I do not know if the god heard my father, but Mulihele saw that he was in mortal danger and rushed to his aid. “Mulihele and I were not far apart but we had lost sight of each other in the midst of the fray,” said my father. “Now my kahu saw me and fought his way to me through several opposing Hilo men.” My father ran at the man with the dagger, and advantaged by the longer reach of his haole weapon, stabbed him in the thigh. Mulihele brought down the other warrior and clubbed him in the head. Then he and my father fled.
Kamehameha’s people—those who still could—ran headlong toward Hilo Bay with Keawema‘uhili’s and Kahekili’s warriors close on their heels. Always in the vanguard of an attack, but now keeping to the rear of a disorderly general retreat, Kameha spurred his men on. “Ke‘eaumoku is already at Hilo with the fleet!” he shouted. “Do not lose hope! Keep going! Keep going!” Despite his urging, a number of his fighters still faltered and the Hilo and Maui warriors cut them down without mercy. “Many more warriors of Kona and Kohala died during the retreat,” my father said.
Ke‘eaumoku’s fleet was waiting offshore when Kameha’s warriors reached Hilo Bay. “Kameha comes!” he shouted when he saw the first men emerge from the scrub and palm trees behind the beach. “Now we attack!”
“Ke‘eaumoku believed at first that the men he saw were Keawema‘uhili’s people, fleeing from Kamehameha’s warriors,” my father said. “It was only when he neared the shore that he realized they were, in truth, Kamehameha’s own people.”
“What has happened?” Ke‘eaumoku cried.
“We are defeated!” the warrior closest called back. “Keawema‘uhili’s people have overwhelmed us! Many of our comrades are slain! Save us!”
“What of Kamehameha? Does he yet live?” cried Ke‘eaumoku.
“Kamehameha lives! He is coming behind us!”
Crying, “Save us! Save us! Keawema‘uhili comes!” Kamehameha’s people waded into the bay and crowded onto the double-hulled canoes’ platforms. Ke‘eaumoku’s seaborne assault had become an evacuation. The canoes put to sea again as quickly as they filled with survivors, my father and Mulihele among them.
When at last Kamehameha and Kekūhaupi‘o reached the beach, Kameha and Ke‘eaumoku fell into each other’s arms and wailed. Ke‘eaumoku looked about in surprise. Only a few hundred of the several thousand men who had marched with Kamehameha had reached the beach before him. “Are these all who are left?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kamehameha responded. “And the blood of our dead is on my hands, for I foolishly led my people into a trap.”
Now from the palm grove beyond the beach came the triumphant howls of Keawema‘uhili’s warriors and Kahekili’s men, still lusting for the blood of their foes.
“There will be sufficient time to assess blame later, Pai‘ea,” said Kekūhaupi‘o. “Now we must go.” He prodded Kamehameha into Ke‘eaumoku’s canoe and jumped in after him. Ke‘eaumoku followed them.
The first of Keawema‘uhili’s people broke from the trees just as the canoe carrying Kameha, his kahu, and Ke‘eaumoku pulled away from the shore. Even as its sail filled with wind, the warriors on the double-hulled canoe tore at the water with their paddle blades. Upon reaching the beach, the warriors of Hilo and Maui hurled sling stones and spears at the receding canoe, to no serious affect. When it was clear that their foes were beyond reach, they turned their backs on them as one, doubled over, and pulled down their malos, exposing their bare buttocks. “Here! This is what we think of you, mighty Kamehameha,” one of the Hilo warriors jeered through his own legs. “Come and eat our excrement!” The warrior’s insult stung Kamehameha, the mover of Hilo’s own Naha Stone, and echoed in his mind all the way to Laupāhoehoe.
Kamehameha stumbled over the side of his canoe and staggered up the beach. He was bleeding profusely from a gash across his forehead. My father rushed to his side. “Kameha, what has happened?” he cried.
“I was attacked by some kānaka fishermen,” Kamehameha said. “They struck me with their paddles.”
My father was nearly dumbstruck. “Commoners attacked you?”
“Yes,” said Kameha. “I barely escaped with my life.”
“Why did they attack you?” my father asked.
“I cannot say,” said Kamehameha.
