant chief-seats and the ahuula naturally fell in the lapse of time, and who kept bards to sing their own names and those of their ancestors, and heralds to proclaim their unbroken descent from Wakea and from Haloa.

The strongest proof, however, as I think, of the absence of Hawaiian genealogies and of the utter darkness which enveloped Hawaiian history proper before that period, is to be found—as I have already stated—in the fact that all the prominent Hawaiian chief-families connect with the line of Wakea through Ulu or Nanaulu about this time, and that, in order to establish that connection, they counted through females as well as through males, and dropped the latter whenever they did not lead up to the main trunk of Wakea or someone of that Tahitian element which made its appearance about the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth centuries of our era, and who are invariably called “na kupuna alii”—founders of dynasties,—on this or that island.

That the people of this group, whether chiefs or commoners, previous to this period, were of Polynesian—or as they themselves call it—Tahitian origin, there is no good ground for doubting, and every reason to believe. But the time of their arrival and settlement, the mode of their arrival, their point of departure, and their political, religious and social condition, will probably always remain insoluble problems. That they arrived here long ages before these later Tahitians,—before their kapu-system, heiau-building, religious ceremonial, etc., had developed into that complex, fanciful and stern rule of life, which it had already become when we first are made acquainted with them,—I think may generally be conceded. From the traditions and meles of these Tahiti-Hawaiians I gather that they found the previous inhabitants of this group living in a primitive manner, without any political organization beyond the patriarchal, and without kapus—at least of any stringent nature—and without heiaus; [300] and, with a feeling of pride in their superior powers and attainments, although they acknowledged Hawaii as a “Kama na Tahiti” (a child of Kahiki), yet they looked upon it as a natural appanage of themselves, to be taken possession of and reconstructed by them and their posterity. They established political supremacy and the kapus, they built heiaus, introduced circumcision, the pahu, the ohe and the hula. Tattooing commenced with them. The division of the people into aliis, kahunas, makaainanas and Kauwa-makawela, if not original with them, received a distinctness and permanency from them that hardened almost into castes. In short, whatever the condition in which they found the country, they moulded, reorganized and arranged everything on their own pattern and, while they with most elaborate care have left us numerous mementoes of their own time and work, they have left us nearly none of the predecessors.