Alapa‘i’s designs on O‘ahu, however, were foiled by the slain king’s brother, Peleiōhōlani, the mō‘ī of Kaua‘i, who now ruled O‘ahu as regent for his late brother’s infant son. Peleiōhōlani inflicted costly defeats on the invading forces when Alapa‘i tried to land at Waikiki and later at Kailua. Unlike Alapa‘i, Peleiōhōlani had no taste for further bloodshed at this time, and sent an emissary to Alapa‘i with an offer of peace. Embarrassed by his failure to score a quick victory on O‘ahu, Alapa‘i accepted and returned at last to Hawai‘i.
It was customary among the ali‘i for wives to accompany their husbands to war. But because she was exhausted and weakened after giving birth to Kamehameha, Keku‘i did not follow Keoua to Maui, and Alapa‘i’s subsequent overseas adventures had kept them apart for many months. Though neither had remained celibate during this prolonged separation—it was simply not in their natures—they celebrated their separation’s end with a joyous, lustful reunion. My father was conceived that night.
Several days later, Nae‘ole came to see my grandfather and grandmother. Keku‘i had already felt a quickening in her womb and knew she was pregnant again. “Your first-born is alive and well,” Nae‘ole said.
“How can this be?” exclaimed Keoua, who had long since abandoned hope of finding his infant son.
“I took the boy away on the night of his birth,” said Nae‘ole, telling the astonished parents of Alapa‘i’s plan to kill the baby. It was the first Keoua had heard of his uncle’s murderous intentions toward his newborn son. “The child is safe in Waipi‘o now,” Nae‘ole said. “I think it is best that he remain there for the time being. Say nothing of this to Alapa‘i‘nui.” Keoua and Keku‘i agreed. Kameha remained in Waipi‘o—known to his parents, but unknown by them—for several more years. In the meantime, Alapa‘i’s wars raged on until the king tired of fighting, and peace finally settled over the Big Island like one of Lono’s soft, puffy clouds.
Kawaihae, 1753-1761
K amehameha was yet at Waipi‘o when my father was born. Some months after my father’s birth, Nae‘ole came to see Keoua and Keku‘i. “That is a fine baby,” he said, admiring little Keli‘imaika‘i. “He will make a strong warrior, like his big brother.” An awkward silence passed between the three adults. Then Nae‘ole said, as if Kamehameha had simply been absent on a long trip, “It is time his brother returned to court, don’t you think?”
Keoua went to see Alapa‘i. Squatting before the king, he said, “My lord, I wish our first-born son to join us at court.”
Alapa‘i, who was already slightly heady from his ‘awa-drinking, even though it was still early in the day, raised an eyebrow. “You have another son? How old is the boy now, nephew?” he asked.
“He is five, Uncle,” Keoua replied.
“And where have you been keeping him all this time?” asked Alapa‘i.
“In Waipi‘o,” said Keoua. “After he was born, we gave him in hanai to my wife’s father’s cousin Nae‘ole for his early education.” Giving children in hanai—for relatives or close friends to raise—was common among the ali‘i in those days, and still is.
“And is the child sufficiently educated now?” Alapa‘i asked.
“He is ready to come to court,” said Keoua.
“Then by all means,” said Alapa‘i, “let the boy come.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” Keoua said. Then, rising and bowing respectfully, he backed out of Alapa‘i’s presence.
There was one at Alapa‘i’s court who opposed the mō‘ī’s decision to welcome Kamehameha into his household. “My lord, you cannot allow this child to come here,” sputtered Ka‘akau—now Alapa‘i’s high priest—soon after Keoua had withdrawn. “Is he not the selfsame one whom the prophecy foretold would become a slayer of chiefs?”
“I have not forgotten the prophecy, Ka‘akau,” Alapa‘i replied. “But it did not signify which chiefs. The boy will never be a threat to me while I live.”
“But he could threaten your own son or his heirs,” the kahuna persisted. “Better to slay him while he is still at Waipi‘o and be done with it.”
“No, Ka‘akau,” rejoined Alapa‘i, irritated now. “It is one thing to nip off a bud, as the prophecy commanded. It is quite another to chop down a sapling that has already taken root. Would you have me provoke a war with my nephew Keoua and his brother? Moreover, seeing as how the child escaped death in the first instance, we must presume that the gods were protecting him. Would you have me offend the gods now, priest?”
