During this period at Kawaihae, Kiwala‘ō and Kamehameha often faced each other as opposing “generals” in mock battles. Though these were sham fights, they were rough and tumble. Opponents hurled blunted spears at each other with real force. Serious injury was always a risk for warriors who failed to dodge or catch these weapons, and sometimes they died of their wounds. The battles were not open-ended. They would conclude at fixed times, such as the moment when the orange rim of Kāne’s setting sun first touched the ocean’s horizon. Each side commenced these frays with an equal number of men. The side with the most able-bodied combatants at a fight’s end was declared the winner. In addition to providing a means for warriors to sharpen their fighting skills during intervals between actual warfare, the mock battles helped identify the most skilled fighters. These men would advance to positions of leadership within a chief’s forces when real fighting commenced.
Kamehameha and Kiwala‘ō took care not to confront each other directly during these martial contests. Both understood that Kalani‘ōpu‘u would be most unhappy if either of them harmed the other. The two cousins were fiercely competitive nonetheless. They would both range the mock battlefield, exhorting their warriors to ever-greater efforts, intervening in the fighting here and there to turn the advantage to their respective sides. And though they avoided throwing spears at each other, they often hurled taunts.
“Your people are fighting like old men,” Kiwala‘ō shouted across the field at Kameha one afternoon.
“The way my people are fighting, they will more likely live to be old men than yours,” Kamehameha shouted back.
“Your people will live to be old men because they run away,” Kiwala‘ō answered, throwing a spear at the nearest opposing warrior, who dodged it handily.
“My people will live to be old men because they do not stand in front of your spears like breadfruit trees,” Kameha replied.
With both sides evenly matched at the outset, Kamehameha’s and Kiwala‘ō’s respective teams lost as often as they won. And it was through these mock clashes that Kamehameha came to a grudging respect for his cousin. “Kiwala‘ō is courageous,” he told my father. “I would not worry about fighting at his side.”
While Kamehameha and Kiwala‘ō waged sham battles, Kalani‘ōpu‘u prepared for real warfare. Undisputed rule of the Big Island was not enough for him. Almost as soon as he had dispatched Keawe‘ōpala, he set his sights on Maui. He ordered his lieutenant, Puna, to muster thousands of warriors in northern Kohala and assemble a fleet of war canoes to carry them across the ‘Alenuihāhā Channel. “We will descend upon Maui like a powerful storm, Puna,” Kalani‘ōpu‘u exulted. “And no one will be able to stop us!”
There was one who tried to stop Kalani‘ōpu‘u: his senior wife, Kalola, the full sister of Maui’s reigning king, Kamehameha‘nui, and his younger brother, Kahekili. “Why do you go to make war on my own brothers, your own son’s uncles?” she demanded. Kalani‘ōpu‘u, who was taking his ease in his hale, where he was sheltering from the muggy, mid-afternoon heat of the Kohala Coast, frowned at his wife, who knelt before him. “Why can’t rule of Hawai‘i be sufficient for you, Kalani?” Kalola pleaded, crying now. Her tears were to no avail.
Glowering at Kalola now, Kalani‘ōpu‘u retorted, “It is my decision, and it is not your place to question it!”
Kalola rose from the floor, sobbing. “I will not go with you to Maui to make war on my own brothers,” she cried. “And you will not take Kiwala‘ō there to make war on his own uncles.”
“Come with me or not, it is your choice,” Kalani‘ōpu‘u replied with an indifferent shrug. “As for Kiwala‘ō, he is not ready for serious battle. He will stay here, with you.”
So Kiwala‘ō remained behind, as did Kamehameha and my father. “Kalani‘ōpu‘u could not very well take Kameha to war with him if he was not taking his own son,” my father explained. “And of course, if my older brother could not go, then neither could I.”
