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. [[248]]
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.[8]
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 [[249]]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 [[250]]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, [[251]]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.