Haho was the 2nd Mo'i of Maui. He was the titular chieftain or king of the island of Maui. He is believed to have succeed his father Paumakua. He and his descendants only had control over portions of Western Maui and relied on the allegiance of the many district chiefs.
Among the Maui chiefs from the close of the Hawaiian migratory period, when the Hawaiians journeyed backed and forth from their Polynesian homelands, not many names arrest the attention of the antiquarian student. The position of Moi of Maui appears to have descended in the line of Haho, the son of Paumakua-a-Huanuikalalailai. From the tenor of the ancient legends, East Maui, at the time, comprising the districts of Koolau, Hana, Kipahulu, and Kaupo, was at times under independent Mois, and the legends mention six by name. From Eleio to Hoolae, the latter of whom was contemporary with Haho's descendant, Piilani, and whose daughter married Piilani's son, Kiha-a-Piilani.
Theses district chiefs' allegiance to the West Maui Mois was always precarious, even in later times. The island of Molokai does not appear to have acknowledged the sway of Haho or his descendants during this period, and for some time after, only obeyed its own independent chiefs, the ancestors of Kalanipehu and descendants of Keoloewa and Nuakea. The island of Lanai, however, and its chiefs, though often in a state of revolt, appera always to have recognized the Moi of Maui as their suzerain. He married the high chiefess Kauilaianapa who bore him a son. Haho was succeeded by his son Palena.
Haho has gone down to posterity and been remembered by all succeeding ages throughout the group as the founder of the Aha-Alii, an institution which literally means "the congregation of chiefs", and, in a measure may be compared to a heralds' college; and to gain admission into which it was incumbent on the aspirant to its rank and privileges to announce his name, either personally or through an accompanying bard, and his descent either lineal or collateral, from some one or more of the recognised, undisputed ancestors ("Kupuna") of the Hawaiian nobility, claiming descent either on the Nanaulu or Ulu line. "Once a chief always a chief", was the Hawaiian rule of heraldry, and no treason, crime, or lesser offence ever affected the rank or dignity in the Aha-Alii of the offender or of his children. There was no "bill of attainder" in those days.
There were gradations of rank and tabu within the Aha-Alii, well understood and seldom infringed upon. No chief could fall from his rank, however his possessions and influence might vane; and none could rise higher himself in the ranks of the Aha-Alii than the source from which he sprang either on mother's or father's side; but he might in several ways raise the rank of his children higher than his own, such as by marriage with a chiefess of higher rank than his own, marrying with a sister, or by their adoption into a family of higher rank than that of the father. The privileges and prerogatives of the Aha-Alii were well defined and universally known, both as regards their intercourse with each other and their relation to the commonalty, the Maka'ainana. Their allegiance or fealty to a superior chief was always one of submission to superior force, of personal interest, or of family attachment, and continued as long as the pressure, the interest, or the attachment was paramount to other considerations; but the slightest injury, affront, or slight on the part of the superior, or frequently the merest caprice, would start the inferior chief into revolt, to maintain himself and his possessions by arms if able, or he fled to some independent chief of the other islands, who almost invariably gave him an asylum and lands to live on until a change of affairs made it safe to return to his former home.
A chief of the Aha-Alii, if taken captive in war, might be, and sometimes was, offered in sacrifice to the gods, but he or his family were never made slaves if their lives were spared. And if the captive chief was of equal or higher rank than his captor, he invariably received the deference and attention due to his rank, and his children not infrequently found wives or husbands in the family of the conqueror. A chief of the Aha-Alii was of right entitled to wear the insignia of his rank whenever he pleased: the feather wreath, the Lei-hulu (feather cloak or cape), the Ahu-Ula (ivory clasp, the Palaoa.
His canoe and its sail were painted red, and he wore a pennon at the masthead. Among the members of the Aha-Alii it was not unusual that two young men adopted each other as brothers, and by that act were bound to support each other in weal or woe at all hazards, even that of life itself; and if in after life these two found themselves, in war time, in opposing ranks, and one was taken prisoner, his life was invariably spared if he could find means to make himself known to his foster-brother on the opposite side, who was bound to obtain it from the captor or the commanding chief. And there is no instance on record in all the legends and traditions that this singular friendship ever made default. Such were some of the leading features of the Aha-Alii, which all existing traditions concur in asserting was instituted by Haho about twenty-five generations from the reign of King Kalakaua.
It arose, probably, as a necessity of the existing condition of things during this migratory period, as a protection of the native aristocracy against foreign pretenders, and as a broader line of demarcation between the nobility and the commonalty. It lasted up to the time of the conquest by Kamehameha I., after which this, as so many other ancient customs, good, bad, or indifferent, gradually went under in the light of newer ideas, new forms of government, and new religion. By the days of the Kingdom of Hawaii there were no more Aha-Alii, though there was a " House of Nobles," in which the foreign-born number ten to nine of the native-born, and few of these latter recall to the minds of the common people the great historical names of former days, the great feudal lords on this or that island, who, still within the memory of the then living people, could summon a thousand vassals or more to work their fields and do their bidding.
| Preceded by Paumakua |
Moʻi of Maui | Succeeded by Palena |