Unable, therefore, to ascertain from the committee which families, claiming descent from the ancient noblesse, it would have recognized as entitled to a page on “The Golden Book” of the Hawaiian alii; and equally uncertain as to the rules, methods or principles the committee might have adopted in order to decide, first, whether a person was a noble at all, secondly, what is or would have been his rank and status under the old regime, before nobles created by the king plus the Constitution filled the seats in the Hawaiian House of Lords formerly, up to 1845 and 6, occupied by native born Hawaiian chiefs. Unable to find this out from the committee, I am obliged to fall back upon my own resources, such as the reading of the ancient legends and chants, and the writings of those Hawaiians who wrote upon the subject some thirty or forty years ago, before the rising generation became smitten with the mania of interpolating history and fabricating genealogies to order. [[308]]
Under the old regime there certainly were ranks and degrees of nobility, well understood and scrupulously observed, with their accompanying kapus and privileges. A pio chief, or chiefess, out-ranked a niau-pio, or a naha, but these three classes could claim the kapu-moe (prostration) from the other nobility and from the commoners, and were exempt, I think, from rendering that observance to each other. The distinction between the three was social rather than political, and time and circumstances generally determined how far the etiquette, due from each to each, should be enforced or relaxed.
To explain the relation of these three classes of the nobility I would say that by “niau-pio” was understood the very highest cast, not only by descent but also by power, such as the sovereigns of the islands, the moi, their children—if the mothers were of sufficient rank—and the aimoku, or district chiefs. By pio was understood the children of a brother and sister or half-brother and half-sister, whose parents were both niau-pio. By naha was understood the children of a father with his daughter, or an uncle with his niece, both the parents being niau-pio. To illustrate: Keawe-i-kekahi-alii was king of Hawaii and Kalanikauleleiaiwi was his half-sister, both from the same mother, though with different father. Keawe and Kalanikaulele cohabited and their children Keeaumoku (k) and Kekela (w) were pio chiefs as well as niau-pio. But Keawe had another wife named Laamaikanaka from the powerful I family in Hilo, with whom he had a son Kalani-nui-amamao, who was the oldest, who succeeded his father as moi or sovereign, who was a great niau-pio, but was not a pio like his half-brother Keeaumoku. Kalanikaulele had other husbands, among whom I need only mention Lonoikahaupu, the king of Kauai, with whom she begat Keawepoepoe, the ancestor of the present reigning family, who was a niau-pio but was not a pio. And similar examples may be drawn from all the islands.
Again the same Keawe-i-kekahi-alii with his wife Laamaikanaka had a daughter called Kaohiokaka. With this daughter Keawe cohabited and she bore a daughter called Kekaulike. That daughter was a naha chiefess under the old heraldry. This Kekaulike cohabited with her mother’s brother Kalaninuiamamao and begat a son named Keawemauhili. That son was a naha, as well as his mother and hence he was frequently called Keawe-wili-lua (Keawe-twice-turned).
These three classes and the rest of the recognized nobility formed what was called the papa-alii by a general term, or the aha-alii, the convocation of nobles, the “Ritterstand.”
Below the three classes above named the papa-alii recognized several gradations of nobility; but they were social rather than political distinctions. Thus a child born of a niau-pio chiefess and a chief not a niau-pio took precedence of a child born to a niau-pio chief with a chiefess not niau-pio. In fact the mother’s rank invariably prevailed over that of the father, with certain exceptions, as when the father publicly acknowledged and adopted the child as his own, although the mother’s rank may not have been equal to the father’s.
The descent from being a niau-pio, a pio, or a naha, to one of the inferior degrees of the aha alii of the nobility, took several generations to accomplish. The writer in the Kuokoa newspaper, to whom I have referred, speaks of wohi, lo alii, alii papa, lokea [[309]]alii, laauli alii, and kukaepopolo, as distinct grades of nobility, one above the other in the order named. My reading and acquaintance with the ancient rules of heraldry do not correspond with such a classification.
The wohi was a function, an office, not a degree of nobility. It had its peculiar privileges, among which was the exemption from rendering the kapu-moe to the sovereign, the moi. Its duties were that of a prime minister, and on public occasions the wohi walked in front of the sovereign to see that the ceremonial was duly performed and that everybody else, who was not exempt, duly observed the kapu-moe. Like many other institutions it tended to become hereditary. Thus the son of a wohi under one sovereign was most likely to become the wohi under the son of that sovereign; but when the dynasty changed the wohi-ship changed also. Thus the wohi of Kumahana, King of Oahu, was no longer the wohi of Kahahana, who succeeded Kumahana as the head of a new dynasty. Thus the wohi of Kalaniopuu, King of Hawaii, was no longer the wohi when Kamehameha I. had obtained the ascendancy. The wohi-ship was peculiarly an institution on the leeward islands, Oahu and Kauai, and was only comparatively lately introduced on Maui and Hawaii. While the office lasted the privileges attached to it were exercised and enforced; when the office lapsed, the privileges ceased, and the late incumbent was simply a naiu-pio, or a chief of less degree, as the case might be. Keawemauhili was the wohi of his nephew Kiwalao, King of Hawaii; Keliimaikai was the wohi of his brother Kamehameha I.; but neither the children of Keliimaikai claimed, or were awarded the privileges of a wohi after the death of their parents. The precedence that a wohi obtained over other nobles was in virtue of his office alone, and as temporary as the incumbency of that office. The last Hawaiian wohi was Keliimaikai, the aforesaid brother of Kamehameha I., and his son Kekuaokalani might have remained wohi under Liholiho, Kamehameha II., had he not rebelled against him.