Kalani‘ōpu‘u resolved matters by elevating Kamehameha and Kiwala‘ō to chiefly status, bedecking them with magnificent feather robes—’ahu’ula—and imposing feathered helmets. He presented them with these treasured items during a ceremony at Kawaihae, and invested Kiwala‘ō and Kamehameha as the high chiefs of the Ka‘ū and Kohala districts, respectively. These land dispositions reaffirmed the paternal legacies of both young men, since Ka‘ū had long been Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s fiefdom, while Kameha’s father, Keoua, had been the high chief of Kohala. Kalani‘ōpu‘u dispatched Kamehameha and Kiwala‘ō to administer their own districts during his absence at Maui.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s first foray against Maui yielded an easy conquest. Landing at Hana in eastern Maui, he met little opposition. He occupied Hana and the neighboring Kipahulu District and took possession of a fort on Kauwiki Hill, a supremely strong defensive position overlooking the harbor. Kalani‘ōpu‘u installed Puna as governor of the two districts, and once he was satisfied that everything was in order administratively, returned to Hawai‘i.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u had caught Kamehameha‘nui napping, but the king of Maui did not slumber for long. Gathering warriors from throughout his own island and the nearby islands of Moloka‘i and Lanai, he launched a furious assault on the Hawai‘ians. After several battles in which Kamehameha‘nui’s forces triumphed, Puna withdrew his surviving warriors to the fort at Kauwiki, where they resisted all further attempts to dislodge them. Weary of bloodshed and tired of the prolonged siege, Kamehameha‘nui finally broke it off, leaving the Hawai‘ians to their own devices in Hana. “Let Kalani‘ōpu‘u have this little bite,” he is said to have told his lieutenants. “No matter how hard he tries, he cannot swallow the rest of our island.”
While Puna fought with Kamehameha‘nui for control of Hana and East Maui, Kalani‘ōpu‘u faced a struggle of his own at home. Ke‘eaumoku, evidently dissatisfied with his own lot once again, revolted. Many years later, no one could really explain why the mercurial Ke‘eaumoku had gone to war against his mō‘ī. “Kalani‘ōpu‘u had treated him fairly when he redistributed the Big Island’s land after Keawe‘ōpala’s death,” my father said. “He gave Ke‘eaumoku and his brothers all they had wanted, and more.” Indeed, Kalani‘ōpu‘u had extended their holdings well northward along the Kona Coast toward Kohala, an enlargement that encompassed several valuable fishponds. Ke‘eaumoku’s half-brothers, Kame‘iamoku and Kamanawa, were content enough with this arrangement. “Perhaps Ke‘eaumoku did not want to share with them,” my father speculated.
Crossing over Mt. Kohala, Ke‘eaumoku and his people occupied some land overlooking the sea between Pololū and Honokāne. Throwing up a makeshift fort of tree branches at the top of a cliff, Ke‘eaumoku claimed this place and the surrounding countryside on the island’s rainy side for himself.
If an easy life on Hawai‘i’s northeastern coast, where almost anything will grow, was Ke‘eaumoku’s hope, he was destined to be disappointed. Knowing that his continued hold on the Big Island depended on his subjects’ conviction that he would brook no opposition, Kalani‘ōpu‘u moved swiftly against the rebellious chief. Collecting a force of several thousand warriors, he followed Ke‘eaumoku over the mountains, put his foe’s hastily built fort to the torch, and defeated the rebels after a fierce fight. Kalani‘ōpu‘u surely would have killed Ke‘eaumoku then if he could have, but his quarry escaped.
Leaving nothing to chance, Ke‘eaumoku had directed his people to make a rope long enough and strong enough to lower him from the top of the cliff to the sea below. When it was clear that the battle was irretrievably lost, Ke‘eaumoku tied one end of the rope around his waist and ordered several men to lower him to the small, sandy cove at the base of the pali. One of his men had earlier beached a small sail canoe there.
Well concealed by the pall of smoke that now covered the hill, Ke‘eaumoku’s escape went undetected by Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s warriors. His own eyes stinging from the smoke, Kalani‘ōpu‘u reached the edge of the cliff just i
n time to see his enemy putting to sea.
Ke‘eaumoku fled to Maui, where he was given refuge by Kamehameha‘nui, who welcomed him as a fellow enemy of Kalani‘ōpu‘u. Soon after his arrival, Ke‘eaumoku was strongly attracted to one of the Maui king’s wives, Nāmāhana. The attraction was mutual, and after Kamehameha‘nui became ill and died later that same year, she and Ke‘eaumoku “married.” Their union sorely displeased Kamehameha‘nui’s younger brother and successor Kahekili, who wanted his own half-sister Nāmāhana as an accessory to the throne he had just inherited.
Oblivious to Kahekili’s displeasure, Ke‘eaumoku and his new bride established their own court at Waihee, amid Nāmāhana’s landholdings on Maui’s northeast coast. The country there was well watered, the soil was rich and productive, and the fishponds well-stocked. Ke‘eaumoku and Nāmāhana lived lavishly at Waihee and shared their bounty with many visitors. Kahekili, who meanwhile had set up his own court at nearby Wailuku, tolerated them.
