Final thoughts on "Chief of War"

The Apple TV+ historical drama shortchanged viewers on Hawaiian history and culture

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender 

The first season of Apple TV+’s “Chief of War” is complete. What to make of it? Rotten Tomatoes gives the series about the fight to unify the Hawaiian Islands an overwhelming 93 percent approval rating, based on a survey of critics’ reviews. Here’s a brief sampling:

The San Jose Mercury News’s Randy Myers has called it “invigorating, compelling, and sweeping.”

David Opie of Empire Magazine praised “Chief of War” for cutting a “brutal swathe through epic chapters of Hawaiian history, long unseen and long overdue on screen.” 

Kelly Lawler of USA Today called the series “transportive, immersive, and enlightening – the prettiest and bloodiest history lesson you'll get all year.”

From Hawaii to Asia, “Chief of War” has been sweeping. It’s surely been immersive when it’s been bloody. But it hasn’t been a “history lesson.”

As the author of a novel covering the same historical ground as “Chief of War” (and more), I see this as the show’s biggest problem.

New York Times TV critic Mike Hale took note of this when he wrote that “Chief of War” was “stuffed with people...who existed and with events that took place, but the story that is spun from them is largely fanciful.”

Why make such a big deal over “Chief of War’s” fanciful departures from Hawaiian history? Empire Magazine’s Opie perhaps unwittingly answered that question with his praise of “Chief of War” for bringing a story “long unseen” to the screen.

None of “Chief of War’s” viewers, and no TV critics, have ever seen this story on screen. Moreover, many of them—viewers and critics alike—have likely never read a book about it or learned about it anywhere else.

Before “Chief of War” premiered on August 1, its prospective audience, including critics, was a tabula rasa—a clean slate. As the first filmmakers to bring Hawaii’s unification story to a popular audience, “Chief of War’s” Hawaii-born creators Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett had an opportunity to create something truly unique. Going to a place no filmmakers had gone before, they were free to tell an untold story of the Hawaiian people from the Hawaiians’ unknown point of view to a large, popular audience. Historically, they muffed it.

I’ve already written at length—you might say ad nauseam—about Momoa’s and Pa‘a Sibbett’s dislocation of and departures from Hawaiian history. “Chief of War” viewers expecting a drama that faithfully reflected Hawaiian history, as well as viewers with no prior knowledge of Hawaiian history, were shortchanged.

“Chief of War” also shortchanged viewers culturally. Momoa said a goal of the series was to “immerse” viewers in Hawaiian culture. But the immersion was a mile wide and an inch deep.

The creators of “Chief of War” accurately depicted the appurtenances of Hawaiian culture, including grass houses, clothing, weapons, temples, sail canoes, and religious idols. They introduced viewers to a Hawaiian war god and name-checked a few other Hawaiian deities. Actors spoke Hawaiian throughout the series, and almost exclusively during the first two episodes, imbuing “Chief of War” with an air of authenticity. For all that, “Chief of War” was cultural kitsch. (The New York Times TV reviewer called it “Polynesian kitsch.”)

“Chief of War” never explored aspects of Hawaiian culture that could’ve immersed viewers in life as Hawaiians of Kamehameha’s and Ka‘iana’s day lived it. For example:

• The complexities of the Hawaiians’ strict kapu, harsh laws that barred men and women from eating together and reserved certain foods exclusively for men, for example, and imposed dire penalties for many other transgressions.
• An ali‘i caste-structure that ranked Hawaiian nobility based on the inter- and intragenerational purity of their bloodlines.
• The all-pervading importance of mana, spiritual power that could be won or lost in myriad ways.
• Hawaiian society’s mutual sexual liberation of men and women.
• The political power wielded by women, who could rule villages as “chiefesses” even as they were barred from eating certain foods.

“Chief of War’s” creators could have injected more aspects of Hawaiian culture into the series’ slower scenes, which at least two critics suggested needed some juice.

Empire Magazine’s Opie wrote, “you…wish the quieter moments carried as much weight as the barbaric battles.” And Daniel Fienberg of the Hollywood Reporter predicted that “many viewers will be more than happy to ignore the poorly developed ethical debates and flimsy romances that fill so much of the nine hours.” Talk about damning with faint praise.

