Aliʻi

Hereditary nobles of ancient Hawai'i

The aliʻi were the traditional nobility of the Hawaiian islands. They were part of a hereditary line of rulers, the noho aliʻi.

Cognates of the word aliʻi have a similar meaning in other Polynesian languages; in Māori it is pronounced "ariki" and in Tahitian ari'i.

Background

In ancient Hawaiian society, the aliʻi were hereditary nobles (a social class or caste).^[1][2] The aliʻi consisted of the higher and lesser chiefs of the various levels on the islands.^[3][4] The noho aliʻi were the ruling chiefs.^[5] The aliʻi were believed to be descended from the deities.^[6]

There were eleven classes of aliʻi, of both men and women. These included the kahuna (priestesses and priests, experts, craftsmen, and canoe makers) as part of four professions practiced by the nobility.^[7] Each island had its own aliʻi nui, who governed their individual systems.^[8] Aliʻi continued to play a role in the governance of the Hawaiian islands until 1893, when Queen Liliʻuokalani was overthrown by a coup d'état backed by the United States government.

Aliʻi nui were ruling chiefs (in Hawaiian, nui means grand, great, or supreme.^[9]). The nui title could be passed on by right of birth.

Social designations of noho aliʻi (ruling line)

Historians David Malo, Samuel M. Kamakau^[10] and Abraham Fornander wrote extensively about the different aliʻi lines and their importance to Hawaiian history. The distinctions between the aliʻi ranks and lines comes from their writings.^[11]

• Aliʻi nui were supreme high chiefs of an island and no others were above them (during the Kingdom period this title would come to mean "Governor"). The four largest Hawaiian islands (Hawaiʻi proper, Maui, Kauaʻi, and Oʻahu) were usually ruled each by their own aliʻi nui. Molokaʻi also had a line of island rulers, but was later subjected to the superior power of nearby Maui and Oʻahu during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Mōʻī was a special title for the highest chief of the island of Maui. Later, the title was used for all rulers of the Hawaiian Islands and the Hawaiian monarchs.
• Aliʻi nui kapu were sacred rulers with special taboos.
• Aliʻi Nīʻaupiʻo were a rank of chiefs who were considered the very highest in descent and power. Nīʻaupiʻo chiefs can be from Piʻo or Naha unions.^[12]
• Aliʻi Piʻo were a rank of chiefs who were products of full blood sibling unions.^[12][13] Famous Piʻo chiefs were the royal twins, Kameʻeiamoku and Kamanawa.
• Aliʻi Naha were a rank of chiefs who were products of either half-blood sibling unions or the unions of uncle and niece or father and daughter. The exact definition is disputed amongst Malo, Kamakau and Fornander.^[12][14] Chiefs of this rank traditionally possessed the kapu noho (sitting kapu).^[13] Famous Naha chiefs include Keōpūolani.
• Aliʻi Wohi were a rank of chiefs who were products of marriage of close relatives other than siblings; one famous Wohi chief was Kamehameha I. These chiefs possessed the kapu wohi, exempting them from kapu moe (prostration taboo).^[15]
• Papa were chiefs born to mother of the nīʻaupiʻo, piʻo, or naha rank with a lower-ranking male chief.^[13]
• Lōkea were chiefs born to high-ranked father with a mother who was a relative through younger siblings.^[13]
• Lāʻau aliʻi were chiefs born to parents who are children of high chiefs through secondary unions.^[13]
• Kaukaualiʻi were lesser chiefs who served the aliʻi nui.^[16] It is a relative term and not a fixed level of aliʻi nobility. The expression is elastic in terms of how it is used. In general, it means a relative who is born from a lesser ranking parent.^[12][17] A kaukaualiʻi son's own children, if born of a lesser ranking aliʻi mother, would descend to a lower rank. Eventually the line descends, leading to makaʻāinana (commoner).^[18] Kaukaualiʻi gain rank through marriage with higher-ranking aliʻi.
• Aliʻi noanoa were chiefs born to a high chief and a commoner.^[13]

One kaukaualiʻi line descended from Moana Kāne, son of Keākealanikāne, became secondary aliʻi to the Kamehameha rulers of the kingdom and were responsible for various hana lawelawe (service tasks). Members of this line married into the Kamehamehas, including Charles Kanaʻina and Kekūanaōʻa.^[16] Some bore Kāhili, royal standards made of feathers, and were attendants of the higher-ranking aliʻi.^[16] During the monarchy some of these chiefs were elevated to positions within the primary political bodies of the Hawaiian legislature and the king's Privy Council. All Hawaiian monarchs after Kamehameha III were the children of Kaukaualiʻi fathers who married higher ranking wives.^[19][20]