“No, of course not, Lord,” said Ka‘akau.
Kamehameha had never seen a canoe during his time at Waipi‘o. Nor had he seen the ocean. The maka‘āinana couple had heeded well Nae‘ole’s instructions to keep the little boy always close to them at their farm at the head of the Waipi‘o Valley and away from the eyes of curious strangers.
“Uncle,” Kameha cried as he and Nae‘ole crested a low hillock between the fishponds at the mouth of the valley and the black sand beach beyond, “what is that big stream?”
“That is not a stream; it is the sea,” said Nae‘ole, taking Kameha by the hand. Kameha broke free and barreled down the hill. The flap of his new loincloth whipped around him as he ran. When Kameha reached the water’s edge, he skidded to a halt.
“It is very big, Uncle,” Kameha said, looking over his shoulder at Nae‘ole, who had followed him down the hill at a sedate pace.
“Yes, boy, it is very big,” Nae‘ole said, “and only Kanaloa, the god of the sea, knows its true extent.”
Kameha looked thoughtfully at the horizon. “Does Kanaloa live over there?” he asked, pointing at the intersection of the sky and the water.
“Perhaps,” Nae‘ole replied. “But he lives deep under the water.”
“May I go into the water, Uncle?” Kameha asked.
Nae‘ole surveyed the bay. The tide was receding at this hour and the heaviest surf was breaking far from the beach. “Yes, boy,” he replied, “but only a little way and only for a little while. We have a long way to go today.”
Little Kamehameha waded into the great Pacific Ocean. He advanced until the water lapped at his knees. Kameha stood quietly for a moment and then he giggled as a small fish nibbled at his toes. He bent low and tentatively dipped one hand into the water. At just that moment, a wave half his height surged ashore, knocking him over. Kameha jumped up, spluttering. Then he laughed.
Nae‘ole laughed with him. “Enough for now, boy. You will have plenty of time to learn the ways of the sea.” Gesturing toward the canoe, where two tall warriors were waiting, he said, “It is time for us to go, while we can still ride the outgoing tide.”
The warriors propelled the outrigger canoe through the breakers with swift paddle strokes. Then, pointing the bow northward, they set the sail for the journey up the Hāmākua Coast. As the canoe rose and fell with the gentle swells, Kameha felt his stomach churn. “Uncle,” he cried, “I feel sick. Make it stop.”
“Only Kanaloa can make it stop, boy,” Nae‘ole replied. “Sit up and keep your eyes fixed on the far distance. Don’t look down and you’ll feel better soon enough.” Kameha did as he was told. The queasy feeling in his stomach subsided, but only slightly. Then, without a word to Nae‘ole, Kameha stood and inched his way forward to the canoe’s mast. He wrapped his small arms around it and held himself as straight as he could. He set his gaze on a small cloud floating low above the horizon to the north. Now he felt better. Kameha did not let go of the mast for several hours.
The voyage northward up the wet Hāmākua Coast to Upolu Point and southward down the dry Kohala Coast to Alapa‘i’s court at Kawaihae—a distance of about forty miles in haole reckoning—took the better part of three days in the small canoe. Nae‘ole had requested a much larger and swifter double-hulled canoe, manned by two-score warriors, to bring his young charge to court, but King Alapa‘i had refused him. “He is only a little boy,” Alapa‘i said. “When he becomes a big chief, he will be entitled to a big canoe. And besides, afte
r all this time the boy has been away from our court, there is no hurry for his return.”
And so my uncle Kamehameha journeyed to the royal court at Kawaihae in the manner of the lowest-ranking ali‘i. In little Kameha’s eyes, however, the unremarkable vessel dispatched by Alapa‘i was a great ship, and the journey from Waipi‘o to Kawaihae a wondrous adventure. By the end of the first day’s voyaging, even the ocean swells failed to daunt Kameha, who insisted on riding all the way forward in the canoe. He laughed as the prow rose and fell, slapping the waves and sending great sprays of water into the air around him.
More wondrous still to Kameha was the reaction of the people when the canoe touched the shore at Kauhola Point, near Nae‘ole’s village of Hālawa. Villagers rushed to the beach, wailing greetings to their chief, and prostrated themselves as Nae‘ole stepped from the canoe and lifted Kameha over the side and set him on the sand.
