Vacation Rental in Princeville Kauai
and Kauai Travel Guide
©B.Pruitt 2009
History of Kauai and Hawaii
The End of Kapu
During his life, Kamehameha had 21 wives. In 1795, he married highborn Keôpûolani, with whom he fathered 11 children. Two of those sons survived to maturity and eventually succeeded him as Hawaiian monarchs. Even though she bore his heirs, Keōpūolani was not the king’s favorite wife. That honor belonged to Ka‘ahumanu, the only daughter of Maui High Chiefs, Ke‘eaumoku and Namahana.
Ka‘ahumanu was born in a small cave near Hana, Maui in about 1773. At six feet tall
and 200 pounds, the king thought her to be a beautiful and desirable woman. On May
8, 1819, when Kamehameha the Great died, Ka‘ahumanu was at his bedside. She charged
that with his last breath, he had named her kuhina nui, the person who would run
his kingdom and take care of his heir, 20-
Seven days after the bones of Kamehameha had been laid away, the chiefs of the kingdom gathered in a great half circle at the seashore, clothed in feather cloaks and helmets. Ka‘ahumanu addressed the assemblage. She proclaimed Liholiho as the “Divine One” and said the will of Kamehameha was that she and Liholiho would jointly rule the kingdom. Liholiho became Kamehameha II and Ka‘ahumanu was the powerful Queen Regent.
Immediately, Ka‘ahumanu made an incredible demand on the new, young king. She petitioned him to lead the way to the abandonment of the foundation of Hawaiian society’s beliefs and conduct—the kapu system. It was kapu for women of any rank to enter the luakini heiaus, where political as well as religious decisions were made. Thus, while her relationship to the Kamehamehas, father and son, gave her a position of power, her gender kept her from wielding her power fully. Liholiho hesitated at first, but after two days of drinking rum he gave way to her sizeable will. He attended a feast arranged by Ka‘ahumanu and by eating with women he broke the onerous kapu forbidding men and women to eat together. When the king ordered heiaus and religious images throughout the kingdom be destroyed, his subjects learned that he was a monarch of solemn purpose. The Hawaiians, whose belief system had been seriously eroded, were a people adrift in a spiritual vacuum.
Two weeks before Liholiho abolished the kapu system, a ship carrying Protestant missionaries left Boston bound for Hawaii. They were in search of souls to save.