See also

• Ruling chiefs of Hawaiʻi
• Ancient Hawaiʻi
• Kingdom of Hawaiʻi
• Aliʻi nui of Hawaiʻi
• Aliʻi nui of Maui
• Aliʻi nui of Oʻahu
• Aliʻi nui of Kauaʻi
• List of monarchs of Tonga
• List of monarchs of Tahiti
• List of monarchs of Huahine
• List of monarchs of Mangareva

References

1. Mary Kawena Pukui; Samuel H. Elbert (1 January 1986). Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian. University of Hawaii Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8248-0703-0.
2. Mary Kawena Pukui; Samuel Hoyt Elbert (2003). "lookup of aliʻi". in Hawaiian Dictionary. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, University of Hawaii Press. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
3. Sharon Henderson Callahan (20 May 2013). Religious Leadership: A Reference Handbook. SAGE Publications. p. 252. ISBN 978-1-4522-7612-0.
4. "Aliʻi". Wehewehe. Ulukau. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
5. Juri Mykkänen (January 2003). Inventing Politics: A New Political Anthropology of the Hawaiian Kingdom. University of Hawaii Press. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-8248-1486-1.
6. John F. McDermott; Wen-Shing Tseng; Thomas W. Maretzki (1 January 1980). People and Cultures of Hawaii: A Psychocultural Profile. University of Hawaii Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-8248-0706-1.
7. Stephen Dando-Collins (1 April 2014). Taking Hawaii: How Thirteen Honolulu Businessmen Overthrew the Queen of Hawaii in 1893, With a Bluff. Open Road Media. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-4976-1429-1.
8. Barbara A. West (1 January 2009). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. p. 270. ISBN 978-1-4381-1913-7.
9. Mary Kawena Pukui; Samuel Hoyt Elbert (2003). "lookup of nui". in Hawaiian Dictionary. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, University of Hawaii Press. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
10. Kamakau 1992, p. iii.
11. Valeri 2009, pp. 211–244.
12. Fornander 1920, pp. 307–311.
13. Kirch 2010, p. 36.
14. Valeri 2009, pp. 227–230.
15. Valeri 2009, pp. 230–236.
16. Young 1998, p. 58.
17. Malo 1903, p. 82.
18. Kauanui 2008, p. 44.
19. Young 1998, p. 112.
20. Osorio 2002, pp. 80, 11, 147.

Further reading

• Fornander, Abraham (1920). Thrum, Thomas G. (ed.). Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore. Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. Vol. 6. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press. OCLC 3354092.
• Hommon, Robert J. (2013). The Ancient Hawaiian State: Origins of a Political Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-991612-2.
• Kamakau, Samuel (1992) [1961]. Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii (Revised ed.). Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press. ISBN 0-87336-014-1.
• Kamakau, Samuel (1993). Tales and Traditions of the People of Old: Na Moʻolelo a ka Poʻe Kahiko. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press.
• Kirch, Patrick Vinton (2010). How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawaiʻi. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-94784-9.
• Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani (2008). Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-9149-4. OCLC 308649636.
• Linnekin, Jocelyn (1990). Sacred Queens and Women of Consequence: Rank, Gender, and Colonialism in the Hawaiian Islands. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-06423-1.
• Malo, Davida (1903). Hawaiian Antiquities: (Moolelo Hawaii). Translated by Nathaniel Bright Emerson. Honolulu: Hawaiian Gazette Co., Ltd. OCLC 317073334.
• Osorio, Jon Kamakawiwoʻole (2002). Dismembering Lāhui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2549-2.
• Stokes, John F. G. (1932). "The Hawaiian King". Hawaiian Historical Society Papers (19). Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society: 1–28. hdl:10524/975.
• Tuimalealiifano, Morgan (2006). O Tama a ʻāiga: The Politics of Succession to Sāmoa's Paramount Titles. Suva: University of the South Pacific. ISBN 9789820203778.
• Valeri, Valerio (2009). "Marriage, Rank, and Politics in Hawaii". In Rio, Knut Mikjel; Smedal, Olaf H. (eds.). Hierarchy: Persistence and Transformation in Social Formations. Berghahn Books. pp. 211–244. ISBN 978-1-84545-493-7.
• Young, Kanalu G. Terry (1998). Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8153-3120-9. OCLC 0815331207.