“Why are they doing that, Uncle?” Kameha asked.
“They are kānaka; we are ali‘i,” Nae‘ole replied. “It is a sign of their respect for us, boy.”
Without lifting his chin from the sand, a little boy about Kameha’s age looked up at him from under knitted eyebrows and grinned. Kameha smiled at him in return. “Do not acknowledge that kanaka child,” Nae‘ole said sternly. “It is kapu for him to look upon you. When he has grown bigger, he could be severely punished for such a transgression. You must not encourage this behavior.” Kameha quickly looked away.
In the courtyard of Nae‘ole’s hale in Hālawa that night, Kameha feasted as he never had before. Nae‘ole’s board was heaped high with yams, sweet potatoes wrapped in banana leaves, various greens, and pig, chicken, and fish, all slow-baked throughout the afternoon in an imu—a shallow pit lined with fire-heated stones, which were covered with ti leaves and then layered over with lau hala mats woven from the leaves of pandanus trees, topped in turn with a thin layer of soil. There were bowls of thick, purple poi, and Kameha’s short, stout fingers flew between his lips, the poi, and the platters of steaming greens and meats as he reveled in abundance such as he had never experienced in all his short life. For dessert, there was kūlolo, grated taro mixed with coconut meat, coconut milk, and sugarcane juice, wrapped in ti leaves, and steamed in the imu.
After the meal, Nae‘ole called for ‘awa and talked and laughed with his kinsmen. Kameha tried to listen, but at last, with his belly full, his fingers sticky, and his lips still dripping from the sweet kūlolo, he toppled over into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, Kameha followed Nae‘ole back to the beach, where the two warriors were already waiting by the canoe. The villagers they encountered along the trail prostrated themselves, as they had the previous afternoon. This time, Kamehameha was careful not to look at them.
Later that day, the canoe rounded Upolu Point, the Big Island’s northernmost extension. Kameha spied the cloud-shrouded summit of Mt. Haleakala in the distance across the ‘Alenuihāhā Channel. “What land is that, Uncle?” he asked.
“That is the island of Maui,” Nae‘ole replied.
“Is it as beautiful as our island?”
“In its own way, yes,” Nae‘ole said.
“Who lives there?” Kameha asked. “People like us?”
“The Maui people live there,” said Nae‘ole. “They are like us, but in their own way.”
“I will go there one day,” Kameha said.
The next day, as the sun sank toward the endless ocean’s horizon, the voyagers sighted the beach at Kawaihae. The two warriors, eager to be home again, whooped as they paddled hard for shore. A brisk trailing breeze filled the canoe’s sail as the men’s paddles sliced the water, and the small craft shot forward on gentle swells rolling toward the beach. About twenty yards from shore, the warriors paddled harder still and caught a small wave that lifted the canoe on a cushion of foam. Kameha, riding in front, howled with delight as canoe’s prow rose and surged through the air before dropping back into the water with a hard slap. Nae‘ole and the two warriors laughed with him. Riding a gale of surf and laughter, the small canoe planed onto the beach, coming to an abrupt halt as its outrigger pontoon dug into the sand. Kameha tumbled over the prow, landing on his back. Nae‘ole hurried to his side and bent over him with concern. The little boy grinned up at Nae‘ole. Kamehameha would have been laughing still if the force of his landing had not driven the air from his lungs.
“Come,” Nae‘ole said, lifting Kameha to his feet. “Shake the sand out of your malo. It is time for you to meet your parents and your mō‘ī.”
The sunset’s afterglow was deepening to darkness when Nae‘ole and Kamehameha reached the great hale of Alapa‘i‘nui, king of Hawai‘i. The high, windowless, thatched structure loomed in the gathering shadows like a low hill. Kameha had never seen a house so large. A single doorway, the only opening in the hale’s four walls, framed the faint light from within. Two large, stern-looking men armed with long pololu spears stood guard on either side of the door. They nodded to Nae‘ole and Kamehameha and bid them to pass.
As Kameha stepped across the threshold, he felt the coolness of the hale’s lava-stone floor against his bare feet. Kukui-oil lamps illuminated a large, rectangular room. Burning wicks of kapa cloth guttered in their oil-filled stone basins, sending up curls of smoke that merged into a sooty cloud in the hale’s high rafters. The illumination in the room ebbed and flowed with the lamps’ fluttering flames, darting into the corners and receding from them. Grass freshly spread across the stone floor softened his tread.