The first rule of good storytelling is “show, don’t tell.”

What if, in place of characters talking about ethics, Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett had written a scene showing Kamehameha dealing with an ethical conundrum?

In episode 6 of  “Chief of War,” Kamehameha tells his council he’s proclaiming a law to protect peaceful civilians because he was attacked by villagers who thought he meant to assault them. (A mouthful to recall, which it was to listen to.)

Instead of all the talk, why not show Ka‘iana dragging a commoner before the council because the fellow has attacked him? When it turns out that Ka‘iana has unwarrantedly menaced the accused, Kamehameha pardons the suspect and proclaims his law of the ”splintered paddle.” Historically, that’s not what happened (but so much of what happens in “Chief of War” isn’t). A scene like that is more culturally immersive than talk of mercy alone, and it serves the story by heightening the growing tension between peace-loving Kamehameha and his hot-headed ally Ka‘iana.

Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett deserve praise for exposing a large popular audience to obscure Hawaiian history for the first time. It’s a singular achievement. But historically and culturally, the first season of “Chief of War” could have been better. I hope it will be better in a subsequent season, if there is one. Failing that, “Chief of War” can serve as a baseline for a future historical drama about 18th-century Hawaii and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands.

Stephen Shender is the author of  Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii, about the life of King Kamehameha I and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands.

Chief of War Episode 9: The climactic battle that never was

“Chief of War” creators spin barest Hawaiian historical threads into fantasy

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender 

Before its premiere in August, Apple TV+ publicists described “Chief of War” as the story of the Hawaiian Islands’ unification. But by the end of the first season’s climactic battle between the forces of Kamehameha and his archenemy Keōua Kū‘ahu’ula in episode 9, Kamehameha and his ally Ka‘iana had united only Hawai‘i Island (the Big Island) under Kamehameha’s rule. So, the rest of the unification story will have to wait for another season or two.

Jason Momoa, who plays “Chief of War’s” hero Ka‘iana, directed episode 9. The battle is a cinematic tour de force. Fought in a hellscape of erupting lava, it's “The Lord of the Rings’” Battle of the Black Gate meets “Game of Thrones’” climactic Battle of King’s Landing, with much better lighting than the latter and a real volcanic eruption in the background instead of “The Lord of the Rings’” CGI Mount Doom.

Speaking of CGI, Aficionados of graphically bloody battle scenes will surely want to watch this one more than once. They’ll no doubt especially appreciate a computer-enhanced sequence in which a lava field splits in two under the feet of hundreds of Keōua’s warriors (or thousands; it’s hard to tell), tumbling them into a river of molten magma. (This bit struck me as the inverse of the Red Sea swallowing Pharaoh Rameses’s army in the 1956 film, “The Ten Commandments,” and the 2014 movie “Exodus: Gods and Kings”)

Momoa filmed his battle over eight days, deploying his production crew, actors, and scores of extras on the Kalapana lava field in the Big Island’s Puna District. The lava field is named after the village of Kalapana, obliterated by a Kilauea eruption in 1990. If you visit the Big Island, you’ll find the Kalapana lava field at the end of Route 130. You can’t miss it because the road ends abruptly at a wall of black lava. The street signs of the destroyed community still stand amid the lava, a stark reminder of the perils of investing in the area’s real estate.  

Providentially, near-simultaneous eruptions of the Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes coincided with “Chief of War’s” shooting schedule. Momoa has called this geological event a “sign of approval from our ancestors.” Perhaps. But if Hawaiians’ ancestral storytellers could’ve been consulted, it’s unlikely they would have approved of Momoa’s and his co-writer Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett’s version of the Big Island’s unification. Why? Because “Chief of War” episode 9’s decisive battle, in which Ka‘iana kills Keōua, with or without their faceoff across a magma-filled chasm, never happened.

As they’ve done numerous times throughout this series, Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett have spun the barest elements of Hawaiian mo‘olelo (history) into kaao (fantasy). And as usual, history is more interesting.