The lo was not, as the Kuokoa writer assumes, a specific name for one of the degree of nobility. It was a patronymic, distinguishing a certain family on Oahu. The first known in Hawaiian legends and history was Lo Lale, the brother of Piliwale and Kalamakua, sons of Kalonaiki, the Oahu sovereign. Lo was a title or epithet exclusively belonging to Lale’s descendants. What the occasion of the title, or what kapus and privileges, if any, it conferred, I have been unable to ascertain. As a degree of nobility lo was unknown throughout the group. As a title, or sobriquet, it was never assumed by any one who could not clearly trace his descent from that first Lo Lale, lord of Lihue and adjoining lands in Ewa and Waialua.
The division of the nobility which the Kuokoa writer designates by the names of alii papa and lokea-alii are unknown to me. They do not occur in the old meles or kaaos, and I know not their origin. These, as well as the other divisions, which he designates by the names of laauli alii and kaukau alii, were all recognized nobles, alii of the papa alii or the aha alii; local circumstances and social conventionalities determining generally for the time being the precedence due from one to the other. Their privileges, prerogatives and kapus, be they great or small, whether derived from mother or father, were theirs by birth or inheritance. A chief of the papa alii may not deem it practicable, expedient or prudent to exact those privileges and kapus at times, but his right to their observance none could deprive him of. During the frequent wars which [[310]]harrassed the country in former days a chief may have lost his lands and possessions and been driven into exile and reduced to poverty and there be no one left to do him homage, or observe the kapus towards him, or he might never have had land and subjects assigned him from his infancy. But if fortune smiled upon him and if, through the strength of his spear or the favor of his sovereign moi, he reconquered the paternal domain or obtained another, he simply resumed the rights and kapus which had been lying in abeyance during poverty and exile. Some families never recovered from such a disaster, but their descendants retain to this day their rank unimpaired and the rights which that rank conferred, though it may not be prudent or practicable to exact them. To illustrate the vicissitudes of the aristocracy during the last 150 years: The old nobility of Molokai, the descendants of Maweke of Nuakea, of Keoloewa, circumscribed in territorial possessions certainly, but as lofty and as pure in its blue blood as any of Oahu or Kauai were, with the exception of one family destroyed, despoiled and exiled by Peleioholani of Oahu in vengeance for the death of his daughter, Kulanihonuaiakama, who was treacherously killed by some chiefs of windward Molokai. Thus the Oahu chief families, the descendants of Maweke of Laakona, of the Kalonas[?], went to the wall and were despoiled by Kahekili of Maui, after his conquest of the island, not one Oahu chief of the ancient nobility remaining in possession of his hereditary lands. Death, flight and exile were their portion. Thus the Maui aristocracy, the descendants of Haho, of Eleio, of Piilani, with the exception of the few who joined the conquering party, were despoiled after the conquest of the island by Kamehameha I. Thus, though somewhat later in time, the Kauai aristocracy, the proud descendants of Maweke, of Ahukini-a-Laa, of Manokalanipo, were almost literally exterminated or reduced during the insurrection of Humehume against Liholiho, Kamehameha II. As for the Hawaiian noblesse, the descendants of Hikapoloa, of Pilikaeaea, of Kiha-nui-lulu-moku, how many have survived the internecine wars that followed the death of Keawe-i-kekahi-alii and the death of Kalaniopuu? Where are the scions of Imakakaloa of Puna, of Piena of Kau, of Palena of Kohala, and others too numerous to mention? What would have been the fate of the illustrious and once powerful house of I of Hilo, the descendants of Liloa and Piilani, had not a lucky accident ranged Keawe-a-Heulu on the side of three other chiefs, whose spears and whose counsel raised Kamehameha I. on the throne? As it was, other adverse circumstances afterwards nearly brought that house to its ruin, when another turn of fortune’s wheel placed it on the top of the ladder. But who will venture to say that during this partial eclipse for more than two generations, when for prudential reasons its white puloulou, or its day-light torches were no longer visible, its kapus, its rights, its privileges, or its rank had been forfeited, diminished, or lost through non-observance? Who will dispute the rank and the kapus of Keawemauhili’s descendants through Elelule and Kuhio, backed as they were by the royal escutcheon of Kamakahelei of Kauai? And yet the heirs to that rank were ignored and their kapus slumbered for more than fifty years, until of late their former status has been restored. Who will deny the rank and heraldic consideration due to the descendants of the great house of Kualii of Oahu, either through his son Peleioholani or his daughter Kukuiaimakalani, many if not most of whom, have not at present land enough of their own to be buried in, and whose only remaining heirlooms [[311]]are the consciousness of their rank and their family chants, their mele inoa which at one time were solicited, but solicited in vain, by even so proud a king as Lot Kamehameha V.