Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii

by Stephen Shender

  My father, Keli‘imaika‘i, was the only man in Kameha’s domains who never added a stone to the new temple. Kamehameha forbade him from working on the heiau.

  “When I saw my brother lift a heavy lava stone for the temple wall to his shoulders, I lifted one myself. I wanted to do my part,” my father said. “But Kamehameha ordered me to set the stone down immediately. ‘One of us must remain pure,’ he told me. ‘You are not to work on this heiau, Keli‘i.’ It was menial work, customarily unfitting for ali‘i of any rank,” my father explained. “Kamehameha insisted that one of us must remain untainted by it for the heiau’s consecration.”

  Kameha ordered two maka‘āinana workers to take away this stone that my father had touched and cast it into the sea well beyond the bay’s confines, so that it would sink far out of sight. “Send it to Kanaloa,” he said.

  The heiau’s foundation stones were laid under the close direction of kāhuna skilled in the arts of designing and building such structures. It was two hundred and twenty-four feet in length and one hundred feet wide, with walls twenty feet high. So expertly did the kāhuna choose the heiau’s stones that even without mortar, its walls and foundation still stand today.

  Once the heiau’s foundation and walls were completed, Kamehameha set his people to work building the structures of the heiau itself: the paehunu, the image fence; the anu‘unu‘u, the oracle tower with its walls surrounding a deep hole for the bones of sacrificial victims; and the hale malu, the shelter house for the kāhuna. This last was built with wood of the ohia tree, which was sacred to the heiau’s god, Kūkā‘ilimoku. Kamehameha himself selected the tree for this purpose. With the help of his closest allies among the Big Island’s chiefs, Kameha carried it from the forested uplands to the temple site. Again, my father had no hand in this work.

  Finished at last, the massive new temple on the brow of the hill over-looking the bay awaited its consecration by human sacrifice. The heiau took its name from the place itself: Pu‘ukoholā, the hill of the whale.

  Despite his advisers’ warnings, Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula construed Kamehameha’s invitation to attend the consecration of the new heiau at Kawaihae as a peace overture. So my cousin Pauli later told me. “Keōua would not believe that Kamehameha was conspiring against him,” he said. “He was convinced that Kameha now understood that any further attempt to dislodge him from Ka‘ū would be futile and wished to put their past enmity behind them.”

  My cousin Pauli was a forlorn figure. Though he was Kamehameha’s son by Kaneikapolei, Kameha had ignored him during his youth. Kameha paid little attention to him when both were at the court of Kalani‘ōpu‘u, who had adopted Pauli as his own son. Pauli remained with Kalani‘ōpu‘u when Kamehameha took up residence in Kohala. Having grown close to his half-brothers, Keōua Red Cloak and Keōuape‘e‘ale, he was with them at the battle of Moku‘ōhai and resided with them at Ka‘ū thereafter. Pauli had no communication with Kamehameha during the extended period of conflict between Kameha and his Ka‘ū cousins. Though Kamehameha later acknowledged Pauli as his son and invited him to court, he remained distant toward him. Kamehameha never admitted Pauli to his inner circle of advisers.

  “When Kamehameha sent Keaweaheulu and Kamanawa to Ka‘ū to invite Keōua to Kawaihae, I too wanted to believe that my father meant well,” Pauli said. “Keōua’s closest advisers were of a different mind. He should have listened to them.”

  Kamehameha’s emissaries landed at Kā‘iliki‘i just above Ka Lae, the southernmost point of Ka‘ū. Keōua Red Cloak was then staying there with his brother, Keōuape‘e‘ale, his council of advisors, Pauli, and his personal guards. “When Keaweaheulu and Kamanawa reached Keōua’s courtyard, they lay down and rolled in the dirt before they crossed the threshold,” Pauli said. “They abased themselves before Keōua in this way to prove that they had come with peaceful intentions.”

  “E Keōua! Our lord, Kamehameha, has built a great new heiau at Kawaihae and he begs you to attend its consecration,” said Keaweaheulu.

  “Why is my presence at Kawaihae so important to my cousin?” asked Keōua.

  “Kamehameha desires an end to strife on our island,” replied Kamanawa. “He dedicates this new heiau to the god Lono and the perpetual peace of Hawai‘i.”

  “E Keōua! You and Kamehameha are our mightiest chiefs,” said Keaweaheulu. “Our lord, Kamehameha, wishes only peace with you. He bids you to join him at the consecration of the new heiau to demonstrate to our people that neither of you wants war.”

