I am justified therefore in concluding that the Ulu-Hema line of chiefs was not indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands until after the time of Laka. But Laka was the third from Hema who, by all the Hawaiian traditions, was the brother of Puna-imua, and consequently the contemporary of Paumakua on the Ulu-Puna line, and probably of Maweke or his father on the Nanaulu straight line.
Whether the scions of these three lines, descending from Wakea and Papa, arrived here about the same time, or whether the Puna and Maweke lines arrived at a long interval from each other, or who had the precedence in the country, it is now impossible to determine.[11] That they came from the Samoan group, through the Tahitian [[255]]and Marquesas groups, after a longer or shorter stoppage in each or both, I think can be shown from philological grounds and the gradual transformation of the Hawaiian dialect, conforming more to those of the two latter than to that of the former.
I am thus led back to the proposition which I have already enunciated, that, whichever was the branch of the great Polynesian family, that in ages long past first settled upon these islands and here remained and increased, yet about twenty-eight generations ago, and for several generations succeeding, there arrived here an influx of new-comers from the same Polynesian family, who through their superior intellectual and physical prowess obtained the supremacy,—politically, morally and socially,—brought with them their genealogies, their religion, and their customs; and with whom, and from whom only, Hawaiian history can be traced downward through its heroic, medieval and modern pagan development. It will be observed by the different pedigrees that all the chief-families, which connect with the Nanaulu line, do so immediately through someone of the children or grandchildren of Maweke, who is either the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth ancestor of these families, as the case may be. Whereas, on the other hand, no family that connects with the Ulu-Puna line, does so above Laamaikahiki’s children who stand seventh from Paumakua, thus making him the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth ancestor; and several families, connecting with both lines, make both Maweke and Paumakua either twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth in the line. With the Ulu-Hema-Hanalaa-nui line, however, no family that I am aware of connects as one of the children of Kanipahu, who stands sixth from Pili-Kaaiea, which makes the latter the twenty-fourth ancestor. Kanipahu’s son Kalahumoku is sixth from Maweke through his mother Hualani. Kanipahu’s son Kalapana is also sixth (?) from Pili, and I consequently infer that Pili and Maweke were contemporaries.
Pili’s arrival from Tahiti—some traditions specify the island of Wawau—is one of the most noted events of this period. Of the arrivals of Maweke and Paumakua, or their immediate ancestors, the traditions are silent, but their immediate descendants were famous for their voyages to and from Tahiti. The traditions are conflicting in regard to Maweke’s grandchildren, from Mulielealii, some representing them as born in this country and properly belonging here, while others represent them as settlers arriving from Tahiti. However that may be, they named numerous places, mountains, rivers and headlands either after persons accompanying them, or after similar places in the land from which they came. Yet strange to say, although the island of Hawaii was evidently so called after the Samoan “Hawaiki” or Tongan “Hapai” and that island was known to the Tongans, New Zealanders, Tahitians and Marquesans, yet none of the Hawaiian legends, meles or genealogies, that I have seen, refer to it by that name, though Upolo, Wawau, and probably other islands of that and neighboring groups, are referred to by their special names.
On the Ulu line, previous to Puna-i-mua and Hema, occur the names of Kapawa and of his parents Nanakaoko and Kahihiokalani, which stand too conspicuously connected with the traditions of purely Hawaiian origin and with that famous birth-place of Hawaiian chiefs, Kukaniloko, to doubt that they belonged and lived on Hawaii-nei, or to include them among those prehistoric names which figure on the genealogies previous to the Tahitian settlements, tempore Maweke, Paumakua and Pili. In a fragment [[256]]of the legend (or rather synopsis) of Paao, which I have, while speaking of the arrival of Pili, it is expressly stated that, when Pili came to these islands, Hawaii was without chiefs on account of the crimes of Kapawa (“Ua pau na Alii mua o Hawaii-nei i ka hewa o Kapawa, ke alii o Hawaii nei ia manawa”); thus evidently making Kapawa contemporary with the period of the Tahitian migrations.