In truth, Kameha could not at this time bear to tell my father what had transpired, because he was profoundly ashamed and embarrassed. He had assaulted innocent men, women, and children. It was a gratuitous act of violence born of frustration.
Seeking revenge for his ignominious defeat at the hands of Keawema‘uhili, and without consulting his advisers, Kameha had set out in his war canoe from Laupāhoehoe early in the morning, taking only a few warriors with him. Kamehameha meant to attack and slay the first Hilo District people he came upon, regardless of their age, sex, or station in life.
Following a swift passage down the coast under paddle and sail, Kamehameha found his victims fishing on a pahoehoe lava reef at Papa‘ī, below Leleiwi Point near Hilo. As his warriors quickened their strokes and dug their paddles deeper into the water, Kameha stood at the canoe’s prow wielding a short ihe spear in one hand and a stone-tipped club in the other. At first, the people on the reef regarded the big war canoe with curiosity. When they realized that the intentions of the huge man in the bow were hostile, they clambered into their own small outrigger canoes and fled to the shore in panic, leaving two of their men behind. Kamehameha leaped from the platform of his canoe as it ran up on the reef and charged at the men, outdistancing his warriors. As he ran, he waved his club in one hand and readied to throw his ihe spear with the other. The fishermen cowered in fear. But just as Kameha was about to hurl his spear at the man closest to him, one of his own feet became wedged in a fissure in the reef. He tripped, and the two men set upon him immediately, beating him about the head and shoulders with their canoe paddles. One of them struck him so hard that his paddle broke.
“Kamehameha was garbed in a simple malo; he wore no badge of rank, no feather cloak or helmet. Those kānaka had no idea that my brother was a high-born chief,” said my father, who learned the truth of the attack from Kameha later. “Had they known, they might have fled when he fell.”
With the arrival of Kamehameha’s own men, his assailants broke off their assault, diving into the water and swimming to shore. Two of the warriors made to follow them, but Kameha waved them off. “Let them go,” he said, “and help me up.”
For Kamehameha, this beating at the hands of mere commoners marked a dispiriting end to a season of increasing despair. He had gone to war sure of victory, but his foes had outmaneuvered and outfought him. Now, his reputation for invincibility was tarnished, and his self-confidence shaken for the first time in his life.
Kamehameha remained at Laupāhoehoe for some time after the unfortunate incident with the commoners at Papa‘ī. Laupāhoehoe was nominally under Keawema‘uhili’s rule, but the Hilo chieftain’s warriors had all been drawn away from the area to oppose Kamehameha’s advance on Hilo, enabling him to bloodlessly annex it to his own lands. Kamehameha was in no hurry to return to Kohala. Laupāhoehoe was pleasant and boasted excellent surf riding. In the meantime, he would plan his next attack on Keawema‘uhili and Keōua Red Cloak.
The battle just past had cost Kamehameha’s cousin nothing, because instead of joining it, Red Cloak had held his own people well back at Kapāpala. “It is ever his way to let others bleed for him,” Kamehameha scoffed. As for Keawema‘uhili, my uncle told my father, “I should not have listened to Keaweokahikona and spared Keawema‘uhili after Moku‘ōhai. An enemy spared is an enemy who lives to fight you again.”
Kamehameha regretted his attack on the commoner fishermen and their families, and not just because it ended poorly for him. “They were simple maka‘āinana who had done nothing to provoke me,” he said. “My own behavior was inexcusable.” To atone for his actions, Kamehameha promulgated a law for the protection of the commoners throughout his domains. It was kapu, he decreed, for any
ali‘i to assault or in any other way molest the maka‘āinana who were peacefully going about their ordinary, daily activities. Our people came to call this prohibition mamala-hoe, or the “law of the splintered paddle.” The sanction for violating it was death.
Hāpu‘u, Kohala, 1784
A grief-stricken keening rent the still evening air and brought my father running to Kamehameha’s hale. He entered to find his brother on his knees, doubled over, holding his massive head in his hands. Holo‘ae sat beside him. “Kamehameha,” Kalanimālokuloku cried, “what has happened?”
Kameha looked up at my father through teary eyes and wailed again. “Oh, Kalani,” he cried, “my beloved kahu is dead! Kekūhaupi‘o is dead!”
