On Ila-ii'diiaii Rank. 311 



looms are the consciousness of their rank and their family chants, their incic iiioa which 

 at one time were solicited, but solicited in vain, by even so proud a kino- as Lot Kame- 

 hameha \'. 



There was an ex])ression used in olden limes to designate certain chiefs, male or 

 female, which ex]jression in those days did not mark a fixed or certain degree of nobility, 

 but was a relative term of a large degree of elasticity. That term was kaiikaii-alii. In 

 later and modern times the term has been made to im])ly inferiority and dependence. To 

 illustrate: In olden time the children of Hakau-a-Liloa looked upon the children of Umi- 

 a-Liloa, their cousins, as kaitkaii alii compared to themseh-es, though the sovereignty of 

 Hawaii and the highest political kapus rested with the latter. Thus the children of Ka- 

 laninuiamamao and of Keeaumoku of Hawaii looked uixm the children of Kunmkoa and 

 of Awili, their cousins, as kaithaii-alii compared with themselves. Thus Kalaipaihala, 

 the son of Kalaniopuu of Hawaii, was a kaiikaii-alli to his brother Kiwalao, although he 

 was a uiau-pio chief in his own right. The term was relative and did not mark a degree 

 of nobility. 



