| Hoakanui, |  | the three brides of Laa. |
| Waolena, | ||
| Mano, |
| Ahukini-a-Laa, | | the three children of Laa. |
| Kukona-a-Laa, and | ||
| Lauli-a-Laa, |
THE TRIPLE MARRIAGE OF LAA-MAI-KAHIKI.
THE LEGENDS OF MOIKEHA AND THE ARGONAUTS OF THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES.
I.
Tradition abounds in bold outlines, here and there interspersed with curious details, of the many prominent expeditions to the Hawaiian Islands, from the beginning of the eleventh to the latter part of the twelfth centuries, of adventurous Tahitian, Samoan and Georgian chiefs. Learning of the existence and approximate location of the group, and perhaps guided to an extent by intervening islands and atolls that have since disappeared, they came with large fleets of barges and double canoes, bearing their families and attendants, their priests, astrologers and musicians, and by degrees possessed themselves or their immediate descendants with the fairest portions of the little archipelago. For a century or more bitter feuds and frequent wars followed; but in the end the invaders and the invaded, both of the same Polynesian race, became assimilated through concession, intermarriage and fundamental identity of religious cult, and thenceforth in a united and homogeneous stream flowed down the years. The genealogies of the prominent chiefs and priests were alone preserved; and while, in after-generations, some of them traced their lines of rank to the native stock of Nanaula, and others to the chiefs of the second migratory influx from the south, the ruling families of the entire group had become so united in blood by intermarriage that it was difficult to find a chief of distinction who could not trace his lineage back to both.
But during the migratory period referred to, especially marked by the coming of Nanamaoa, Pili, Paao and the Oahu and Maui Paumakuas, the Hawaiian group was not the only scene of foreign adventure among the central islands of the Pacific. The native chiefs of Hawaii, whose ancestors had reached the group more than five hundred years before, were quite as adventurous and skilled in navigation as their southern invaders; and thus while the latter, continually augmented in numbers by fresh arrivals, were steadily possessing themselves of the lands and governing forces of the Hawaiian Islands, a few resolute chiefs of the old line, either in a spirit of retaliation or because the way had been pointed out, boldly spread their sails for the abandoned homes of their aggressors, and by conquest or other means acquired lands and influence in the distant islands of the south.
