Galloping Through Kailua, 1865

“He Inoa no Kalawaia,” a Name Chant for Kalawaiʻa

© Kīhei de Silva

Paʻakai wrote this mele inoa (name chant) for his child Kalawaiʻa in 1865. The keiki – the poet calls him a “sweet-voiced singer” – saddles up a horse and makes a counter-clockwise circuit of Oʻahu from Kona to Koʻolaupoko, to Koʻolauloa, to Waialua, to Waiʻanae, to ʻEwa,[i] and from ʻEwa, back home to Honolulu. Upon Kalawaiʻa’s return, the town goes wild, the haole cheer “hip-hip-hurrah,” many others cry out in delight, and an overjoyed Paʻakai welcomes the child home with: “Here it is, here you are / It is right here that we two will rest / Answer, O Kalawaia, to your name.” 

Well documented huakaʻi kaʻapuni – ʻround-the-island excursions – were made by the mōʻī Kalākaua and Kapiʻolani in April 1874, and by Queen Emma in November 1885.[ii] These took many days and involved considerable planning and expense. The logistics of Emma’s fifteen-day tour, for example, lead us to question the reality of Kalawaiʻa’s trip. I think it unlikely that a child could have accomplished this alone and without benefit of the hospitality afforded to kings and queens. I think it more likely that this mele inoa was composed by a dad playing horsey with his kid;[iii] I can imagine Paʻakai using his knee-bouncing sequence of place names to both delight and instruct his little one. We share in this delight more than a century-and-a-half later, and we would do well to learn its place-names: names that were important then and should not be forgotten now. 

He Inoa no Kalawaia

O Ho[n]olulu kahi noho a Kalawaia
Pane no i kona makuakane,
Palaki ia mai ka lio,
Kaulia mai ka noho,
Hooia mai ke kaulawaha
He huakai kaapuni ka Kalawaia
E poai ana ia Oahu nei
…
Ku ana ka lio o Kalawaia iluna o Makapuu
E kilohi ana i ka nani o Kalapueo
O Kalawaia ke keiki nana i holo ke kula o Waimanalo
Aia ke kohina i Kawainui[iv]
Ninau mai o Makalei[v]
Owai la keia lio huapala
He puukani kai iluna
O ke keiki a Paakai o Kalawaia ka inoa e–o
Ninau mai ke keiki owai la ke kai
O Ahulili ke one o Alele ke kula[vi]
Kuua ko lio i ka holo
I hala mai o Mahinui[vii]
Hiki oe i ka olu o Heeiakea
Ike oe i ka ua poaihale o Ahulimanu
…
Na Paakai

Honolulu is where Kalawaiʻa lives
His father speaks
“Brush the horse
Put on the saddle
Adjust the reins”
A go-all-around trip has Kalawaiʻa
Encircling Oʻahu
…
Kalawai’a’s horse stops at Makapu’u
Gazing at the splendor of Kalapueo
Kalawaia is the child who rides the plain of Waimānalo
There are the taro-cuttings of Kawainui
Mākālei asks,
“Who is this bay horse
Ridden by a sweet-voiced singer?”
It is the child of Paʻakai whose name is Kalawaiʻa
The child asks, “What is the name of this ocean?”
‘Ahulili is the sand, ʻĀlele is the plain
Let your horse gallop unrestrained
Until you pass Mahinui
And arrive at the calm of Heʻeiakea
And see the Pōʻaihale rain of Ahuimanu
…
By Paʻakai

—

[i] These are the six traditional districts of Oʻahu as established by the island’s ruling chief Māʻilikūkahi in the 15th century (Samuel Kamakau, “Ka Moolelo o Hawaii Nei,” Kuokoa, 2 Sept. 1865). Honolulu is located in the Kona district.

[ii] King Kalākaua and his Queen Kapiʻolani: “Ka Huakai a Na Moi Kaapuni Ana ia Kakuhihewa,” Kuokoa, 25 April, 1874. Dowager Queen Emma: John A. Cummins, “Around Oʻahu in Days of Old,” Mid-Pacific Magazine, September 1913.

[iii] There are no specific indicators of gender in this mele with regard to either Paʻakai or Kalawaiʻa, nor is there a way to determine their exact relationship. That this is a father-and-son composition is, thus, my own biased interpretation.

[iv] Kōhina is the part of the kalo plant where the stalk is cut away from the corm. The kōhina and a section of stem can then be replanted to grow a new corm. Paʻakai’s description is unusual in that it involves already harvested kalo rather than waving leaves in wetland patches. This speaks, of course, to the fertility of Kailua’s lands along the flanks of Kawainui fishpond, but the kōhina imagery also suggests that Paʻakai is especially sensitive to generation and regeneration  -– to his hopes for continuity in the “kōhina” that is his child.

