Wahinepio

Kahakuhaʻakoi Wahinepiʻo (died 1826) was a Hawaiian chiefess and member of the royal family during the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Wahinepiʻo means captive women in Hawaiian. Sometimes she is called Wahineopiʻo, or an extra ʻokina is added, calling her Kahakuhaʻakoʻi. She was also called Kamoʻonohu. Supported by King Peleioholani of Oahu, he fought against his younger half-brother Kamehamehanui Ailuau, who was assisted by the King of the Big Island Alapainui, at the Battle of Keawawa. The battle ended in a stalemate, but Kauhiaimokuakama was captured and drowned by Alapainui's orders.

Marriages

Kamehameha I married most of the women he took captive because they were the highest-ranking women in all the Hawaiian Islands and any children bore by them would hold the highest mana or spiritual power. Wahinepio married Kamehameha around that time. She was related to everyone of Kamehameha's wives; her cousins mentioned above were all married to the king, and her younger sister Manono was later to be one of two young women taken by Kamehameha "to warm his old age". She was considered to be Kamehameha's third favorite wife, after Kaʻahumanu and Kaheiheimālie,

She and Kamehameha separated in the early 1800s, around the time he married Kaheiheimālie. As a sort of compensation Kamehameha may have given Wahinepio to Kaheiheimālie's first husband, his half-brother, Kalaʻimamahu. Kamehameha gave many of his wives to his trusted friends and relatives. Remarriage was common among the chiefs of Hawaiʻi, and many chiefesses could even choose to have more than one husband at a time. She had a son Kahalaiʻa Luanuʻu by her second husband. Some sources state he was the product of her third marriage and not her second marriages, but most historian agree that he was Kalaʻimamahu's son. Kahalaiʻa would later be appointed Governor of Kauaʻi after helping suppress the Humehume rebellion in 1824. He had a possible daughter Keʻelikōlani and an unnamed son from his fourth and fifth marriages, respectively.

Her second marriage didn't last long, and she remarried to Kahōʻanokū Kīnaʻu, the eldest surviving legitimate son of Kamehameha by his wife Peleuli. According to Hawaiian tradition Kīnaʻu would have been Kamehameha's heir to the throne as his eldest son, With Kīnaʻu she had a daughter named Kekauʻōnohi, who later became one of the five wives of Kamehameha II and later Governor of Kauaʻi. Kekauʻōnohi had a son, but he died young. Kīnaʻu died around 1809 leaving her a widow. and had Spanish blood in his vein. Her fourth husband had absolutely no power and served no post under Kaʻahumanu, although he had help lead an army of a thousand soldier to Kauai with Hoapili and Kaikioʻewa to assist her brother Kalanimoku and her son Kahalaiʻa put down the Humehume uprising in 1824. He was noted as a stern warrior with great strength and many battle scars.

Like many Hawaiian chiefesses at the time, Wahinepio was a giant of a woman. Reverend Stewart observed that she weighed no less than four hundred pounds. But like many females of rank, she became accustomed to Western dress and may have become self-conscious about her weight and thought of eating less poi, so her clothes could sit better. She became part of the first generation of Hawaiian women to be bothered by their appearance and inability to fit the mold of Western femininity. This came at the cost of lowering the status and right of Hawaiian women, and subsequent generations' only notion of being a woman was to follow their subservient Puritanic sisters.

Christianity

When the Christian missionaries arrived Wahinepio accepted Christianity along with Queen Keōpūolani, Hoapili, Nāhiʻenaʻena, Keʻeaumoku II, Kekauʻōnohi, Kahekili, and Kaiko and his wife Haʻaheo Kaniu who all attended classes set up by the missionaries. She may have eventually reconverted, but she was never considered a devout Christian and was clearly disliked by Reverend Richards and Reverend Bingham. Wahinepio soon confessed that she had done wrong. She gave the coins to Nāhiʻenaʻena who refused them, and according to legends the coins were placed among the treasures left by Kamehameha II. Afterward laws were placed throughout the islands forbidding women to visit ships for immoral purposes much to the anger of visiting sailors.

Death and legacy In 1826, an epidemic of whooping cough and bronchitis swept across Hawaii, claiming the lives of many Hawaiians who lack natural immunity to the disease. Her son Kahalaiʻa and his son, her grandson, fell victim to the epidemic in April of that year. This double loss brought great sorrow to Wahinepio. Her grief weakened her constitution even further, and added with the rapid cultural change Hawaii due to the arrival of the missionaries, she succumbed to the epidemic. She was given the honor of being buried at Mokuʻula, where Keōpūolani and Nahi`ena`ena had been interred and where Wahinepio's daughter Kekauʻōnohi would be buried too. Her remains along with other royals were assumed to have been transported to the Waineʻe Church, later renamed the Waiola Church, in Lāhainā.

Wahinepio Avenue in Kahului, next to Maui Community College and Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, is named after her.

Ancestry