The Story of Kahahana.
Within the wonderful and often charming domain of History, from classic to modern times, among so called cultured and so called barbarous peoples, few episodes are marked with greater pathos, or, if better known, would elicit greater interest, than the fall and death of Kahahana, King of Oahu, one of the Hawaiian Islands, about the years 1783–85.
Kahahana was high-born and royally connected. His father was Elani, one of the highest nobles in the Ewa district on Oahu, a descendant, on the Maweke-Lakona line, of the ancient lords of Lihue. His mother was Kaionuilalahai, a daughter of Kalanikahimakeialii, and a sister of Peleioholani, King of Oahu, and a cousin of Kahekili, King of Maui. Through his mother’s connections with the royal house of Maui Kahahana was brought up from his earliest youth on Maui and became a special favorite with his uncle Kahekili. Educated in all the athletic and warlike exercises, which it became a chief of that period to know, Kahahana was remarkable for his personal beauty and manly bearing. Handsome, brave and gallant, he was the idol of the Maui court and the pride of the Oahu aristocracy, his father’s peers, who chafed under the heavy yoke of their own King Peleioholani, and had but small confidence in his son and prospective successor Kumahana.
Though Kahekili was too reserved, some say too morose, to often share in the festivities and entertainments which, through the presence of his sisters, his nieces and other relatives, had made his court at Wailuku, where he mostly resided, a gathering place and a focus for the gallant and gay of all the other isles in the group, yet Kahahana was his alter ego, his rex convivii, whose prudence and popularity harmonized, or at least neutralized, the rival pretensions of Kahekili’s half sister Namahana to be the leading star and the oracle of fashion among the Hawaiian noblesse at her lately acquired domain in Waiehu.
At these princely reunions, these royal feasts, whether at Waiehu or at Wailuku, the palm of beauty and of woman grace was by universal accord awarded to Kekua-poi-ula-o-ka-lani, the youngest sister of Namahana and of Kekuamanoha, of whom we shall hear more hereafter. The legends and narratives handed down from that time have but one expression of her surpassing beauty and winning charms, and the present writer has had the fortune to meet more than one octogenerian Hawaiian who remembers seeing her while still, as Queen of Oahu, she was as remarkable for her incomparable beauty, as in the days, ten or twelve years before, when Kahahana first wooed and won her young affections.
Between Kahahana and Kekuapoi it was an affair of the heart. They loved each other like the commonest mortals and, as at that time no political or social considerations of convenience stood in the way, the union was allowed by Kahekili, whose wards they may be said to have been. They loved each other and, according to the custom and institutions of the land, they became man and wife. Nothing more natural, simple or [[283]]straightforward. But the anomalous part of their married life was that in those days of social as well as political profligacy, when a chief or a chiefess took as many wives or husbands as he or she fancied or could maintain, Kahahana and Kekuapoi remained true to each other with undivided affection to the end of their lives.
In A.D. 1770 Peleioholani,—son of Kualii, hereditary Sovereign of the island of Oahu, hereditary lord of several districts on Southern Kauai, and, by the grace of his god and the strength of his spear, master and conqueror of the island of Molokai—died, at the advanced age of ninety and upward, and was succeeded by his son Kumahana.
The character of Peleioholani has been variously described in the traditions that have come down from his time. The Hawaii and Maui traditions, or reminiscences, of Peleioholani describe him as proud, arrogant, overbearing—proud, even beyond the most exacting Hawaiian etiquette. Molokai traditions acknowledge his prowess as a warrior, but are merciless in the condemnation of him as a tyrant, whose cruelty went even a step beyond what those cruel times considered admissible. Against those two sources of information we have the Oahu traditions which,—though they acknowledge that he was proud, and justly so, because no bluer blood flowed in anybody’s veins than in his and in his sister Kukuiaimakalani’s—yet assert that his cruelty towards the Molokai chiefs was but a just punishment for their wanton and unprovoked murder of his daughter Keelanihonuaiakama. But whatever his reputation on the other islands, on Oahu he was feared as a stern monarch, but also respected as a just man, under whom the husbandman prospered, priests and artisians were protected, and the naturally turbulent character of the feudal nobles kept under salutary, though at times summary, restraint. As sovereign of his island he made the customary circuits, for political and religious purposes, at stated times; but his favorite residence, when not otherwise occupied, was at Waikiki in the known district, where a perfect forest of coconut trees enclosed his dwelling or palace on three sides, and the pleasant grove of kou trees which his father had planted, threw its delicious shade on the heated sea-beach.
Stern but just, Peleioholani’s reign was a blessing to his kingdom of Oahu, which probably had never since the days of Mailekukahi stood higher in population, wealth, and resources, than at the time of his death.
The contrast between Peleioholani and his son Kumahana had no doubt been apparent to thoughtful men long before the black kapa covered the mortal remains of the father. Chiefs and commoners alike knew the man to whom their fealty now would be pledged. Indolent of body, weak, fickle and avaricious of mind, Kumahana was a failure as a sovereign, and it did not take long to ripen the public mind to that conviction. Feal and loyal as the Oahu chiefs had always been to the Kakuhihewa family, whom for six generations they had looked upon as their representative on the Oahu throne, yet the weaknesses and extravagancies of Kumahana were enough in three short years to alienate chiefs, priests, and commoners to such an extent that when Pupuka, Elani, Makaioulu and other chiefs, in conjunction with the High-priest Kaopulupulu, called a public meeting of chiefs and commoners, to consider the situation of the country and for the avowed purpose of deposing Kumahana, not a voice was heard nor a spear raised in defence of the unfortunate man who then and there was publicly decreed [[284]]incompetent and unworthy to rule the Oahu kingdom. That meeting and the manner of the execution of its decree find few parallels in the most civilized of modern countries, where the people had to resort to revolution to protect the best interests of their country and their own well-being. It was a public declaration of the national non possumus any longer to suffer the rule of Kumahana. Its execution, through the wonderful unanimity of the national voice, required neither “National Guards,” nor spears, nor clubs, nor barricades to enforce it. It was a veritable vox populi, vox Dei, and the only trait of wisdom recorded of Kumahana was that he quietly submitted to the inevitable and left for Kauai, where the relations of his mother and sister provided a refuge for him and his family at Waimea. And to the lasting credit of those, whose kindred only six years later were stigmatized by civilized Europe as “barbarians,” “savages,” “cannibals,” not a drop of blood was shed in this mighty upheaval of an entire people.