Kapukini-a-Liloa

Kapukini-a-Liloa was wife of 'Umi-a-Liloa 14th Alii Aimoku of Hawai'i and mother of Keawenui and Ke'ali'i'okaloa.

She was also known as Kapulani. The marriage of Umi-a-Liloa to Kapukini-a-Liloa was a half sister/half brother union. She and Pi'i-kea had the largest houses, near the enclosure of Umi-a-Liloa's enclosure.

There is some controversary about who actually was Kapukini's mother. Samuel Kamakau and Pakelekulani claim that she was the daughter of Ha'ua, while John Papa Li, Unauna, and Abraham Fornander claim that she was the daughter of Queen Pinea. If Pinea was her mother Hakau was her brother.

Though Liloa had formally and publicly acknowledged Umi as his son, and Umi's prowess and accomplishments had vindicated his assumption of power, yet doubtless not a few of the higher chiefs, while acknowledging the pure descent of Umi's mother, considered her rank as so much inferior to that of Liloa, as to materially prejudice the rank of Umi himself in his position as Moi and as a chief of the highest kapu. To remedy this so far as his children were concerned, Umi took his half-sister, Kapukini, to be one of his wives, and thus their children would be 'Alii Pio,' chiefs of the highest grade. Her two sons would succeed her husband as Alii Aimoku of Hawaii.

It was from her that her sons and their descendant trace their lineage from Liloa rather than their father. Because Umi birth was controversial and if he was a true son of Liloa, he still was a son of a Akahiakuleana who was a commoner.

References

* Samuel M. Kamakau, Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii, Revised Edition, (Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press, 1992).
* Abraham Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race: Its Origin and Migrations, Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1969.

External links

* [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~barbpretz/ps01/ps01_199.html Rootsweb]