  “I thank you for coming all this way. I will give my cousin Kamehameha’s proposal serious thought,” Keōua said. “You must be hungry and thirsty after your long journey,” he continued. He gestured toward two of his personal guards. “Please follow these men,” he said. “They will see that you have food and drink.”

  When the two emissaries were well away and under the guards’ watchful eyes, Keōua turned to his council. “How should I respond?” he asked.

  “Brother, do not trust their sugared words. Kamehameha still means you harm,” said Keōuape‘e‘ale.

  “Kill them at once, Lord,” said Red Cloak’s kahu, Uhai. “Sacrifice their bodies to the god, burn the flesh off their bones, and send them back to Kamehameha.” Murmurs of assent by Keōua’s other advisers greeted this declaration.

  Keōua turned to Pauli. “What say you?” he asked.

  “You have thwarted my own father, Kamehameha, at every turn,” Pauli said. “He must be weary of fighting with you by now. Let us go to Kawaihae and make peace with him.”

  “I agree,” said Keōua. He sent for Kamehameha’s envoys. “One of you may return to Kawaihae and tell my cousin Kameha that I will come there to test his desire for peace. The other will come to Kawaihae with me; it matters not which one,” he told them.

  Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula and his retinue were a splendid sight as they entered the bay at Kawaihae in their double-hulled sailing canoes. Red Cloak stood tall in the center of his own vessel’s deck. He was wearing his finest cloak and helmet; their yellow and red feathers fluttered in a light breeze and flashed in the bright mid-afternoon sunlight. His brother and his closest counselors, high-ranking chieftains all, were arrayed behind him, also in their finest raiment. Keōuape‘e‘ale held a kahili, symbolic of Red Cloak’s rank, high above his head. Kamanawa, who had agreed to travel with Red Cloak, stood to the rear of the platform, closely guarded by one warrior, and flanked by two other men who kept up a slow and steady cadence on knee drums. The canoe’s progress was stately as the shoulders of the paddlers rose and dipped in perfect time with the thump, thump, thump of the drums, which sounded to my father like a beating heart. A second twin-hulled canoe followed closely behind, bearing the remainder of Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula’s entourage, including his half-brother, Pauli.

  Keōua Red Cloak and his people stopped overnight at several villages on their way from southern Ka‘ū to Kawaihae in South Kohala. Each night, when they were sure that Kamanawa could not hear them, Keōua’s advisers implored him to kill Kamanawa and turn back. “I will not slay Kamanawa and I will not turn back,” he replied. “But if it will help you rest more easily, I will make it abundantly clear to my cousin Kamehameha that I am holding his ambassador hostage to his good faith.”

  Kamehameha and all the Kona and Kohala chieftains were waiting on the beach for Keōua Red Cloak. ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake watched from the hillside below the new heiau’s wall. Kamehameha called to Keōua as his canoe approached. “Keōua, my cousin, I welcome you in peace. The new heiau awaits you. Come ashore and we will consecrate it together.”

  “I am coming,” Keōua called back in reply. Then he called out, “See, Kamanawa is with us.” Keōua pointed toward the rear of his canoe’s deck, where Kamanawa still stood close by the warrior assigned to watch him. As he pointed, his chieftains stepped aside to be sure that Kamehameha could both see his envoy and the warrior, who was holding a shark-tooth war club. Kamehameha could also see that this warrior was the only armed m
an on Keōua’s canoe. Now, Keōua called out to Kameha again. “Kamanawa has shared our journey from Ka‘ū as a token of your true, peaceful intentions, Pai‘ea.”

  Ashore, Kamehameha stiffened. As I have said, he suffered only my father and his closest allies to address him by this familiar name. “Red Cloak presumes much,” he muttered through a fixed smile. His chiefly advisers, assembled around him, murmured their concurrence.

  “He holds my brother hostage!” exclaimed Kame‘iamoku.

  “See how Red Cloak’s own brother stands behind him with a kahili,” said Ke‘eaumoku. “He does not come as an ally. He comes as a mō‘ī.”

  “We shall soon disabuse him of that notion,” Kamehameha replied. He turned to Keaweaheulu. “Keawea, signal the men at the heiau to sound their conch shells.”

  Kamehameha had placed a score of men along the top of the heiau’s lower wall. At the prearranged sign from Keaweaheulu, they raised the shells to their lips.