[v] Mākālei is familiar to the readers of Moses Manu (Keaomelemele, Bishop Museum Press, 2022) and Samuel Kekoʻowai (“Makalei ka Laau Pii Ona a ka I-a,” Kuokoa, January 6, 1922, through the January 10, 1924) as either the tree or branch responsible for attracting a wealth of fish to the Kawainui and Kaʻelepulu fishponds of Kailua. Paʻakai’s geographic sequence is spot-on: as Kalawaiʻa entered the inland plain of Kailua from Waimānalo, the vast expanse of Kawainui would have been the first thing to meet the child’s eye. Next up, as the “sweet singer” turned ma kai along the pond’s perimeter, would have been Waiʻauia (at the entrance to today’s Kailua town), traditional home of the Mākālei.

[vi]  As Kalawaiʻa heads ma kai from Waiʻauia and then north along the shoreline that leads to the far end of the Kailua ʻahupuaʻa, he asks for and is given the names of the ocean and plain: ʻAhulili and ʻĀlele. The first is almost entirely unknown to us today. ʻAhulili (perhaps ʻā-hulili, glowing, glittering) makes its earliest published appearance in “He Mele no ka Haku o Hawaii,” (Ka Hae Hawaii, 25 July, 1860) in tandem with Kea, another nearly lost ocean name: “Lihi aina ke kai nui hawanawana / Uhi na uha o Kea me Ahulili – At the shoreline is the vast whispering sea / Where ʻAhulili and Kea are sighing.” The name re-appears frequently in the 1870s and ʻ80s in lists of Kailua waters that were then closed to fishermen (“Hoolaha Kai Lawaia o ke Ahupuaa o Kailua,” Ko Hawaii Pae Aina, 17 June, 1882):  “…aole e hele wale e lawaia ma keia au kai lawaia malalo iho nei…: Kai o Mokulua, Kai o Alaapapa, Kai o Ahulili, Kai o Kea, Kai o Puoaihala, Kai o Kapoho.” It makes a final appearance in an 1885 kanikau for Williama Adamu: “E ike i kahi i loaa mai ai oʻu mau kupuna / I ke kula o Alele i Ahulili” (Kuokoa, May 30, 1885), then vanishes for 130 years until reproduced in the Kailua Historical Society’s Kailua (“1905 Map of Kailua Fisheries,” 226-227). I find it interesting that Paʻakai’s ʻAhulili, the second-only mention of that Kailua name in the currently accessible Papakilo dstabase, stands alone in the sixteen-year hiatus between the 1860 mele inoa and the first, forbidden-fisheries notice of May 1876. This suggests that the poet was well-versed in Kailua place names and their locations; it suggests that his knowledge might have been first-hand and probably not newspaper-acquired. By our admittedly sketchy reckoning, ʻAhulili is the ocean that fronts the present day Kaʻapuni Drive; it is flanked by Kea on the north and ʻAlaʻapapa on the south in the north-to-south sequence given in the 1882 fisheries notice cited above.

‘Ālele is the more familiar of the two place names: According to Pukui, it is “a land area in the approximate center of Kai-lua, Oʻahu, formerly a plain called Kula-o-ʻĀlele, a sports area” (Place Names of Hawaiʻi, p.10). It is identified in Hawaiian language newspapers as the land on which the royal compounds of a succession of ruling chiefs – Kakuhihewa, Kūaliʻi, and Peleiōhōlani – were built (Kamakau, “Noho Aupuni o Kakuhihewa” in “Ka Moolelo o Hawaii Nei,” Kuokoa, September 23, 1865; “Moolelo o Kualii,” Ke Alakai o Hawaii, July 2, 1935 and June 18, 1936; Kalanikuihonoinamoku, Ke Au Okoa: July 31, 1865). Although a number of more recently written accounts further locate these hale aliʻi in the vicinity of today’s Kapa‘a and Kainalu Streets, an older moʻolelo puts Kakuhihewa’s hale at or in close proximity to Waiʻauia (“He Moolelo No Lonoikamakahiki,” Nupepa Kuokoa, January 14, 1888).

[vii] Mahinui, in the context of Paʻakai’s mele, is the ridgeline that divides Kailua from Kāneʻohe above today’s Kalāheo High School. It is the resting place of Hiʻiaka and Wahineʻōmaʻo when they leave Kailua and descend into Heʻeia (Kapihenui, “Hiiakaikapoliopele,” Ka Hoku o ka Pakipika, February 12,1862; Hooulumahiehie, “Hiiaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele,” Ka Nai Aupuni, January1, 1906; Poepoe, Hiiaka-i-ka-Poli-o-Pele, Kuokoa Home Rula, July 9, 1909;). Fornander describes Mahinui as one half of the giant named Olomana who was cut in half by Palila, the fearless warrior of Kaua‘i: the other stands to this day as the hill of Olomana  (Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folklore, 375). Kalawaiʻa’s departure from Kailua – galloping across the plain of ʻĀlele, along the northwest flank of Kawainui, and up Mahinui ridge – is consistent with the Kapihenui version of “Hiiakaikapoliopele” as well as with an 1837 missionary account of a journey through Kailua: “holo aku la makou ma ke kula o Alele a pii aku la ma ke ala pii o Mahinui a iho ilalo a hele akula makou a hiki i Kaneohe” (“No Ke Kaapuni Ana Ia Oahu,” Ke Kumu Hawaii, April 26, 1837). Again, we can have little doubt that the poet knew his stuff.