“Kalani,” he said, “do not let all of our people come ashore yet, lest we all become trapped on this beach. I fear our enemies have cunningly concealed themselves. I will lead some people mauka to see whether this is so. Meanwhile, it would be well for you to remain close to your own canoe.” Gathering a dozen warriors, Mulihele ordered them to search the hillside for concealed enemies. Moving quietly with spears and clubs at the ready, the men soon disappeared from sight amid the thick foliage. On the beach, ringed protectively by his warriors, Kalanimālokuloku watched and waited.
Sometime later, two of the warriors returned, holding a frightened commoner between them. “This kanaka claims there are no Maui fighters here, Lord,” said one of the warriors as they shoved the maka‘āinana man toward Kalanimālokuloku. The man fell to the ground at Kalanimālokuloku’s feet and pressed his forehead into the sand, not daring to look up. He shook with fear.
Kalanimālokuloku regarded the shivering commoner sadly. He recalled the depredations Kalani‘ōpu‘u had visited upon the people of Maui. “That man expected me to use him just as badly,” he told me later. “And that I would not do.”
Kalanimālokuloku spoke gently to the cowering Maui man, but loudly enough so that all his assembled warriors could hear. “Go back to your own people now,” he said. Tell them that no harm will come to them from us.” The man darted an astonished look at the ali‘i chieftain who stood over him, then averted his eyes and began backing away on his hands and knees. When he had put a respectful distance between himself and Kalanimālokuloku, he stood and ran toward the hillside, rushing unseeing past more returning Hawai‘ian warriors as he fled.
Now Kalanimālokuloku spoke to his own people. “My own brother, your lord, Kamehameha, has forbidden the nobles of Kona and Kohala to molest any commoners who are engaged in peaceful activities. As Kamehameha has ordered there, so let it be here,” he said. “From this day forward, no warriors of Hawai‘i shall beat, rob or otherwise assault any Maui kanaka who poses them no threat or harm. Nor shall any of our warriors cut their sugar cane, steal their pigs, destroy their taro fields, take their canoes, burn their hales, or in any other way interfere with their livelihoods. From this day forward, all such acts are kapu, on pain of death.”
Word of Kalanimālokuloku’s decree soon spread among the villagers of the occupied districts of Hana and Kipahulu. Some of Kalanimālokuloku’s men, accustomed as they had become to despoiling the Maui people at will during Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s time, greeted this kapu with consternation and resentment. It was not long before a warrior violated it. This man took some yams from a villager’s larder. When the commoner objected, the warrior cuffed him about the head. The people of the village complained to Mulihele and the warrior was brought before Kalanimālokuloku at Kauwiki. His justice was swift. “You ignored the kapu which I proclaimed to all of our warriors. I said then that the penalty for violating this kapu would be death, and so die you shall. Mulihele, see to this at once, and be sure to make a spectacle of it.”
Mulihele led the unfortunate man away. He was executed within the hour by Mulihele’s own hand as Kalanimālokuloku and several hundred of his warriors looked on. From that day forward, no Hawai‘ian dared lift a hand against the villagers.
Accustomed as they were to abuse and worse by the warriors of the Big Island, the maka‘āinana of those districts were very grateful to Kalanimālokuloku. They began calling him by a new name: Keli‘imaika‘i, the good chief. My father was proud to be so regarded by the people of Maui, and thereafter took this name as his own. Word of my father’s kindly treatment of the common people soon spread to Maui’s other districts. This, of course, mattered not to the chieftains of Maui.
“Quick, conceal yourself among those ka‘e‘e vines and ti plants,” Mulihele urged Keli‘imaika‘i. “Kamohomoho’s people will soon be upon us.” My father needed no urging and soon his yellow and red feather cloak was hidden behind the foliage. Satisfied, Mulihele crouched and gathered foliage around himself as well. Even as he watched for approaching enemy warriors, he hoped that in their hot-blooded haste the Maui people would pass them by.