  As the deep calls of the conch shells carried across the water to their canoes, Keōua and his people truly saw the new temple for the first time. “Until that moment, we were all looking at the beach, where Kamehameha and his chieftains stood,” Pauli told me. Keōua in particular had fixed his gaze on Kameha, trying to make out his cousin’s expression. “Now we all raised our eyes to the hillside,” said Pauli. “We were astounded by the size of this new heiau; we had never seen one of its like in Hawai‘i.”

  Though Keōua Red Cloak had keen eyes, and could see that Kamehameha was smiling at him, he had not been able to penetrate his cousin’s expression to read his true mood. But now as his gaze lifted from the shore to the temple walls and then to the heiau platform, where the god’s altar stood, he understood that Kamehameha’s envoys had misled him. For above the altar was the fiercely grinning visage of Kamehameha’s god. “Look there!” Red Cloak shouted to his people. “This heiau is not Lono’s, but Kūkā‘ilimoku’s!”

  Keōua’s cry drew his companions’ eyes to the distant idol at the top of the hill and momentarily distracted the warrior who was guarding Kamanawa. Sensing opportunity, Kamanawa pushed the guard away and dove into the water, escaping with long, powerful strokes even as Keōua turned to order the guard to bring him forward.

  “Kamehameha and his people betray us!” Keōua cried. He rushed to the guard, who had risen unsteadily to his feet, and wrested the shark-tooth club from him. Then he ran to the front of the canoe’s platform. “Look Pai‘ea!” he screamed at his cousin. “See how I, Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula, consecrate your heiau!” Now Keōua reached into his malo, and, extracting his member, sliced off its foreskin.

  Kamehameha and his people looked on with disgust as blood ran freely from Keōua Red Cloak’s mangled penis and fouled the bay’s clear water. For their part, Red Cloak’s people looked on with dread, for they understood what must come next.

  “After that, everything happened very quickly,” my father said.

  Though his men had ceased paddling, a light breeze still played in the sail of Red Cloak’s canoe and the vessel had continued slowly toward shore during his exchange with Kamehameha. It was now within a few strides of the beach through thigh-deep water. Ke‘eaumoku, Kame‘iamoku, and the other chieftains around Kamehameha broke from their mō‘ī and splashed through the water toward the canoe, brandishing spears, clubs, and daggers.

  Keōua’s paddlers made haste to turn the big canoe’s double prows seaward again. They had brought the canoe around broadside to the shore just as the onrushing Hawai‘ians reached it. The men in the closest hull tried to repel the assailants with their paddles, but the Hawai‘ians easily parried their blows and clubbed the men aside. They clambered over the hull and onto the canoe’s center platform, where Keōua still stood in front of his own chieftains. “Even then, Red Cloak was shouting and brandishing his bloody penis at us,” said my father, who had remained on the beach with Kamehameha.

  As Kame‘iamoku, Keaweaheulu, and the others attacked Keōua’s advisers, Ke‘eaumoku and Ka‘iana rushed at Red Cloak, who was still hurling imprecations at his cousin on the beach and did not see them. “Each wanted to be the one to slay Keōua,” my father said. Ke‘eaumoku, who was carrying a short ihe spear, reached him first and plunged the spear into his back. Keōua shrieked and fell to the deck face first. He lay there, both arms splayed out in a spreading pool of blood, quiet at last. Slain to a man, his chieftains and his brother Keōuape‘e‘ale lay sprawled about the deck behind him.

  When the Hawai‘ian chiefs had boarded Keōua’s canoe, the paddlers riding in the hull on the opposite side of the vessel dove into the water and tried to swim to Pauli’s canoe. “They were calling out to us to come to their aid, but already it was too late,” Pauli said. Scores of warriors had gathered on the beach to witness the arrival of Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula and the anticipated reconciliation between the two royal cousins. Now understanding their mō‘ī’s true intent, they swarmed into the water with their clubs and spears and haole daggers and axes. One by one, they hunted down the fleeing canoe paddlers and killed them. Throughout all this, Kamehameha remained at the shore’s edge, his face impassive, his arms folded, as the water lapping at his bare feet turned red.

  Other warriors had launched outrigger canoes and were now paddling hard toward Pauli’s double-hulled canoe. “They were coming on very fast,” said Pauli. “We had no time to escape and no weapons to defend ourselves with.”

