“Pai‘ea!” Kekūhaupi‘o said urgently. “We must go, now!” Kiwala‘ō and Keawema‘uhili remained seated as Kamehameha clambered to his feet, but the other rainy-side chieftains rose nearly as one and made to block their way. Kekūhaupi‘o jumped between them and Kameha. “This is sacred ground and it is kapu to fight here,” he cried. “Whoever would violate the kapu by attacking my chief will have to come through me!” No one moved.
“Though some of the chiefs may have carried pahoa or even ailon‘e daggers on their persons, none were carrying spears,” said my father. “And no one was willing to risk being the first to close with Kekūhaupi‘o.”
Now Kekūhaupi‘o stepped toward the opposing chieftains, with Kamehameha and my father following. The chieftains slowly made way for them.
“Show those chiefs no concern,” said Kekūhaupi‘o, who led Kamehameha and my father at a rapid, yet controlled pace. “But we must move quickly now. The kapu of Hōnaunau ends at the water’s edge and we must be well away to sea before Keawema‘uhili and his people can follow us.”
“I am not concerned about those rainy-side chiefs, Kekū,” Kamehameha said, striding ahead of his kahu. “We will surely deal with them if it comes to fighting. And it may well come to fighting, for now I fear that there is little chance that my royal cousin will heed anything I have to say about a just land division.” In fact, Kamehameha was to have one last chance to appeal to his hoahānau ali‘i, his royal cousin.
Kiwala‘ō’s mother, Kalola, recently returned from Maui, was greatly distressed by the events at Hōnaunau. Fearful that enmity between her son and Kamehameha would erupt into war, she begged Kiwala‘ō to mollify his cousin. “You must go to Kamehameha at once,” she urged. “Apologize and be reconciled with him.” Thus, the next day, Kiwala‘ō traveled to Ka‘awaloa in an attempt to make amends with Kamehameha.
At once upon meeting, the two cousins fell into each other’s arms and wailed loudly in greeting and then again for the late mō‘ī. “Kiwala‘ō asked Kamehameha’s forgiveness for the ‘unwitting’ insult he had visited upon him and said that he greatly regretted that his cousin had left the ‘awa ceremony so precipitously and had not yet had the opportunity to view Kalani’ōpu’u’s sacred bones,” my father said. “Kameha replied that he bore Kiwala‘ō no ill will and only wished to live in peace with him.”
Then Kamehameha said to Kiwala‘ō, “Cousin, I appeal to you as my mō‘ī to apportion the lands fairly among the chiefs. Then we will surely have peace.”
Kiwala‘ō said something “strange” in reply, according to my father. “He spoke as if he had no control over events, even though he was now the mō’ī of all Hawai‘i.”
“Auhea mai ‘oe e kuu poki‘i,” Kiwala‘ō said. Perhaps we two shall die. “Our makua kāne insists upon a war between us and perhaps we shall both perish in this conflict,” he said.
“The maukua kāne of whom Kiwala‘ō spoke was his and Kamehameha’s own uncle, Keawema‘uhili,” my father said. “He spoke as if Keawema‘uhili was now the Big Island’s mō‘ī and not he. And Kiwala‘ō said nothing about the lands in response to Kamehameha’s appeal.” As Kiwala‘ō took his leave and returned to Hōnaunau, the unresolved issue of the lands hung in the air like the gray pall that clings to the mountainsides above Kailua in the afternoon.
The issue remained unresolved the following day when Kamehameha and the Kona chieftains returned to Honaunau to view Kalani’ōpu’u’s remains. After the mourners’ cacophonous wailing subsided, Kiwala‘ō spoke to the assemblage. “‘Auhea ‘oukou,” he said—hear all. “My father, your late mō‘ī, gave two land bequests, one to my cousin Kamehameha and one to me. To Kamehameha, he gave the lands of Kohala, and I have no right to take this land, for it is his and his alone. To me, he gave all the other lands, and just as I have no right to take the lands of Kohala from Kamehameha, he has no authority to take the rest of the lands from me.” Kiwala‘ō said no more that day about his intentions for the balance of the island’s lands under his domain. The Kona chieftains returned to their encampments around Kealakekua Bay more agitated than before.
“Kiwala‘ō should have granted Kamehameha, the keeper of the war god and beloved nephew of Kalani’ōpu’u, lands beyond Kohala to divide among us,” Ke‘eaumoku exploded. “We must act, and the only way to secure our rights is through war.” Then, pointing at Kamehameha, he concluded, “and the lands shall belong to the victor.”