Kamehameha’s assessment of Kalanikūpule had been correct. He was young and not yet well versed in the ways of war, but his general, Kamohomoho, was battle-tested. Several years older than Kalanikūpule, he had fought against the Hawai‘ians during Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s invasions of Maui. Kalanikūpule was not so inexperienced as to place excessive confidence in himself and soon after he learned that Keli‘imaika‘i had invaded Hana, he sent Kamohomoho to push the Hawai‘ians back into the sea. Kamohomoho set off from Wailuku with a few hundred warriors, gathering more to him as he and his men moved overland to Wailua. From there, Kamohomoho and his people, who now numbered some five thousand, struck out for Hana. Kamohomoho fully expected to find Keli‘imaika‘i and his warriors there, ensconced in the old fortress on Kauwiki Hill, where the Hawai‘ians had taken refuge in years past. But he could not keep his movements secret from Keli‘imaika‘i. The country people of the Hana district warned their “good chief” of the threat soon after Kamohomoho and his men departed Wailua.
“Kamohomoho’s people were more numerous than ours,” my father said. “I knew that we could defend ourselves for a time at Kauwiki, but that in the end it would surely become a trap. So I ordered our people to withdraw down the coast.” Keli‘imaika‘i and his warriors moved to Lelekea in the Kipahulu district, where they waited. “I should have withdrawn our people to Hawai‘i then,” my father told me ruefully. “But my pride would not allow it.”
Encountering no Hawai‘ians at Hana and learning from villagers there that Keli‘imaika‘i and his people had decamped down the coast, Kamohomoho marched his warriors overland from Hana, keeping well mauka of the ocean. “He thought to gain advantage over us by attacking from high ground,” my father said, “but we prepared a surprise for him.”
On Mulihele’s advice, Keli‘imaika‘i arrayed his people along the sides of the lower reaches of the gully of the Alelele Stream that the Maui warriors would have to descend to reach Lelekea. “We turned their high ground into low ground and we gained the early advantage,” said my father. When the first of Kamohomoho’s fighters reached them, the Hawai‘ian warriors rose from hiding places on both sides of the gully and attacked them with slings and spears, and many of the Maui warriors fell, injured or mortally wounded. Mauka of the initial skirmish, Kamohomoho saw what was transpiring below and ordered his people to scale the sides of the gully. With their greater numbers, they overwhelmed the Hawai‘ians, pushing them off the heights and into the gully. The survivors fled to Lelekea and their canoes, but Keli‘imaika‘i was not among them.
Keli‘imaika‘i and Mulihele remained with the Hawai‘ian rear guard in the thick of the fighting as their people withdrew. When at last they broke off the fight, they became separated from their comrades in the confusion of the general retreat, and now they were alone in the gully. Keli‘imaika‘i and Mulihele could hear enemy warriors calling to each other as they drew nearer. Now they heard a rustling in the thick vegetation behind them. Mulihele spun around on one knee and readied his spear. A villager emerged from the undergrowth and threw himself to the ground before Mulihele. Then he raised himself to a crouch, and pressing a finger to his lips, gestured at Mulihele and Keli‘imaika‘i to follow him.
“That kanaka knew I was there all the time,” my father told me. He chuckled as he said this. From the distant vantage point of many years, he found this amusing. There was, however, no amusement to be had in the moment.
The villager turned, and keeping low to the ground, pushed his way into the dense foliage and soon disappeared from sight. Mulihele and Keli‘imaika‘i followed him. The man led them to a narrow trail, barely discernible amid the tangle of vines and bushes, just below the brow of the gully. “As we followed the commoner along the trail, we could hear the Maui warriors in the gully below us, but we could not see them, nor they us,” my father said. “In any case, their e
yes were not on the higher ground, intent as they were upon reaching Lelekea Bay before any of our people could make good their escape.” The Maui fighters passed below, their voices fading as they went. Then there was only silence.
The trail led over the top of the gully and down into an adjacent ravine through which trickled a small stream. The villager, Keli‘imaika‘i, and Mulihele followed this stream makai to the sea. From there, the man led my father and his kahu at a quick trot along a black-sand beach to his own fishing village at Waiuha Bay. Dusk was gathering as the three men reached the village, which consisted of little more than three or four hales and a canoe shed. No one emerged from their hales to greet them. Now the commoner prostrated himself before Keli‘imaika‘i and Mulihele once again. “Lords, you must go, and quickly, before the lord, Kamohomoho, comes here with his people,” he said. He was quaking in fear as he spoke to the earth without looking up at my father and his kahu. “We have several canoes, but only one with a sail. Please, take that one and go now.” Without a word, or any gesture of thanks, Keli‘imaika‘i and Mulihele turned away from the man who had just saved their lives. The canoe was a small one with a small sail. “It was fit for common fishing folk,” my father recalled. Common though it may have been, this humble vessel was the only means of return to the Big Island for my father and Mulihele. They pushed it into the water, jumped in, and paddled away in the gathering darkness.