  “When Kamehameha saw his people bent on slaying his own true son, who had done nothing wrong,” said my father. “He called an end to it.”

  “Let live!” Kamehameha cried; his voice boomed across the bay. “Let live!”

  ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake, who by now had witnessed much bloodletting among our people and thought themselves inured to it, later professed their horror at the terrible events that had unfolded below them in Kawaihae Bay. Even more unsettling to them was my uncle’s deception of his cousin. “We truly believed that Kamehameha intended to make peace with Keōua,” ‘Olohana said. “We were astonished when we realized that was not his intention.”

  Indeed, Kamehameha’s true intention was a closely held secret, known only to his closest advisers. “I can never share Hawai‘i with Keōua, for he will always scheme against me,” Kameha told my father. “As soon as I turn away from him, he will attack us once more. Too many of our people have already died because of Red Cloak’s aggressions. I will expend no more lives in battle with him.”

  “How can you be sure that Red Cloak will not divine your true purpose and refuse to come to Kawaihae?” my father asked.

  “Red Cloak will come because he will believe that by besting Ka‘iana at Ka‘ū, he has also bested me at last. He will come,” Kameha said, “because he thinks too highly of himself.”

  Kamehameha ordered his people to carry the bodies of Keōua Red Cloak, Keōuape‘e‘ale, and the other slain chieftains up the hill to the Pu’ukoholā Heiau. The next morning, my father, who bore no taint of labor on the heiau, offered them up in sacrifice on the altar of Kamehameha’s god, Kūkā‘ilimoku. The bodies were then deposited in a large imu, its stones already heated to near incandescence. That night, as the imu’s heat seared his enemies’ flesh from their bones, Kamehameha held a great feast for his chieftains, his warriors, and all the men—ali‘i and commoner alike—who had labored to build the great Pu’ukoholā Heiau.

  Kamehameha insisted that Pauli sit close by him, and chew the ‘awa root for him and spit the juice into his own gourd cup. In this way, he recognized Pauli as his true son in front of all of his chiefs. When this ceremony was completed, Kamehameha announced that from thereon, Pauli would be the ali‘i moku of Ka‘ū. He sent Pauli south the next day. It was the greatest and only honor that Kamehameha ever paid to his eldest son.

  Before Pauli departed for Ka‘ū, Kamehameha required one duty of him and the surviving members of Red Cloak’s party. He ordered them to remove the bones of Pauli’s half-brothers, Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula and Keōuape‘e‘ale
, and the other slain Ka‘ū chieftains from the imu and throw them into the deep pit under the heiau’s oracle tower.

  While Kamehameha and my father were celebrating at Kawaihae that night, my mother went into labor at Waimea. In the early hours of the next day, I was born.

  Kawaihae, 1793

  George Vancouver had returned. The minor subaltern of Capt. James Cook’s fatally concluded visit to our islands was now a captain in his own right. Two ships under his command, the Discovery and the Chatham, lay at anchor in the small bay at Kawaihae. Vancouver’s Discovery was not the ship of Cook’s last voyage; it was a newer vessel and the original Discovery’s namesake.

  Kamehameha was then in residence at Kawaihae with my father and all of his chieftains, as well as ‘Olohana, ‘Aikake, Ka‘ahumanu, Lili, Keopuolani, and Ka‘ahumanu’s younger brother, Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku. My mother, my brother, Kekuaokalani, and I were also there. I was barely two years old at the time, a keiki still running naked on the beach behind my eight-year-old brother, but the arrival of Vancouver’s ships and the spectacle that followed are among my earliest childhood memories.

  The ships had arrived early in the morning of February 13, 1793. It was a clear day at Kawaihae and the bay sparkled in the sunlight. The palm tree fronds swayed in a soft breeze, dancing their own gentle hula. Kekuaokalani and Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku ran down to the water’s edge, shouting and gesticulating, and I followed them as quickly as my stubby legs would carry me.

  Declaring the bay kapu to all others, Kamehameha, his chiefs, and chiefesses set out for the ships in two double-hulled war canoes. A third canoe laden with pigs and produce followed. Our war canoes had always seemed the most wondrous of objects to my brother and me, but that day, as we watched them draw near the Discovery, they were suddenly diminished in our eyes. Their hulls lay low in the water alongside the haole vessel. Their masts barely cleared the ship’s deck railing, behind which Vancouver, his officers, and crew stood, regarding Kamehameha and his people from on high.