Even as Ke‘eaumoku exhorted Kameha and his fellow Kona chieftains at Ka‘awaloa, their worst fears were coming true at Hōnaunau. At the urging of Keawema‘uhili, Kiwala‘ō granted all the island’s lands, save Kohala and Ka‘ū, to Keawema‘uhili and his rainy-side allies.
Kiwala‘ō and Keawema‘uhili disposed of the Big Island’s lands in one night at Hōnaunau. “My lord,” said Keawema‘uhili, with the only the most pro forma of acknowledgments of Kiwala‘ō’s high chiefly station, “It is time to divide the lands among the chiefs, as is now your right as mō‘ī. But this is a burdensome responsibility, for inevitably there will be some chiefs who will be displeased with you. Please, permit me to take the burden of their bitterness upon myself. Let me apportion the lands for you.”
“Uncle,” Kiwala‘ō replied, “I will gladly let you undertake this task as my late father’s beloved brother, my only reservation being that some of the Kona lands should be allocated to my cousin Kamehameha, so that he may dispose of them as he wishes among the Kona chiefs.”
Had Keawema‘uhili accepted this suggestion by Kiwala‘ō—and it was no more than a suggestion, not a command—I believe war between Kiwala‘ō and the Kona chiefs could have been avoided. But this was not to be, for Keawema‘uhili scoffed at the very idea. “This was not your father’s instruction,” he said. “When Kalani‘ōpu‘u commanded that Kamehameha should be the keeper of Kūkā‘ilimoku and all of his heiaus, he granted him his ancestral lands of Kohala and no more. He decreed that the remaining lands should be yours, to divide as you see fit. You must not transgress your beloved father’s wishes now, and especially not here, so close by his own bones in the Hale o Keawe.”
“But Uncle,” Kiwala‘ō responded, “how is giving all the lands to you to divide any different from giving some of the lands to Kamehameha to do with them as he wishes?”
“Kamehameha would be acting on his own authority, but it will be known to all that I am merely acting in your name, as your own agent,” Keawema‘uhili replied. “It will be as if you had divided the lands yourself.”
Apparently perceiving no contradiction between Keawema‘uhili’s first assertion and his second—that he would absorb the displeasure of any slighted chiefs on one hand and that he would be acting in Kiwala‘ō’s own name on the other—Kiwala‘ō pronounced himself satisfied with this explanation. “Uncle, I give you permission to apportion the lands in my name,” he said, “save for the lands of Kohala, which are for Kamehameha, and the lands of Ka‘ū, which shall be reserved for my brothers, Keōuape‘e‘ale and Keōua Kūahu’ula. I only command you to ensure that your dispositions will be fair to all the rest.”
“They will be, my lord,” Keawema‘uhili said. “They will be.”
Whether Kiwala‘ō failed to perceive the guile in Keawema‘uhili’s proposal or merely chose to ignore it, I do not know. My father’s explanation was simple and scathing. “Kiwala‘ō was weak-minded,” he said.
Keawema‘uhili’s land dispositions were announced several days later. They were more than “fair” to his rainy-side subalterns, among whom he divided all the lands of the Puna and Hāmākua districts—and the Kona lands. And of course, because Keawema‘uhili announced his land division in the name of Kiwala‘ō, the bitterness of the Kona chiefs fell upon the new mō‘ī. Their course was now set for war.
Most immediately, Kiwala‘ō felt the heated displeasure of his own brother, Keōua Red Cloak. He and his brother Keōuape‘e‘ale had not received any lands from Keawema‘uhili beyond their ancestral lands in the Ka‘
ū District, which was the least prosperous of all the Big Island’s districts. Its lower elevations were arid and windswept. For the people living in Ka‘ū’s coastal villages, it was a long trek mauka to the district’s more fertile uplands, where Lono’s clouds brought rain. The noxious fumes from the sulfuric caldera of Kilauea, where the fire goddess Pele dwelled, blighted the uplands, making them less desirable than the well-watered uplands of the Kona District to the north, a portion of which Keōua Red Cloak and his brother coveted.
After the uproar of the ‘awa ceremony, Keōua Kūahu‘ula and Keōuape‘e‘ale had decamped in haste from Kiwala‘ō’s court at Hōnaunau and taken up temporary residence at a village near the Ka‘ū-Kona border. “They wanted no part in the fighting they were sure would follow,” my father said. The brothers had left a few of their warriors behind. When one of these men arrived with news of Kiwala‘ō’s land division, they hurried back to their half-brother’s side to remonstrate with him. Red Cloak spoke for both of them. First, he asked for part of the lower Kona lands.