It took my father and Mulihele the better part of two days to cross the ‘Alenuihāhā Channel in the small sail canoe, which had never been intended for anything other than close-in coastal voyaging. By the time they reached Kohala, Kamehameha had every reason to believe they had been slain. None of the surviving warriors who reached the Big Island before the two men knew what had become of them during the fighting. My father had sent his wife, Ki‘ilaweau, and my half-brother, the infant Kekuaokalani, back to Hawai‘i before the battle. When there was no news of my father, she and Kameha wailed with grief over his presumed death. And when they learned that my father and Mulihele had landed at ‘Umiwai Bay in Northern Kohala, they wailed again with joy.
Kamehameha and my father were reunited at Hālawa, the ancestral village of Kameha’s beloved first kahu, Nae‘ole. “We suffered a grievous and shameful defeat on Maui, brother,” my father cried as he fell into Kamehameha’s arms. “I have dishonored you,” he wailed.
“There is no shame for you in this defeat, brother, and any dishonor is mine,” Kamehameha said to my father, hugging him close. “It is my fault; I did not send enough people to Maui with you.”
“And yet the blood of so many of our men is on my hands,” cried my father.
At this, Kamehameha—who was proud of the name that the people of Maui bestowed on my father—released him from his tight hold, held him by his shoulders, looked into his eyes, and said grimly, “Their blood will be avenged, Keli‘imaika‘i. Rest assured: One day, their blood will be avenged.”
Soon after his return from Maui, my father took a second wife, my mother, Kaliko‘okalani. Before the year was out, they had their first child: my sister, Ka‘ōanā‘eha.
Kailua, Kona, 1789
The ali‘i Ka‘iana sat cross-legged before Kamehameha, his head slightly bowed, at once a humble supplicant and a prideful prince. “Lord, I beseech you. Grant me refuge here in the land of my noble ancestors,” he said.
Kamehameha narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Tell me why I should grant asylum to one such as you, an ally of our bitter enemy, Kahekili,” he said.
“A former ally of Kahekili’s,” Ka‘iana rejoined. His response was quick and curt, and lacking in appropriate respect.
“Ah, yes,” said Kameha, with a teeth-baring smile. “A former ally.” If he was offended by Ka‘iana’s tone, he did not show it. “Is it true that you joined the O‘ahu nobles who rebelled against Kahekili’s rule there and plotted to kill him?”
“Yes,” said Ka‘iana. “That is true, Lord.” His voice softened again; he sensed that he had somehow offended Kamehameha, the undisputed ruler of Kona and Kohala and pretender to the throne of all Hawai‘i.
“And why did you join with the O‘ahu ali‘i against whom you had previously fought?” Kamehameha inquired.
“I was offended by Kahekili’s cruel treatment of Kahahana, who had served him so well,” Ka‘iana explained. “And I could no longer abide in his service.”
This was in fact unlikely, as Kamehameha and my father had good reason to believe. “We had heard that Ka‘iana boasted of the O‘ahu lands he would gain once Kahekili was slain and the O‘ahu ali‘i were restored to power,” my father said. “His was a rebellion of convenience.”
Kameha glanced at my father. “Indeed,” was all he said. Then he changed the subject. “Is it true that you have sailed to a far-off island and returned with mūk‘e and other haole weapons?”
“Yes, Lord. They are on the haole great canoe, and I would place them at your disposal, and instruct your people in their use—for the benefit of the land of my forebears.”
Kamehameha smiled again. This time, his smile was unforced. “Then welcome to the land of your forebears,” he said.
Ka‘iana had been born in the Hilo district. He was of high chiefly lineage. On his father’s side, he was a great-grandson of Keawe the Great, as was Kamehameha. Through his mother, he was descended from Hilo’s powerful Ī family. Ka‘iana was physically arresting. He stood nearly as tall as Kamehameha, but was more sparingly built. His visage was handsome—angular and chiseled—whereas Kameha’s broad, stern features, though powerfully imposing, might well have been considered homely but for his massive frame. Ka‘iana was always quick to merriment and laughter, where as Kamehameha was habitually solemn and frugal with his smiles. While people who were not close to him or did not know him well approached Kameha with fearful respect, Ka‘iana’s most casual acquaintances almost at once became ardent admirers and were thereafter drawn to him like moths to a flame. Well aware of his physical effect on others, Ka‘iana instinctively sought advantage in it, affecting a regal bearing tempered with noblesse oblige. Others were uncommonly grateful to him for a favorable word or even just a nod and a wink.
