250 Pomander Collection of Hawaiian folk-lore. 



when all these are stripped, there still remains an undisputable residiuni of facts to show 

 that from the eleventh and during- the twelfth centur\', and subsequently, not only were 

 these islands visited hv people of kindred and alien races whether arriving- here by 

 accident or design, but also that the Hawaiians, themselves, performed frequent though 

 desultory voyages to the countries and islands lying- south and west from their own 

 group; that from this ])eriod dates the establishment, or at least the prominence of the 

 principal dynasties and chief-families in the islands ; and that from this time the genealogi- 

 cal succession on Hawaiian soil may be pretty accurately ascertained. 



I know that Papa and Wakea, the reputed progenitors of the Hawaiian race of 

 chiefs, were also considered as gods, demi-gods, heroes and ])rogenitors in nearly every 

 other Polynesian group of islands. I have seen it assumed that the twelfth or thirteenth 

 first names of the Haloa line were common to the Marquesan pedigrees and considered 

 as their ancestors. T know that Maui-a-kalana, who is said to have collected the sun's 

 rays, to have discovered the fire, and to have nearly succeeded in joining these islands 

 together into one large continent, and whose name stands twenty-second on the Ulu 

 line, — 1 know that he is the hero of the same legends in the Samoan, Society, Mar- 

 quesan and New Zealand islands. \Miile therefore I have no means of disputing the 

 correctness of the succession of names borne on Hawaiian i)edig-rees from Wakea to 

 nearlv the ])eriod of Maweke, I am yet strongly of the opinion that those names, their 

 legends and meles, were introduced into this grou]) about the time of Maweke and his 

 contem])oraries and compeers, and during some of the next following generations. I 

 am inclined to that o])inion from the fact that, while almost every Hawaiian chief- 

 famil\- that at some time or other obtained prominence or influence in the country traced 

 their ])edig-ree up to Maweke, his contemporaries or successors, and claim their descent 

 from Wakea through some one or other of the numerous branches s]M-ing-ing from 

 Maweke, Kapawa, Paumakua or later offshoots from these, not one family, that I am 

 aware of, pretends to connect with either the Nanaulu or the Ulu lines beyond this period ; 

 thus proving to me that these heroes were the first and actual progenitors of the Hawaiian 

 families of chiefs on Hawaiian soil, and that they brought with them from Kahiki their 

 own pedigrees up to their own time. 



Whoever kne\\' this ])eople some forty or fift\' years ago, and more so if further 

 back, could not fail to observe the remarkable difference of appearance between the 

 chiefs and the makaainana (commoners) and the Kauwa-makauuli (slaves) indicating 

 the former as, if not of a dift'erent race, at least of a dift'erent and superior class to the 

 common multitude. And the feeling, solicitude and pride, with which that difference 

 was kei)t u]), show that thev looked upon themselves not only as a different class politi- 

 callv, but also as of different birth socially. It was an heirloom from their ancestors 

 and came with them from Tahiti. Xo poverty, misery or misconduct could efface it. 

 Though there are manv instances where chiefs were slain by their subjects in revolt, 

 or were deposed from supremacy bv their ])eers or subordinate chiefs, yet there never 

 was a 15111 n\ .Attainder in those davs, nor is there an instance of a chief who e\er for- 

 feited his own rank as .1 chief (of the "Papa Alii") or that of his children. Those 

 chiefs, those ancestors of the Hawaiian aristocracy, did not however, as 1 have endeavored 

 to show, appear on Hawaiian soil much earlier than the period of those great migrations, 