Ke‘eaumoku and Kahekili eventually had a bloody falling out. After several days of brutal fighting, Kahekili’s warriors expelled Ke‘eaumoku and his people, who fled to Ka‘anapali on Maui’s west coast, and then to the smaller neighboring island of Moloka‘i. Once more, Kahekili pursued them. Ke‘eaumoku escaped again, and this time he and Nāmāhana fled to Hana, where they were welcomed and given refuge by the new governor, Mahihelelima, who had recently replaced Puna in that post.
“Mahihelelima did not bother to consult with Kalani‘ōpu‘u about this,” my father told me. “If he had, Kalani‘ōpu‘u surely would have ordered him to send Ke‘eaumoku away.” But by the time Kalani‘ōpu‘u learned that Ke‘eaumoku and Nāmāhana were sheltering at the fort on Kauwiki Hill, his anger at his sometime ally and sometime adversary had cooled and he decided to let the matter go.
It was at Kauwiki, in the year of 1768 by haole reckoning, that Nāmāhana bore Ke‘eaumoku a daughter. They named the baby Ka‘ahumanu.
Kaupō, Maui 1775
Ambitious to expand his holdings on Maui, still angered by the defeat that Kamehameha‘nui had inflicted on Puna some nine years earlier, and thwarted from moving northward from Hana by Kahekili’s forces, Kalani‘ōpu‘u attacked Kaupō, southwest of Hana. Having first demanded that the Kaupō’s chiefs swear loyalty to him—a demand they rejected—he landed at Kalaeokilio Point and led his forces in a bloody rampage through the defenseless district. Pillaging as they went, Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s warriors razed whole villages, destroyed taro patches, clubbed simple farmers and fishermen to death, and ravished their women.
Kahekili had continued his late brother’s policy of tolerating the presence of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s people at Hana. As long as they kept to themselves, the new king of Maui was content to leave them unmolested. He had not even bothered to pursue Ke‘eaumoku when he finally took refuge there. But news of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s depredations in Kaupō roused him. Mustering thousands of warriors along the length of the Maui coast from Wailuku to Wailua, he sent them south under his leading general, Kāne‘olaelae, with orders to expel the intruders from Kaupō, and, if possible, drive them from his island once and for all. As they entered Kaupō, even the most hardened of Kahekili’s men were shocked at the devastation wreaked by Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s people, and they fell upon the marauders lusting for their blood. Kamehameha and Kekūhaupi‘o nearly paid for Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s wanton pillaging with their own lives.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u had summoned Kameha and his kahu Kekūhaupi‘o from Hawai‘i to join him in Hana for the assault. My father came as well. Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s own son Kiwala‘ō had remained behind, still forbidden by Kalola from taking part in any assault on the people of her beloved home island of Maui.
Kamehameha did not approve of his uncle’s plans to invade Kaupō. “Uncle, the people of Kaupō have done nothing to offend you. Why do you make war on them?” Kameha asked Kalani‘ōpu‘u one night, soon after he had arrived in Hana.
Kamehameha and Kekūhaupi‘o were sitting with the mō‘ī of the Big Island in the courtyard of his hale on Kauwiki Hill. Kalani‘ōpu‘u was angered by his nephew’s challenge.
“They have refused me allegiance,” Kalani‘ōpu‘u replied sharply, “and that is offense enough!”
Kameha ignored his uncle’s irritation and pressed on. “But Uncle, they have not provoked you. The god Kūkā‘ilimoku may not help you in this fight. He may see it as unworthy.”
At this, Kalani‘ōpu‘u jumped to his feet and loomed over Kamehameha, who remained motionless, cross-legged, and concentrating intently now on his own lap. “Do not question my judgment,” he shouted. “I am your mō‘ī. I will go where I will. And you shall go with me if I so command it, and command it I do!”
“Kameha was deeply embarrassed,” my father recounted. “He had thought that our uncle’s affection for him was such that he could freely share his doubts with him. But now he understood that he had presumed too much. He never challenged Kalani‘ōpu‘u to his face again. And of course, he went on that raid to Kaupō.”
My father did not accompany him, however. “You will stay here at Kauwiki,” Kameha told him. “Our uncle will not miss you. The god Kūkā‘ilimoku will not bless this raid, and there is no point in bringing his terrible wrath down upon both of us.”
The god’s wrath nearly fell upon Kekūhaupi‘o amid a tangle of sweet potato vines in a sloping field above Kalaeokilio, where Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s war fleet was drawn up on a wide, black-sand beach in the lee of the point.