Before episode 9's big battle, Kamehameha’s and Keōua’s warriors glare and snarl at each other, while their leaders hurl insults. Historically, Hawaiians in opposing armies often did this before they started throwing spears.

During the battle, the opposing armies’ priests stand apart, praying to their respective gods for victory, mostly unmolested because to attack them was kapu. According to Nathaniel Emerson, translator of 19th-century Hawaiian writer David Malo’s Hawaiian Antiquities (1951, Bishop Museum), they did this.

Keōua’s army was decimated by a volcanic eruption, but not during a battle, as in “Chief of War.”

Though Kamehameha and Ka‘iana fought Keōua Kū‘ahu’ula more than once, they never decisively defeated him.

The story of Keōua Kū‘ahu’ula

Keōua was younger than his cousin Kamehameha by fourteen or fifteen years. He was a constant thorn in Kamehameha’s side from the time of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s death in approximately 1782.

Kalani‘ōpu‘u left the Kohala District to his favorite nephew Kamehameha, whom he had also named keeper of the war god, Kūkā‘ilimoku. He left the distribution of the rest of the Big Island’s land to his oldest son and heir, Kiwala‘ō. Kiwala‘ō refused to grant any lands to Keōua beyond his family’s ancestral Ka‘ū District.

After Kiwala‘ō was killed at the Battle of Moku‘ōhai, Keōua retreated to Ka‘ū, which became his base of operations against Kamehameha. The two cousins battled back and forth for control of the Big Island for the next nine years.

Keōua’s army was retreating from one of these battles when Kilauea erupted and smothered hundreds of his warriors. Despite this calamity, Keōua’s surviving forces administered a crushing defeat to Kamehameha’s warriors under the command of Ka‘iana, whom Kamehameha had dispatched to Ka‘ū to destroy his troublesome cousin’s disaster-stricken army.

Meanwhile, Kamehameha’s people built a massive heiau (temple) on a hill overlooking a small bay at Kawaihae, on Kohala’s northwest coast. Kamehameha had ordered the temple’s construction after a seer on O‘ahu prophesied that if Kamehameha built the temple and dedicated it to Kūkā‘ilimoku, he would conquer all the islands.

Unable to defeat Keōua in the field, Kamehameha sent two of his uncles to Ka‘ū to invite Keōua to Kawaihae for the consecration of his new temple. Keōua accepted Kamehameha’s invitation against his advisers’ advice. According to some accounts, Keōua thought Kamehameha meant to make peace with him. According to other accounts, Keōua suspected Kamehameha meant to kill him and went anyway, resigned to die.

Keōua Kū‘ahu’ula died at Kawaihae Bay when Kamehameha’s chieftains, led by Ka‘ahumanu’s father Ke‘eaumoku, swarmed his double-hulled canoe and assassinated him. Kamehameha consecrated the new heiau by sacrificing Keōua’s body on the altar of his war god, Kūkā‘ilimoku. Kamehameha was finally the undisputed ruler of the Big Island, and his road to conquest of the rest of the islands was open.

The foundations of the temple that Kamehameha built on the hill overlooking the bay at Kawaihae are still there. From a path just below the heiau’s lava-stone wall, you can look down on the small bay and imagine how its waters ran with blood amid that chaotic scene more than 230 years ago. The heiau takes its name from the Hawaiian name of the hill on which it stands: Pu‘ukoholā—the hill of the whale.

Stephen Shender is the author of  Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii, about the life of Kamehameha and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands.

Setting the stage for a historic battle

Looking ahead to “Chief of War’s” climactic battle in episode 9, a question remains: What's it about, really?

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender 

In episode 8 of “Chief of War,” Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula orders his warriors to chop down palm trees in Kamehameha’s sacred grove, kidnaps the grove’s kahuna (priest)—whom he later tosses into the Kilauea volcano’s seething caldera, kills Ka‘iana’s brother Nahi in a fight, and sacrifices Nahi’s bones. It’s a multiply aggressive act that finally provokes the peace-seeking Kamehameha to concede Ka‘iana’s point that he must fight his cousin, Keōua. It’s also riveting drama.