“What!” my father gasped. “How?” Hawai‘i was then enjoying a brief interlude of peace. The island’s three contending factions were not fighting, not even skirmishing. That Kekūhaupi‘o, one of our people’s greatest warriors, could have perished at such a time was incomprehensible.
“Kekū was taking part in spear exercises at Nāpo‘opo‘o,” Kamehameha said. “He failed to catch a thrown spear. It struck him in his stomach.” Kameha wailed anew. My father sank to the floor next to him. The two brothers hugged and cried together.
Kekūhaupi‘o had not died at once. Mortally wounded, he lingered for several days before succumbing. Holo‘ae, Kekūhaupi‘o’s uncle, was the first at Kameha’s court to learn of the great warrior’s death. The high priest brought the news to Kamehameha. “His last thoughts were for you, Lord,” Holo‘ae said. Indeed, on his death mat, Kekūhaupi‘o had asked Kamehameha’s forgiveness for uselessly expending his own life. “Tell Kameha I should rather have been slain in his service,” he said. “Now who will stand at the side of my beloved foster son, Pai‘ea, and protect him?”
In truth, it had been a long time since Kamehameha needed Kekūhaupi‘o’s “protection.” They had fought alongside each other with equal skill since Kaupō, each saving the other on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, in the struggles of the years to come, Kameha would sorely miss his kahu, who had taught him so much.
While the Hawai‘ians fought among themselves, Kahekili, the king of Maui, pursued his own ambitions for territorial expansion, overthrowing O‘ahu’s young king, Kahahana. To this end, he tricked Kahahana into turning against his own popular kahuna nui and killing the priest and his son. These murders shocked and angered a number of O‘ahu’s nobles, turning them against Kahahana. When Kahekili landed in force at Waikiki, his people easily overwhelmed Kahahana’s demoralized forces. Kahahana survived the fierce battle and fled with his wife to the mountains, only to be slain two years later by his own brother-in-law.
Dispossessed of their lands by Kahekili, the O‘ahu ali‘i plotted to kill Kahekili and all of his people. But Kahekili’s son, Kalanikūpule, discovered their conspiracy. In retribution, Kahekili ordered his warriors to slay all the O‘ahu nobles and their families. Learning that some Maui nobles had plotted against him with the O‘ahu ali‘i, he ordered them killed as well. All of these traitors were slain, save one, who escaped to Kaua‘i—a young chieftain named Ka‘iana.
Honokua, Kona 1785
Kamehameha did not see the other surf rider angling toward him until the moment before their heavy surf-riding boards collided, sending Kameha headfirst into the water, where a large following roller at once overwhelmed him. As he struggled to regain the surface in the wave’s roiling wake, his own board struck his head. Gasping for breath, dazed, and angry, Kameha cast about for the one who had the temerity to intrude on his course through the surf. He saw an indistinct form bobbing up and down amid the swells and silhouetted against the mid-afternoon sky—another surf rider kneeling on a board, laughing at him. It was a woman’s laughter. Unable to find his own board, Kameha swam to her. Coming closer, he saw it was Ke‘eaumoku’s daughter, Ka‘ahumanu, whom he had last seen at Hōnaunau three years earlier.
“You rode directly into my own line,” Kamehameha sputtered, still angry.
“Your line? Your line?” Ka‘ahumanu said, laughing anew. An oncoming swell lifted her board above Kameha’s head and now she looked down at him over full, bared breasts. “I gained that wave before you!” she riposted. “That one was my line.”
“That one? That one?” The next swell lifted Kamehameha above Ka‘ahumanu and he scowled down at her. For her part, Ka‘ahumanu continued to smile up at him.
Now Ka‘ahumanu was higher than Kameha once more. Regarding him from above, she could see in the light refracted by the blue-green water that the wave had ripped away his malo when it tumbled him. “You had best join me on my surf-riding board,” she said, “before the cold water shrivels that one beyond recognition.”
Kamehameha looked down at himself and saw what Ka‘ahumanu had seen. “Oh don’t worry about that one,” he said. “It can take care of itself.” With three powerful strokes, he launched himself from a rising swell onto her board and sat astride it, pressing against her suddenly taut back.
“Oh yes,” she said, laughing anew. “I am sure that it can.”
“I will take Ka‘ahumanu as my partner.”