Moreover, he could boast experiences unique in the islands. In 1787, two haole ships, the Nootka and the Iphigenia, had landed in Kaua‘i, where he’d been living at the time. The ships’ captains, John Meares and William Douglas, had put in to trade haole manufactures and iron for the usual Hawai’ian provisions—pigs, produce, and fruit. The always-bold Ka‘iana had appealed to Meares to allow him to accompany the Nootka’s crew on their voyage—in this case, to China. His two-year voyage had taken him to the shores of Asia and back, and he’d returned with a substantial store of muskets and ammunition—and the knowledge of their use.
“No Lord, you must pour the gun powder into the muzzle first, and then insert the cartridge,” said Ka‘iana.
Ka‘iana was instructing Kamehameha in the operation of the haole musket. Soon after the Iphigenia’s crew had ferried his store of muskets, powder, and shot to shore, Ka‘iana had gathered Kamehameha and his chieftains—my father among them—in the courtyard of Kameha’s hale at Kailua to instruct them.
First, Ka‘iana had affixed a breadfruit to a sharpened stick he had driven into the ground. He then proceeded to load a musket with an ease acquired through months of practice: extracting a paper cartridge from a metal box that he wore on a haole belt; biting off the cartridge’s twisted end with his teeth; pulling the musket’s hammer part way back; pouring some of the cartridge’s gunpowder into the weapon’s firing pan; closing the lid of the firing pan; pouring the cartridge’s remaining powder down the musket’s barrel, followed by the musket ball; inserting the remaining cartridge paper after it; drawing the ramrod from under the weapon’s muzzle; reversing it; inserting its flat head into the musket barrel and thrusting it home, compacting the paper wad, musket ball, and powder. Then, he returned the ramrod to its place below the muzzle, cocked the hammer, raised the rifle’s
butt to his shoulder, took aim at the breadfruit, and squeezed the musket’s trigger.
All this Ka‘iana accomplished with a motion so fluid that it was difficult for his audience to follow in all of its intricacies. Moreover, whatever understanding they had achieved of this procedure was immediately shattered by the weapon’s sharp report and the spectacle of the breadfruit suddenly exploding, fragments flying in all directions.
Kameha and his people regarded Ka‘iana in stunned silence as the gunfire’s echo faded. “You see, that is how it is done,” Ka‘iana said. He set the weapon down and impaled another breadfruit on the stick. Returning to the assembled chieftains, he asked, “Who will be the first among you to learn how to handle this musket?” He made a great show of slowly pronouncing the word in the haole fashion, having learned much of their language during his two years among them. “Lord?” Ka‘iana bowed slightly to Kamehameha. It was more of a challenge than an invitation.
Kamehameha did not hesitate. “Give me that mūk‘e,” he said, seizing the weapon. Its barrel all but disappeared in his large hand. “I already have several of these that I took from Kāpena Kuke at Kealakekua,” he said. “I have seen them used before against our own people and I have studied them. I know how they work.” As he said this, Kameha gripped the haole weapon as he would a pololū javelin and waved it in Ka‘iana’s face.
Kamehameha failed to impress Ka‘iana, who leisurely undid the cartridge belt at his own waist, took back the musket, and handed the belt to Kamehameha. “First, Lord,” he said, “you must put this on.” Kameha stared at Ka‘iana and then at the belt. Since Kekūhaupi’o’s death, he had become unused to taking direction from others. “Put it on now, Lord,” Ka‘iana said, not at all intimidated. Now Kamehameha fumbled with the brass buckle as he struggled to fasten the belt around his thick waist. The cartridge belt fit, just barely. “Now, Lord,” Ka‘iana said, “take the cartridge from the box.” Once again, he gave the unfamiliar haole word extra emphasis. Kamehameha reached into the box, which was designed for smaller hands, and slowly extracted a cartridge. It slipped from his fingers. Ka‘iana knelt, retrieved it, and without standing again, handed it up to Kameha. “Here, Lord,” he said, grinning.
Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii Page 32