Kamakaimoku

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Kamakaʻimoku was an Hawaiian chiefess. She was descended from the wide-spread and powerful family of 'I of Hilo. She became wife of three of the most powerful and influential men of the Big Island of Hawaii in her days. She was the mother of the two princes, Keoua Kalanikupuapaikalaninui and Kalaniopuu. Her life may serve to illustrate the freedom of manners and the liberty of selecting their husband accorded to chiefesses of high rank during the ancient regime and the falsness of the description of the role of women in Hawaiian society by early historians. Hawaii's tolerance toward divorces was unheard of anywhere at the time.

Kamakaimoku was born to the High Chiefess Umiula-a-kaahumanu, a daughter of Mahiolole, the frequently referred to Kohala chief, and Kanekukaailani, who was a daughter of ʻI of Hilo and Akahikameenoa; consequently, according to the Hawaii peerage, she was a cousin to Alapainui, and a chiefess the highest rank. Her father was Ku-a-Nu'uanau, an Oahu chief, son of High Chief Nu'uanu, third son of 'I of Hilo and Akihikameeonoa (Akahikameenoa). In her blood flowed the bloods of the Alii of Hilo, Oahu, Kohala, and the blood of Umi of the Big Island of Hawaii. In her childhood she was brought up by her father on Oahu, her mother having gone back to Hawaii and espoused Kapahi-a-Ahu-Kane (Kapai-a-Ahu), the son of Ahu-a-I, and a younger brother of Lonomaaikanaka, the wife of Keaweikekahiali'iokamoku. With Kuanuuanu (Ku-a-Nuuanu), Umiulaakaahumanu had another child, a son named Naili, who remained on Oahu and succeed his father as chief over Waianae. With Kapahi-a-Ahukane her mother, Umiulaakaahumanu , had a son named Heulu, who was the father of Keaweaheulu, on Kamehameha's counsellor chiefs, from whom the Kalakaua Dynasty descends in the fourth degree. Both her grandmother Kanekukaailani, her grandfather Nu'uanu of Oahu, and her step father Kapai-a-Ahu were children of King ʻI of Hilo.

Kamakaimoku's name translates as the "Eye of Islands". When grown up, Kamakaimoku was seen by Kalaninuiamamao on his vist to Oahu, and sent for to be his wife. Living with him at the court of his father Keawe, she bore him a son, Kalaniopuu, who afterwards become the ruler of most of Hawaii. This union was not of long duration, for within a year or two she left Kalaninuiamamao and became the wife of his brother Kalanikeeaumoku, and to him she bore another son Kalanikupuapailkalaninui Keoua, called Keoua for short and the father of Kamehameha and Kalokuokamaile. How long she remained with Kalanikeeaumoku is not know positively, but she is next referred to as teh wife of Alapainui, her cousin, with who, she had a daughter, Manona, grandmother of the celebrated Kekuaokalani who, at the abolition of kapu in 1819, after Kamehameha's death, took up arms in defence of the old god of Hawaii. ^[1]