A low voice spoke from the shifting shadows at the room’s far end. “Come forward, boy. Let me see you.” At first, Kameha could see no one in the wavering light. Then he made out an indistinct form recumbent on a thick, plaited mat.
“It is your mō‘ī, Alapa‘i‘nui,” Nae‘ole whispered. “Show him respect as the common folk show respect for us.” This time, Kameha did not question Nae‘ole. He inched his way toward the king with his head lowered, and then threw himself flat on his belly before Alapa‘i and pressed his nose to the floor stones. He kept his eyes tightly shut.
“Ah, I see you have already learned respect for your superiors, boy,” Alapa‘i said. “Now get up so I can have a better look at you.” Sensing that it would be impertinent to stand higher than the reclining monarch of all Hawai‘i, Kameha levered himself off the stones, and, without rising fully, sat in front of Alapa‘i with his legs crossed. Now, with his head only slightly higher than Alapa‘i’s, he looked directly into the king’s eyes.
Even though Kameha had been careful not to rise to his full four-foot, five-inch height, Alapa‘i could see that he was already both exceptionally tall and broad-shouldered for a boy barely six years old. “You are a sturdy child,” the king said.
Embarrassed, Kameha bowed his head. Nevertheless, he continued to examine the king from under his lowered eyelids. The man Kamehameha saw before him was still in his prime, but already in decline. Prolonged peace was softening Alapa‘i, both in body and intellect. Where Alapa‘i’s skin had once been taut over a warrior’s hard muscles, now it was soft over an idle man’s mantle of fat. Once his eyes had been hard as stones; now they were turning rheumy from too much ‘awa drinking. Alapa‘i’s mind had once been occupied with plans of conquest and stratagems of war. Now he was preoccupied with placating his various chieftains while he played one against another to maintain his power. Kameha, of course, could not have grasped all this at his young age, but he must have sensed some of it, for he later told my father, “There was nothing much remarkable about old King Alapa‘i when I first met him.”
Alapa‘i suspected that Kameha was somehow taking his measure. “Am I so strange to look at, boy?” he asked. Startled, Kameha looked away. His eyes settled on a carved wooden figure atop a pole directly behind the king. From its feet to its shoulders, the carving was a man. Its legs, arms and torso were thick and powerful. Its manhood was unmistakable. The figure’s hands, held at its sides, were open but tensed as if ready to reach out
suddenly. Above the carving’s squared shoulders all resemblance to a human being ceased. The head was hugely disproportionate to the body, and grotesque. Elongated nostrils flared above a gaping, tooth-filled mouth that overran the figure’s cheeks with a cruel grimace. Eyes that seemed to meet at the bridge of the thing’s nose and wrap around its head to where its ears should have been cast a baleful stare, its fierceness heightened by the stone lamps’ wavering light.
Kamehameha could not take his eyes off it. “What is that?” he blurted.
Alapa‘i laughed, and now his smile was genuine again. “Ah, that is Kūkā‘ilimoku, our war god,” he replied. “He protects me here in my hale. Are you not afraid of him boy?”
Kamehameha regarded the king very seriously. “If he protects you, I do not fear him.” Kameha said.
Alapa‘i sat up and clapped his hands. “Well spoken, boy,” he said. “One day, perhaps, Kūkā‘ilimoku will protect you as well.”
Now Alapa‘i looked back over his shoulder toward the rear of the hale. “Nephew, niece,” he said, “come here and welcome your son to court.”
A man and woman whom Kameha had not previously noticed stepped forward into the light. The man was tall and muscular. The woman was shapely, but beginning to thicken about the waist. “Boy, this is your father, Keoua Kalanikupuapa‘ikalaninui,” Alapa‘i said. “And this is your mother, Keku‘iapoiwa.”
Keku‘i held out her arms. Kameha hesitated and looked back at Nae‘ole, who nodded to him. Slowly, he stepped forward into his mother’s waiting embrace. Keku‘i bent low to hug Kameha and pulled him to her breast, sobbing softly. Kameha held himself stiffly as Keku‘i’s warm tears fell on his shoulder. Keoua, at Keku‘i’s side, placed one hand on Kameha’s head. Kameha stood very still.
Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii Page 3