Thus was Pili set apart as King of Hawaii.
From Hilo, the eleventh century king went to the beautiful Waipio Valley, taking Paao with him. Later he moved to the Kohala district. Here Paao built the Mookini temple, in a place to which he gave the name it still bears—Lae Upolu, the Cape of Upolu. [[78]]
Here, in Kohala, from the eleventh century to 1819, the high priests and the chiefs of Hawaii made their home. The priest and the king stand out from the mists of the past, representing two great forces of Hawaiian government—the religious and the civil. Independent of each other, the rights of each were jealously guarded.
Paao gave Pili no chance for choice. While he granted to the king civil authority, he retained absolutely independent control over the minds of the chiefs and the people in religious matters.
Ka-meha-meha, the most noted person of all Hawaiian history, was a descendant in a straight genealogical line from Pili, and Hewa-hewa, the Christian, was the last high priest of the Paao line.
This is the story of the founding of the Ka-meha-meha family. The legends have been shorn of the fabulous element which naturally gathered around them, in order that the true names and customs of the time might be delineated.
One of the most important results was the establishment of an Aha-alii—council of chiefs—or herald’s college, which demanded the genealogy and proof of high birth, before admission was granted to the privileges of rank. In meeting this demand genealogies became of great importance. The separation between chiefs and common people became a gulf fixed by custom. [[79]]