Chronological List. 



EVERY people, possessed of some culture or civilization, attempts to preser\-e a rec- 

 ord of its past, whether that record is handed down oralh^, or by some sort of 

 writing-. With the Hawaiians as with their Polynesian congeners everywhere, 

 such records were passed down orally from father to child, or from master to disciple, 

 within tlie ]jr(»fessional circle of those to whom immemorial usage has consigned the pre- 

 sor\'ation of them. But history, or a record of the past, would become unintelligible and 

 rank confusion unless set forth or arranged upon some system of chronology. Some peo- 

 ples counted time by the number of generations from some common ancestor; some 

 counted by the length of reign of each successive king or chief; some counted each indi- 

 vidual year within a, Ijy them, generally adopted era. The Hawaiians counted by genera- 

 tions of their ])rinci])al chiefs or kings. They started from Wakea as a common ancestor 

 of all the chiefs on all the islands of the Hawaiian group; but, for convenience or clear- 

 ness sake, time was counted by either of the reigning families on the four principal is- 

 lands: Kauai, Oahu, Maui, or Hawaii. Thus an event, worthy of being preserved on 

 the national records, was said to have occurred "in the time of" — "/ kc an o" — such or 

 such a prominent chief of this or that island ; and, in order to ascertain when, the gener- 

 ations were counted either down from Wakea, or more generally up (back ) from the then 

 present generation. Thus Hawaiian chronology was not very exact, it must be ad- 

 mitted ; but to a people, who depended entirely upon the faithful memory of their bards 

 and priests, it was sufficiently approximate to bring order and sequence in their un- 

 written records of the past. To us, of a later and more developed civilization, the ex- 

 actitude of dates is of the very essence of history, or at least one of its most necessary 

 elements; but an approximation to truth satisfied the ancient Hawaiian. 



In my work, "The Polynesian Race, its Origin and Migrations," \'ol. I, p. i66, 

 I have approximately fixed the period of Wakea at about 190 A. D., and the length of 

 a generation, for the purposes of historical com])utati()n, at 30 years. Counting 13 

 generations after Wakea we arrive at Nanaulu, in whose time the Hawaiian group was 

 undoubtedly occui)ied by the Hawaiian branch of the Polynesian Race, say 580 A. D. 

 Continuing on the genealogical line of Nanaulu, as the safest and most correct, we ar- 

 rive after 15 more generations, or 450 years, at the period of Maweke, say 1030 A. D., 

 when that remarkable intermigratory movement between the southern and northern Poly- 

 nesian groups, of which their legends and chants give so ample evidence, had already 

 commenced. From Maweke down, therefore, Plawaiian chronologv may be computed 

 from any of the leading genealogies, counting Maweke as No. 29, Paumakua as No. 30, 

 Pilikaeaea as No. 31 from Wakea. 



Thus, to take only two genealogies out of man\-, we get the following approxi- 

 mate, chronological lists, viz : 

 (312) 