Like Kalani‘ōpu‘u, Kāne‘olaelae came by sea. He landed his forces unseen at Kamanawa Bay, just to the east of Kalaeokilio Point. Deploying his warriors from Waipu cliff on the west to Pahonu on the east, Kāne‘olaelae led them uphill through the sweet potato vines towards Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s forces. They affixed sweet potato leaves in their hair and moved slowly and stealthily, advancing in a low crouch, using the potato plants for cover. They held their war clubs low to the ground and trailed their spears behind them. Their bobbing, leaf-cloaked heads barely topped the vines. To observers mauka, the line of oncoming warriors seemed nothing more than a wave among the leaves, rolling slowly uphill toward them before the prevailing onshore wind. “We didn’t see them until they were upon us,” Kamehameha told my father afterwards.
The soft rippling among the leaves was replaced by a howling surge of human flesh as Kāne‘olaelae’s people suddenly rose out of the sweet potato field, screaming and brandishing their weapons. Thinking they were under attack by the field’s guardian spirits, Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s warriors turned and fled uphill. Kāne‘olaelae’s men gave chase and cut the Hawai‘ians down as they ran, impaling them with spears and felling them with their war clubs. The battle soon devolved into a chaotic melee as attackers closed and intermingled with defenders in hand-to-hand combat. No match for the furious warriors of Maui, Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s men died in great numbers. Those who were not killed outright were dragged wounded and bleeding from the battlefield by their assailants, for later sacrifice to Kahekili’s war god.
Amid the carnage, the confusion of battle became Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s ally. Dodging spears and eluding several oncoming foes, he ran down the slope into the sweet potato field, whirled about, and called out to his surviving warriors, “On me, men of Hawai‘i!” Fall back to the canoes!” The Hawai‘ians need no encouragement. Abruptly breaking off contact with Kāne‘olaelae’s men, they ran pell-mell down the hill with their would-be assailants in hot pursuit. Kekūhaupi‘o and Kamehameha had become separated in the fierce fighting and were among the last to withdraw. Keeping their faces to their foes, they backed slowly downhill through the sweet potato vines.
Though this was Kamehameha’s first taste of real battle, it felt familiar to him. Attackers hurled spears at him from all sides, just as his opponents had in so many mock fights before. And as he had so many other times, he dodged their missiles, or knocked them down and picked them up and hurled them back with brutal force. Whenever they found their targets, they st
ruck with lethal effect.
Realizing that they were doing little more than re-arming Kamehameha at their own painful expense, the warriors of Maui ceased throwing spears at him. Now, brandishing their weapons while being careful to keep out of his range, they began to encircle him. Still facing his assailants, and menacing them with his one remaining spear, he retreated deeper into the sweet-potato field, but more swiftly now, high-stepping to clear the vines. The Maui warriors rushed forward, trying to stay out of spear range yet still moving fast enough to get behind him. But as the men on the flanks rushed to close the circle, they tripped and stumbled in the vines. Kamehameha continued to outdistance them.
Now, out of the corner of his eye, Kameha saw a commotion to his left. Kekūhaupi‘o, who had been retreating before another band of Maui men, had himself become entangled in the vines and was down on one knee, struggling to regain his footing. Several enemy warriors were closing on him. Abruptly, Kamehameha changed direction and raced across the hillside toward his kahu. His sudden move caught the nearest of his foes off guard and he easily eluded them. One of Kekūhaupi‘o’s assailants saw Kameha approaching, and turning toward him, he raised his war club. Kamehameha leaped into the air, and with all the compounded force of his momentum and his own strength, hurled his spear at the man. The spear struck the Maui warrior in his chest, piercing him through and propelling him backwards into the potato plants. Kameha never broke stride. The mortally wounded man had barely struck the ground when Kamehameha ripped the war club from his still-outstretched hand and rushed at the other enemy warriors, laying about in all directions as he hurtled forward. The air was rent with the terrible sound of cracking skulls and the shrill cries of dying men as Kameha’s blows struck home. Kekūhaupi‘o, meanwhile, had regained his feet. Now, as his erstwhile attackers backed away before Kamehameha’s furious assault, Kekūhaupi‘o struck them from the rear, spearing one man, gutting a second with his dagger, and breaking the neck of a third with his hands. In short order, moaning men writhing in their own blood surrounded Kamehameha and his kahu.
Once There Was Fire Page 17