Keaunui was a northern Hawaiian chief. He was of the Nanaulu line being lineal descendant of Nanaulu, the brother of Ulu, from whom the southern chiefs claim their descent.
He was one of the three sons of Maweke and his wife Naiolaukea. The favored residence and patrimonial estates of the Keaunui family appear to have been in the Ewa, Waianae, and Waialua districts of the same island: Oahu. On the deeds and exploits of his brother Mulielealii and Kalehenui personally the legends are silent. But to Keaunui, the head of the powerful and celebrated Ewa chiefs, is attributed the honour of having cut a navigable channel near present Puʻuloa saltworks, by which the great estuary, now known as Pearl River, was in all subsequent ages rendered accessible to navigation. Making due allowance for legendary amplification of a known fact, the estuary doubtless had an outlet for its waters where the present gap is; but the legends are probably correct in giving Keaunui the credit of having widened it and deepened it, so as to admit the passage of canoes, and even larger vessels, in and out of the Pearl Harbor as it would eventually called. Among the most noted of Keaunui's children were Laakona, the great progenitor of the Ewa chiefs, Nuakea, the wife of the Molokai Keoloewa-a-Kamauaua, and Moi, the prophet and seer of Kaupeenui, the brother of Keoloewa.
| Preceded by first |
High Chief of ʻEwa | Succeeded by Laakona |