The New Zealand legends have shown that the four chiefs Hema, Kahai, Wahieloa and Laka were Samoan chiefs and not Hawaiian, and as Kapawa is represented on the Hawaiian genealogy of Ulu as being the great-grandfather of Hema and his brother Puna-imua; and further as he is only third in descent from that mythical demi-god Maui-a-Kalana and only second in ascent from the almost equally mythical Hinahanaiakamalama, the wife of Aikanaka and mother of Hema, who went up to the moon and whose leg was pulled off by her husband while ascending, I therefore think myself justified in concluding that Kapawa and probably his parents are misplaced on the genealogy of Ulu, and that they belong to a much later period—the period of Tahitian migrations.
I have hitherto not referred to the Hanalaa-nui or Hanalaa-iki lines in their earlier portions. It is well-known that before the consolidation of the islands under one government, by Kamehameha I, the Maui bards and genealogists claimed Hanalaa-nui as the ancestor of their race of chiefs, while the Hawaiians proper also set up the same claim. But it would seem that even the Hawaiian bards and genealogists were not agreed on this subject; for I possess an ancient mele, evidently composed in the interest of Kamehameha I and his dynasty, which traces his descent from Paumakua and Hanalaa-nui—not Hanalaa-iki—through Maui-loa and not through Lanakawai, and then through Alo, Waohaakuna, etc., to Kikamanio Laulihewa and Maili-kukahi, and thence down the Oahu-Maweke line to Kalanikauleleiaiwi etc. But this mele makes Laulihewa the seventh from Paumakua in the descent, or the sixteenth from Kamehameha I in the ascent. Now on the uncontested Nanaulu-Maweke line Laulihewa is the seventeenth from Kamehameha, and on the equally uncontested Paumakua-Lauli-a-laa line Laulihewa is also the seventeenth from Kiwalao, Kamehameha’s cousin, this latter line having the double advantage of having been crossed both by the Maui and Oahu lines. Assuming, therefore, that Laulihewa’s position is correct in this mele, or nearly so, Hanalaa-nui’s place on the pedigree will be fifth or sixth from Laulihewa, or a contemporary with Moikeha on the Nanaulu straight line, or with Nana or Kumakaha on the Ulu-Paumakua line. In either case Hanalaa, whether “nui” or “iki,” falls within the period of the Tahitian migrations, and their lines must suffer a proportionate curtailment of the names which now figure on them. That Haho, who in this mele stands next after Paumakua, and second above Hanalaanui, belonged to the new era, inaugurated by the arrivals from Tahiti, I conclude from the fact that with him commences the record of the Aha-alii, a peculiar institution not known before this time, and an indispensable accompaniment of an Alii-kapu (a sacred chief).
Without such excision of names I can see no way of reconciling the Nanaulu straight line and its numerous branches, or the Puna-imua-Paumakua-Laamaikahiki line and its equally numerous branches, with the Hema-Hanalaa lines, so as to bring known contemporaries on a nearly parallel step of descent from those whom they all claim [[257]]as common ancestors. For instance, on her father’s side, H. R. H. Kinau (the present King’s mother) was sixty-eighth from Wakea, counting by the commonly received Hanalaa-nui line; and on her mother’s side she was seventy from Wakea, counting by the Hanalaa-iki line. But by the Nanaulu straight line, connecting at Kalanikauleleaiwi I, Kinau was only fifty-third from Wakea, and even by the Ulu-Puna line and several of its branches she was only fifty-seventh from Wakea. The difference of fifteen and seventeen generations between the Hanalaa lines and the Nanaulu straight line, and even the difference of eleven and thirteen between the Hana and Puna lines, is too great to be accounted for in a natural way, such as the earlier marriages in one line than in another. I am therefore forced to conclude that this excess of names on the Hanalaa-Hema lines was made up of contemporaries or collaterals and engrafted in aftertimes on the original lines. From the present time up to Maweke, Paumakua, and Pili, who stand respectively twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh from Kamehameha I and his contemporaries the genealogical lines cross each other by intermarriages so often, and traditional notices of contemporary chiefs are so frequent, that there is comparatively little difficulty in verifying any given name or finding its proper place. Here then, properly speaking, Hawaiian history commences, and I will now endeavor to show the most prominent names on the different lines, their connection and their exploits. [[258]]
[1] La Perouse is strongly of opinion that the Spaniards had visited the Islands, rested more or less time; and introduced venereal diseases. [↑]