Likelike (wife of Kalanimoku)

For the Princess of Hawaii (1851–1887), see Likelike.
Likelike

Rikériki, femme du chef Kraïmokou, engraving by J. Alphonse Pellion
Died March 4, 1821
Honolulu, Oahu
Spouse Boki
Kalanimoku
Issue Lanihau
Father Kaikioʻewa
Mother Nahaukapu

Likelike (died March 4, 1821) was a high chiefess and member of the royal family during the Kingdom of Hawaii. She was a favorite wife of Prime Minister Kalanimoku, a powerful chief and statesman during the early years of the Hawaiian monarchy. She should not be confused with the later Princess Likelike (1851–1887), mother of Princess Kaʻiulani. Before the standardization of the Hawaiian language, her name was sometime written as Rikériki.

Life

Likelike was born to High Chief Kaikioʻewa and his wife Nahaukapu. She was considered a kaukau aliʻi, of lower-ranking chiefly descent, but was a distant relative of King Kamehameha I on her father's side.[1] A supporter of King Kamehameha I during his conquest of the Hawaiian Islands, her father Kaikioʻewa descended from the ruling family of Hawaii Island and was the kahu (guardian) of Kamehameha III and later served as Governor of Kauai.[2][3] Her mother descended from the semi-legendary chief Kahaoʻi from the island of Oahu.[4]

Likelike was married firstly to High Chief Boki, the eventual Governor of Oahu. However, sometime afterward, Boki's brother Kalanimoku took Likelike as his wife which prompted Boki to take Kuini Liliha as his wife from her previous husband and Boki's nephew Kahalaiʻa Luanuʻu. Kalanimoku had many other wives including her half-sister Kuwahine, but Likelike was regarded as his favorite wife. Prior to the promulgation of Christian marital laws, Hawaiian high-born chiefesses had the freedom to choose their mates and even abandon or divorce their husbands at will. Historian Samuel Kamakau and American missionary Hiram Bingham I recounted an incident in 1805 when Kalanimoku burned down much of Honolulu and the island of Oahu after Kuwahine deserted him for Kuakini. The burning and destruction of property, which was sanctioned by Kamehameha I, did not ceased until she was found and returned to him.[5] Kalanimoku, called The Iron Cable of Hawaii because of his political savvy and military prowess, served as Prime Minister during the reigns of the first three kings of Hawaii and had taken the name "William Pitt" in honor of the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.[6][7]

In 1819, Likelike accompanied Kalanimoku along in his meeting with French explorer Louis de Freycinet aboard the Uranie. Because of the ʻai kapu, which prohibited men and women from eating meals together, Likelike was not allowed to dine at the same table with her husband and the captain. She remained on deck eating scraps brought up to her, but after her husband finished and left the table, she took his place and "made up for the temporary restraint that had been forced upon her by swallowing several glassfuls of brandy one after the other with remarkable gusto".[8] J. Alphonse Pellion, an artist aboard the Uranie, made an engraving sketch of Likelike titled Rikériki, femme du chef Kraïmokou along with two other chiefesses.[9]

In this encounter, Freycinet's wife Rose de Freycinet gave a brief description of Likelike:

This woman is quite young and has a rather pleasant face; she is less corpulent than the other women I have encountered, and the scantiness of her clothing is less shocking.[10]

Death

J. Alphonse Pellion, Îles Sandwich; Maisons de Kraïmokou, Premier Ministre du Roi; Fabrication des Étoffes, c. 1819

After the arrival of the American missionaries in 1820, Kalanimoku allowed Rev. Elisha Loomis to set up a mission school in Kawaihae where Likelike became a student of the new faith. Loomis's wife Maria Loomis recounted how the chiefess professed her love of the palapala (Bible).[11] Under the reign of the new King Kamehameha II, the court had moved away from his father's former seat of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Island at the end of 1820 and passed by Lahaina, Maui before transitioning to the island of Oahu in the early part of 1821. Leaving Kawaihae, Likelike and Kalanimoku also moved along with the rest of the royal court. According to Loomis, Likelike was reportedly looking forward to continue her missionary education at the mission in Honolulu where Hiram Bingham preached.[12][13] With much fanfare and cannon fire, the king arrived aboard his new royal yacht Haʻaheo o Hawaiʻi into the port of Honolulu, on February 3, 1821.[14]

During her travel to the new capital, Likelike was heavily pregnant with Kalanimoku's child and close to giving birth. On February 25, 1821, she gave birth to a son who they named Lanihau (meaning "cool heaven").[15] In celebration of the birth of an heir to Kalanimoku, her husband and his brother Boki set off cannons and muskets all over Honolulu announcing the birth of the child. The writings of the missionaries also blamed the overzealous common people for setting off the cannon salutes, which was a popular custom adopted since the introduction of western firearms to the islands. A reported "two hundred pounds of powder" were consumed and much of it was set off within the proximity of the grass hut where the newborn and the mother were residing. According to the writings of Bingham and Loomis, Lanihau died within twenty-four hours from the shock and Likelike died soon afterward as well on March 3, at the Honolulu Fort.[16] The death of the young chiefess was greatly mourned by Hawaii.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Kameʻeleihiwa 1992, p. 102.
  2. ↑ Kamakau 1992, pp. 350–351.
  3. ↑ Day 1984, p. 62.
  4. ↑ Kamakau 1993, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Bingham 1855, p. 128; Kamakau 1993, pp. 197, 389; Del Piano 2009, p. 5
  6. ↑ Del Piano 2009, p. 2.
  7. ↑ Kuykendall 1965, p. 53.
  8. ↑ Freycinet & Kelly 1978, p. 22; Del Piano 2009, p. 13
  9. ↑ Forbes 1998, p. 423.
  10. ↑ Freycinet & Rivière 2003, p. 102.
  11. ↑ Smith 1956, pp. 67–68.
  12. ↑ Kamakau 1992, p. 250.
  13. ↑ Bingham 1855, pp. 125–127.
  14. ↑ Bingham 1855, p. 126.
  15. ↑ Pukui, Elbert & Mookini 1974, p. 128; Lloyd J. Soehren (2010). "lookup of Lanihau". in Hawaiian Place Names. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library. Retrieved September 24, 2010.
  16. ↑ Kamakau 1992, p. 250; Bingham 1855, p. 127; Loomis 1951, pp. 109–111; Del Piano 2009, pp. 16–17; Freycinet & Kelly 1978, p. 107
  17. ↑ Bingham 1855, pp. 127–129.

Bibliography

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