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 [[252]]Lohiau, Malaehaakoa offered up a prayer or chant,[9] 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;[10] and, with a [[253]]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.

While the Hawaiian cosmogonies abundantly betray their Tahitian origin, they also develop some interesting facts which will throw some light on the subject of the Tahitians’ (I mean in the Hawaiian sense of the word) settling here at the period to which I have referred. Thus, though the traditions and meles differ as to the actual origin of these islands, some stating them to have been born of Papa and Wakea—a kind of mythical setting back their creation to the oldest known period of time, and others assuming them to be fished up from the sea by Kapuhauanui, a fisherman from Kapaahu in Tahiti, and others again that they sprung forth from the night, yet several concur in representing them as forming only a group in a chain of groups of islands extending from Nuumealani on one side to Holani, Nuuhiwa and Polapola on the other; and the Mele of Kamahualele, the kahuna of Moikeha, who accompanied him from Kahiki, distinctly states that long before his time Nuuhiwa and Polapola were severed from this chain. Thus the existence and bearings of these islands were known to the Tahitians before their last settlement here; and they knew of the existence of other islands contiguous to this group, or intermediate between this and the eastern and central Polynesian groups, of which neither the names nor the location can now be traced. Another circumstance connected with these lost islands is, that while the meles and traditions referring to times and persons anterior to the last Tahitian settlement here are full of notices of Nuumea-lani and Holani and Kuaihelani, as within easy reach of, and having had frequent intercourse with this group, yet none of the meles and traditions that I possess makes any mention of them as existing at the time of, or subsequent to, that last Tahitian emigration. Thus the Mele of Kamahualele and the traditions of Moikeha, Olopana, Kila, and Laamaikahiki, make no mention of them as having been visited by these worthies or seen by them in their voyages to and from Tahiti. The traditions of Hema, Paumakua and Kahai also ignore them as existing at that time. The tradition of Paao does not refer to them in his voyage with Pili from Tahiti (Moaulanuiakea) to Hawaii.

In comparing the New Zealand legends as published by Sir George Grey, I find that the New Zealanders count fifteen generations from the time of their ancestors leaving the land of Hawaiki, in the Samoan or Navigator’s group and settling in New Zealand, which was called by them “Aotearoa.” Fifteen generations or four hundred and fifty years bring the approximate period of that settlement to about 1400 our era, or from two hundred and fifty to three hundred years later than the last Tahitian settlement in this group, the Hawaiian. In the legends, however, which they carried with [[254]]them to New Zealand, occurs not only the well-known story of Maui-a-Kalana (Maui-o-Taranga) and his exploits by sea and land, and of his grandmother, who pulled out her nails to furnish him with fire and who is called Mahu-ika—in the Hawaiian genealogy she is called Hina-Mahu-ia; but there also occurs four prominent and comparatively late names in the Hawaiian Ulu and Hema line of descent, viz: Hema, Tawhaki (Kahai), Wahieroa (Wahieloa) and Raka (Laka). In the New Zealand legends they figure as chiefs and arikis of Hawaiki, following one another in the same succession as in the Hawaiian genealogy.

Thus, on New Zealand testimony, Hema, Kahai, Wahieloa and Laka were chiefs of Hawaiki or Sawaii in the Samoan group, and not of Hawaii in this group. These names and their pedigrees must then have been carried from Hawaiki to Tahiti and from Tahiti to this group, unless we assume a direct settlement from Hawaiki to Hawaii.

It is true, certainly, that the Hawaiian legends ascribe a local habitation as well as a name to each of these four chiefs, either on Maui, Oahu or Kauai, and places and monuments connected with their names are existing to this day; yet, as there is no reasonable probability that the New Zealanders took their departure from this group instead of the Samoan, and as their evidence is positive as to the residence of these chiefs in the Hawaiki which they knew and from which they departed for New Zealand,—I am forced to conclude that the connecting of their names with places in this group was merely adaptation in after ages, an appropriation to Hawaiian soil, when the memory of the mother-country had become indistinct and when little if anything was known of them except the one main fact that they stood on the genealogical list of the Hawaiian chiefs, a fact, which was never allowed to be forgotten under the old system, however much local associations may be forgotten or altered.

It is hardly historically possible that there could have been two series of chiefs in Hawaiki (Samoa) and Hawaii with identical names and in the same succession; and, with one transposition only, the identity holds good also in the names of their wives—e.g.:

New Zealand Hawaii
Hema. Uru-tonga. Hema. Ulu-mahehoa.
Tawhaki. Hine-piripiri. Kahai. Hina-uluohia.
Wahieroa. Kura. Wahieloa. Koolaukahili.
Raka. Tonga Sautaw-hiri. Laka. Hikawaelena.