Kumulipo

Context

The Hawaiian archipelago, located between the North American and Asian continents, consists of eight major islands and many smaller ones and is the most isolated island group on earth. An archipelago, or string of islands, is created when a buildup of magma under the seafloor, called a hot spot, causes a series of volcanic eruptions. The magma cools and eventually forms an island, and multiple islands are formed when the tectonic plate to which the islands belong moves, while the hot spot remains in one place. The eight major Hawaiian islands are Oahu (the most densely populated island, where the capital, Honolulu, is located), Hawaii (commonly called “the Big Island”), Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, Kauai, and Niihau. Hawaii is part of Polynesia, a name given to a number of island groups in the central and southern Pacific Ocean whose languages and cultures are related to one another.

The Kalakaua text of the Kumulipo is based on a manuscript that was owned by Hawaii’s King Kalakaua. It had been read and partially translated by a German scholar, Adolf Bastian, who published part of the text and his own translation in an 1881 book on Polynesian sacred chants. Bastian’s interest (combined with the fact that the 1880s were tumultuous and uncertain years, to say the least, for the Hawaiian royal family) may have inspired the king to make the full text more widely available. In 1893, four years after the pamphlet was printed, King Kalakaua’s sister and successor, Queen Lili‘uokalani, was deposed by a coalition of mostly American and European businesspeople. The queen began work on her own translation of the Kalakaua text in 1895, while under house arrest. The publication of a document detailing the genealogical connection of Hawaii’s rulers to the land itself was an assertion of the legitimacy of Kalakaua’s rule and ultimately of the right of native Hawaiians to political self-determination.

King Kalakaua came to the throne of Hawaii by popular election, not by inheritance. The Kamehameha dynasty, founded by Kamehameha the Great in 1810, had ruled the Kingdom of Hawaii for sixty-two years, but King Kamehameha V died in 1872 without naming a successor. The Hawaiian Constitution called for a popular vote to elect a new king; two members of the ali‘i (“the chiefly class,” or “nobility”)—David Kalakaua and William C. Lunalilo—ran for the office. Lunalilo won the 1873 election but died a year later, and Kalakaua was elected king in 1874, though he was challenged by the dowager Queen Emma, the wife of Kamehameha IV.

Kalakaua had supporters and opponents among the electorate. He was more conservative than Lunalilo had been; he wanted more native Hawaiians to hold positions in the Hawaiian government, but he also believed in the rule of the ali‘i more than in the popular vote of the maka‘ainana (“common people”). Kalakaua played a major role in the restoration of Hawaiian culture, reviving the practices of hula (which had been banned in 1830), surfing, and Lua, the Hawaiian martial art. Genealogies had always been important to the ali‘i, so the sacred genealogy in the Kumulipo was significant to Kalakaua both as religious and political support for his rule and as an important part of Hawaiian culture. In addition, Lili‘uokalani’s translation of the Kumulipo a few years later proved to be an important project: It asserted the longevity and artistic sophistication of Hawaiian culture at a time of disenfranchisement for the Hawaiian people, when political power in the island chain rested primarily in the hands of non-Hawaiian business leaders.

Genealogies were vital to the ali‘i because an individual’s power derived from his or her social rank, and rank was determined by descent. A genealogy was a treasured family possession, and no one outside the family would ordinarily know the entire chant, except for the priest who did the chanting. In fact, the members of the family were not expected to know how to chant their genealogies; that was the responsibility of a few priests attached to the family—part of what might be called a chief’s “court.” One priest, the haku mele, or “master of song,” would be called upon to deliver the chant when it was politically necessary for a chief to have his status recognized by other chiefs or, as in the case of the Kumulipo in 1804, as a eulogy. The haku mele was also responsible for working a new child of the family into the genealogy, perhaps by composing a new chant, referred to as a mele inoa, or “naming song”; this was the origin of the Kumulipo, if we accept that it was composed in honor of Ka-‘i-‘i-mamao’s birth.

According to Hawaiian tradition, a child inherited the combined rank of his or her parents, meaning the union of two high-ranking people would produce a child of even higher rank. Within the ali‘i class, the closer the relationship between the parents, the higher the rank of the child; for instance, the child of a brother and sister of the “high chief” or niaupi‘o rank was considered to be an akua, a god. A chief did not have to be born a god in order to be part of Hawaiian religious life, however. Chiefs were seen as the link between the commoners, the gods, and the cosmos. The actions and especially the birth of a chief were described in cosmic terms; for example, Hawaiian legends foretold that a king would be born who would unite the islands and that his birth would be marked by the appearance of a comet, which is precisely what occurred upon the birth of Kamehameha I. A chief could also be deified by a special ceremony following his death, becoming an ‘aumakua, or guardian spirit of his family.

Before Kamehameha I unified the islands in 1810, power and territory in Hawaii were very fluid, and warfare was constant. The system by which individuals attempted to acquire and hold on to military, social, and religious power was a complex and often dangerous one. There were several levels of chiefs. Each chiefdom (aupuni), which usually included several of the official geographic divisions of one of the larger islands, or one of the smaller islands plus parts of a larger one, was controlled by an ali‘i nui or “paramount chief,” who was elected or appointed by the local aristocracy. Each internal district of an aupuni was ruled by a local chief, who in turn had his subordinates. The aupuni constantly changed size and shape, since one of the most important responsibilities of an ali‘i nui was to expand his territory. The chiefdoms frequently made offensive and defensive alliances with one another. A good ali‘i nui was also expected to maintain peace, security, stability, and prosperity within his aupuni through strong military leadership and the maintenance of a harmonic balance between the people and the gods or the forces of nature. Stories exist of Hawaiian rulers who lost their chiefdoms to cruelty and greed, the implication being that the gods had punished them for their military overreaching or impiety. Insurrection and invasion frequently occurred on the death of the ali‘i nui, while the succession was in question. The island of Hawaii was the site of the most frequent turnovers in power: It was the largest island, which made it hard to control, and neighboring Maui was close enough for its chiefs to launch an invasion easily; Kauai, on the other hand, was divided from Oahu by a rough channel, making it harder to invade and thus relatively stable. Kamehameha I began his great series of conquests with the unification of the island of Hawaii.

The Kalakaua text of the Kumulipo was accompanied by a two-page prose note telling the story of the chant’s composition and explaining its connection to King Kalakaua and his queen, Kapi‘olani; Queen Lili‘uokalani added that the chant was composed in 1700. The chant was performed for Captain Cook because his arrival in the islands on a large sailing ship was seen as fulfilling one of two prophecies: the god Lono’s promise to return to Hawaii one day on a floating island (a ship) or a priest’s prediction at the time of Ka-‘i-‘i-mamao’s death that Ka-‘i-‘i-mamao, who was also identified to some extent with Lono, would one day return by sea. Based on the assumption that Captain Cook was, in fact, the reincarnation of Ka-‘i-‘i-mamao (or Lono), the recitation of the chant served the traditional purpose of announcing the arrival of a chief visiting another chief’s territory by establishing his lineage and thus his claim to respect and hospitality. The Kumulipo was chanted by priests known as kahuna at religious ceremonies held within a heiau (meaning “Hawaiian temple” or “sacred space”).