“We have no lands in lower Kona,” Kiwala‘ō said. “For all those lands have been distributed.”
Then Red Cloak asked for a portion of the Puna District lands, immediately adjacent to the Ka‘ū district.
“Those lands, too, have all been distributed,” Kiwala‘ō said.
Next, Red Cloak asked for a portion of land in the Hilo district, near Kea‘au. “Those lands are already spoken for,” said Kiwala‘ō. “Nothing remains for us there.”
“Brother,” protested Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula, “you are the mō‘ī of all Hawai‘i. How is it that you—and we in turn—have no lands?”
“Keawema‘uhili has distributed all the lands in my name, save for Kohala, which our father reserved for Kamehameha, and Ka‘ū, which he set aside for you and Keōuape‘e‘ale,” Kiwala‘ō replied. “At least you have Ka‘ū. I have no lands to my own name.”
This was literally true, but meaningless in practice. As the Big Island’s mō‘ī, Kiwala‘ō had no need of lands in his own name because he was entitled to abide wherever he would, whenever he would, and Keoua Red Cloak understood this.
Angered by their older brother’s dissembling, Red Cloak and Keōuape‘e‘ale—who had said nothing throughout this exchange—took curt leave of Kiwala‘ō and returned to their own people near Ka‘ū.
Kalanimālokuloku, as my father was then still called, stumbled through the doorway of the dimly lit hale at Ka‘awaloa, where Kamehameha and Kekūhaupi‘o were conferring with the Kona chieftains. His appearance shocked the chiefs. Even in the weak light of the kukui-oil lamps they could see that his brow was laced with dark streaks of clotted blood. Kalanimālokuloku’s hair was likewise caked with blood. A glancing club blow to his head had opened a deep gash.
“Pai‘ea,” he cried, “Keōua Red Cloak has attacked our people at Ke’ei and slain three of our men.” Kalanimālokuloku swayed unsteadily as he spoke, still dazed from his injury hours after the blow.
Kamehameha rose from his mat and wrapped an arm around his brother’s shoulders, to keep him from falling. “Come sit with us, brother,” he said. “Drink some ‘awa and tell us what has happened.”
Kalanimālokuloku slumped to the hale’s floor and accepted a cup of ‘awa. He took a long drink. “We chiefs were at the shore, riding the waves,” my father said. “When we first saw Keōua Red Cloak and his people approaching in the distance, we thought they were coming to join us in our sport.” But Red Cloak and his men were not garbed for surf riding, which required no more than a simple malo, if that. Instead, they wore their finest feather cloaks and helmets and elaborate necklaces. They carried long pololū spears and clubs. “As they drew nearer,” my father told Kamehameha and the Kona chiefs, “we saw that they were equipped for war. They set upon us suddenly, without provocation.”
The melee that followed was decidedly one-sided, for only Red Cloak’s people were armed. “They attacked us with their clubs and spears. We had nothing to defend ourselves with, other than our own hands,” my father said. My father was fortunate. He was among the people who were farthest removed from the oncoming attackers. “When I saw Red Cloak’s men fall upon our people,” he said, “I ran toward the water. One of Red Cloak’s warriors overtook me and struck me hard with his club, but still I did not stop.”
Dazed and bloodied, my father staggered into the water and threw himself into an oncoming wave, out of his assailant’s reach. A second and potentially fatal blow of the warrior’s club met only water. “I forced myself to swim as far as I could under the water,” said my father. His scalp was now bleeding copiously from the jagged club wound, staining the water red. When my father rose to the surface at last, his enemy was gone, but he was weak and struggling to keep his head above water. “I might have drowned then and there,” he said, “had not one of my comrades seen me and pulled me onto his surf-riding board.” My father and his rescuer waited beyond the surf line until Keōua Red Cloak and his people had slaked their bloodlust and quit the beach. Then they paddled back to shore and with another man secured the canoe that brought them to Ka‘awaloa.
“Keōua Red Cloak and his men carried away the bodies of three of our people,” my father said. “I do not know where they took them.”
It not until much later that Kamehameha, my father, and the Kona chieftains learned of the events that preceded and followed Keōua Red Cloak’s unprovoked attack at Ke’ei.
