The Storv of Kahahana. 



WITHIX 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 jiathos, 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, Iving of Oahu, and a cousin of Kahe- 

 kili, 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 favor- 

 ite 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 i)ersonal beauty 

 and manlv bearing. Handsome, brave and gallant, he \\'as 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 pros- 

 pective 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 Kaha- 

 hana was his alter Ci^o, his rev convk'ii, 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 i^rincely 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 voungest 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 fdrtune to meet more than one octogenarian Hawaiian who remem- 

 bers seeing her while still, as Queen of Oahu, she was as remarkable for her incom- 

 parable beauty, as in the days, ten or twelve years before, when Kahahana first wooed 

 and won her young affections. 



Between Kahahana and Kekuajjoi it was an attair of the heart. They loved each 

 other like the commonest mortals and, as at that time no political or social consider- 

 ations of convenience stood in the way, the union was allowed by Kahekili, whose wards 

 they may be said to have been. They lo\'ed each other and, according to the custom and 

 institutions of the land, they became man and wife. Nothing more natural, simple or 



(-'8_') 