Kamehameha and Ke‘eaumoku were sitting cross-legged on mats in Ke‘eaumoku’s hale. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the doorway. Ke‘eaumoku cocked his head at Kameha, frowned, and pursed his lips. “And what if I say no?” he asked.
“Then as your mō‘ī, I shall be sadly disappointed in you,” Kameha replied. Given the island’s continuing tripartite division, the title was more a conceit than a reality. But after Moku‘ōhai, Ke‘eaumoku and the other Kona chieftains had acknowledged Kamehameha as their sovereign, with the expectation that he would eventually become the mō‘ī of all Hawai‘i.
“Oh, I would not want my mō‘ī to be disappointed in me,” Ke‘eaumoku said. “Of course, you shall have her.”
Ka‘ahumanu was not consulted in the matter, although if she had been, she would have readily agreed. “Ka‘ahumanu was strongly drawn to Kameha, as he was to her,” my father said. “He hungered for her body and she for his. She admired his strength and character. He loved her independent, adventurous spirit. His other wāhine were more conventional.”
Ke‘eaumoku called for his daughter. “Kameha has asked me to give you to him to be his partner, and I have agreed,” he said.
“If that is your desire, Father, I will of course obey,” she replied. In that moment, and without ceremony, the union was accomplished. The amorous couple wasted no time consummating it.
Soon thereafter, Kamehameha declared Ka‘ahumanu kapu to all other men. This was unusual among our people in those days. Kamehameha had imposed no restrictions on his other wives’ liaisons. “Ke‘eaumoku had counseled him that if he wanted to reign supreme over all of our islands one day, he must keep Ka‘ahumanu to himself,” my father explained, “but, in any case, I believe that Kameha was simply unwilling to share her.” While Kamehameha had forbidden Ka‘ahumanu to take other partners, he expected her to share him with many other women, including her own younger sister, Kalakua Kaheiheimale.
My father took his first wife at this time. Her name was Ki‘ilaweau. She was his own half-sister by his father, Keōua, and Alapa‘i’s daughter, Manono. Their first son was born within the year—my older half-brother, whom they named Kekuaokalani. By right of his bloodlines, Kekuaokalani was nī‘aupi‘o and had the kapu moe, the prostrating kapu. Also about this time, Ke‘eaumoku’s partner, Nāmāhana, gave him a son, whom they named after both the baby’s uncle and his father. This younger brother of Ka‘ahumanu was Kahekili Ke’eaumoku.
Hana, Maui 1786
Thwarted by Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula and Keawema‘uhili in his attempt to unify the Big Island under his own rule, Kamehameha turned to retaking the land on Maui that had earlier been won and then lost by his uncle, Kalani‘ōpu‘u. Kahekili was not at that time present on Maui to oppose him. After his conquest of O‘ahu and the extermination of the O‘ahu nobility, Kahekili had determined to remain on that isl
and. He appointed his son, Kalanikūpule, regent of Maui. When he learned of this, Kamehameha saw an opportunity. “Kalanikūpule will not be expecting our people to attack him while Keōua Red Cloak and Keawema‘uhili still oppose me here,” he said. “Kalanikūpule is not experienced in warfare. With the advantage of surprise we can easily overwhelm him and his people.” Kameha in fact knew little about Kalanikūpule and “his people” at this time.
Rather than risk absenting himself from Hawai‘i at a time when his two rivals hungered for land in Kohala and Kona, he sent my father in his place. Kalanimālokuloku landed, unopposed, at Hana with a force of several thousand warriors early in 1786. Ki‘ilaweau accompanied him, with their newborn son, Kekuaokalani, in her arms.
“As my brother had foretold, the people of Maui were not prepared for us,” my father said. Indeed, no Maui warriors were at Hana to oppose the Hawai‘ians when they landed. Only country people—maka‘āinana men and women who had learned well to fear warriors of the Big Island—watched from hiding as Kalanimālokuloku led his men ashore. The only sounds that greeted the first wave of invaders were the sighing of the wind, the lapping of waves, and birds calling in the trees. The Hawai‘ians were primed for battle and this peaceful scene unsettled them. My father’s kahu, Mulihele, suspected an ambush. He scanned the slope that rose abruptly above the small bay at Hana, ringing it from end to end, in search of foes hiding amid the trees and brush, but he could see none.
“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.
Once There Was Fire Page 31