“After Kiwala‘ō spurned his pleas for other lands in addition to Ka‘ū, Red Cloak led his warriors to Keomo, on Kekūhaupi‘o’s lands between Hōnaunau and Ke’ei, where they chopped down many coconut trees,” my father said. “This was a grave insult to Kekūhaupi‘o and Kamehameha.” In those days, our people looked upon coconut trees as sacred. They saw them as representations of men whose heads were in the ground as they offered their penises and testicles to the sky. It was kapu for any personage other than a nī’aupi’o chief to cut down a coconut tree, and then only on his own lands. To cut down the coconut trees on another chief’s lands was an act of war.
“If Red Cloak’s first quarrel was with his own brother, why did he seek instead to provoke Kamehameha?” I asked my father when he told me this story.
“He attacked us at Ke’ei because he wanted to curry favor with Kiwala‘ō,” my father replied.
Following the bloody attack at Ke’ei, Keōua Red Cloak took the slain men’s corpses to Hōnaunau, where he offered the bodies to Kiwala‘ō to sacrifice to the war god. “It was a test of sorts,” said my father. If Kiwala‘ō accepted Red Cloak’s gift, it would mean that the new mō‘ī still looked favorably upon him, he explained. “And if so, Red Cloak believed, he could still hope for a more favorable land settlement.” But if his brother rejected his proffer, then Keōua Red Cloak could be certain that Kiwala‘ō would never grant him and his brother any lands beyond Ka‘ū, in which case he would withdraw his own people from Hōnaunau forthwith and take no side in the pending conflict with Kamehameha and the Kona chieftains.
Kiwala‘ō accepted the bodies of Kamehameha’s people and sacrificed them on the altar of the Heiau o Kūkā‘ilimoku at Hōnaunau. “This was doubly insulting to Kamehameha,” my father said, “for his royal cousin had offered the bodies of his own people to the war god, who was in Kameha’s own keeping, and in a heiau for which he was responsible.”
Moku‘ōhai, 1782
K amehameha was unwilling to provoke a battle with Kiwala‘ō. “Let my cousin hurl the first spear,” he said.
“Yes,” said Kekūhaupi‘o. “Let him come to us.”
Keōua Red Cloak came to them first. Once Kiwala‘ō had accepted the bodies of Keōua’s victims for sacrifice, Red Cloak cast his lot with his older brother. Ever eager to prove his mettle as a warrior, and most especially against his cousin Kamehameha, it was he who instigated the battle of Moku‘ōhai.
“The day after the sacrifices at Hōnaunau,” my father told me, “Red Cloak’s people sallied forth towa
rd Ke‘ei in search of another fight. But they did not find any of our people there because after the first bloodletting, Kamehameha, Kekūhaupi‘o, and Ke‘eaumoku had pulled them all back toward Nāpo‘opo‘o.” Instead, Keōua’s people found Kamehameha’s men amid the ‘a‘ā lava rocks between Ke‘ei and Nāpo‘opo‘o.
Sporadic fighting between small bands of warriors marked the next several days. These skirmishes were inconclusive, and Red Cloak’s people did not fare as well as he had hoped. “Perhaps Red Cloak believed that having vanquished Kameha’s people so easily at Ke‘ei, his men would subdue them decisively now,” said my father. “In this he was mistaken.”
As Kamehameha and my father later learned, at the end of the third day of skirmishing, Keōua Red Cloak appealed to his older brother Kiwala‘ō for help. Like Kamehameha, Kiwala‘ō had remained reluctant to engage in battle. He yet hoped that Kamehameha would be satisfied with his own lands in Kohala, and ignore those who were pressing for war.
But Keōua Red Cloak persuaded Kiwala‘ō that his cousin would never abandon the Kona chieftains and withdraw to Kohala. “Moreover,” my father said, “Red Cloak convinced Kiwala‘ō that if only he and his warriors would take the field alongside Keōua’s men, they could easily overwhelm Kameha and our people, as we would be greatly outnumbered.” Upon hearing this, Kiwala‘ō agreed to join the fray. “Once Kiwala‘ō was certain that the odds favored him, he was eager to fight,” said my father. And thus did Kiwala‘ō hasten into Kekūhaupi‘o’s trap.
The battle of Moku‘ōhai was fought around Hauiki, a village below Kealakekua Bay. Hauiki was a small fishing village consisting of no more than a half-dozen humble hales. Its inhabitants were commoners and of no importance in those days, and the village no longer exists. For these reasons, the place is now known by the battle’s name. The battle took its name from a grove of silvery-leaved ‘ohai trees that grew there. Today, those trees, like so much of our people’s past, exist only in fading memories. But the day-long battle is legend.
Once There Was Fire Page 28