Keōua, who previously tried without success to draw Kamehameha into a fight by burning down his village’s food stores, needn’t have gone to all that trouble. Simply chopping down a palm tree or two would’ve been enough.

Palm trees, nui, were sacred to Hawaiians. It was forbidden, kapu, for anyone to chop them down. For one ali‘i to fell a palm tree within another ali‘i’s jurisdiction was a provocative act almost sure to draw armed retaliation. Historically, that’s what sparked a bloody fight between cousins that followed the death of the Big Island’s ruler Kalani‘ōpu’u. But the fight wasn’t between Kamehameha and his cousin Keōua.

In “Chief of War,” Kalani‘ōpu’u has named Keōua to succeed him as the Big Island’s ruler and made his nephew Kamehameha the keeper of his war god Kū, in hopes of preventing a fight between cousins. Keōua wants the war god’s idol for himself, and that’s sufficient reason for him to go to war with Kamehameha in the Apple TV+ streaming series.

Historically and years before Ka‘iana arrived on the Big Island, Kalani‘ōpu’u gave Kū into Kamehameha’s keeping and named Kiwala‘ō, Keōua’s older brother, his heir. As the Big Island’s new ruler, Kiwala‘ō controlled all the island’s aina—land—except for the lands of the Kohala District, which Kalani‘ōpu’u willed to Kamehameha. Kiwala‘ō was free to divide the rest of the island among his subchiefs as he saw fit.

Suspicious that Kiwala‘ō intended to redistribute the land they’d held under Kalani‘ōpu’u to the island’s “rainy-side” chiefs, the “dry-side” Kona chieftains, led by Ka‘ahumanu’s father Ke‘eaumoku, pressured Kamehameha to come out of Kohala to join them in a war against his cousin. Reluctant to resort to arms, Kamehameha tried to persuade Kiwala‘ō to conciliate the Kona chiefs, without success.

Meanwhile, unprovoked, Kiwala‘ō’s brother Keōua and his warriors chopped down Kamehameha’s palm trees and killed some of Kamehameha’s people. Keōua’s brash attack decided the matter for Kamehameha and was the opening act of the Battle of Moku‘ōhai, which culminated in Kiwala‘ō’s death at the hands of Ke‘eaumoku. The historic battle was not fought over a feathered idol on a stick as “Chief of War” would have it. It was first, last, and always a fight over aina.

Other than the brutal unseating of Kiwala‘ō as the Big Island’s ruler, Moku‘ōhai settled nothing. The Big Island remained divided after Moku‘ōhai; Kamehameha and his Kona allies held Kohala and Kona, Keōua held Ka‘ū, and the cousins’ uncle held the Puna, Hilo, and Hāmākua districts. It would be another nine years before Kamehameha finally unified the Big Island under his rule.  

As with so much of “Chief of War,” its creators, Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett, have taken liberties with Hawaiian history in their lead-up to the series’ forthcoming climactic battle in episode 9. In this instance, they’ve cut out the unfortunate middleman, Kiwala‘ō, in favor of jumping years ahead to Kamehameha’s later fight with Keōua. This was inevitable once Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett chose Ka‘iana as their protagonist, because Ka‘iana wasn’t on the scene when Kamehameha and Kiwala‘ō went at it.

“Chief of War” was billed as the story of the fight to unify—more accurately, the fight over who would unify—the Hawaiian Islands. Historically, that fight was mainly resolved by a bloody battle between Kamehameha and the late Kahekili’s son, Kalanikūpule, on O‘ahu. Will that be what “Chief of War’s” final battle is about? It’s hard to imagine at this point, but who knows? Stay tuned…

Stephen Shender is the author of  Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii about the life of  Kamehameha and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands.

 

Fancy versus History in "Chief of War"

Episode by episode, the Apple TV+ series has become increasingly imaginative  

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender 

When I was researching Once There Was Fire, my historical novel about the life of Hawaii’s Kamehameha and his struggle to unify first the Big Island and then the rest of the island chain under his rule, I learned that Hawaiians of Kamehameha’s time and earlier told one another two kinds of stories: kaao and mo‘olelo. Kaao were fanciful stories, told for fun. Mo‘olelo were serious stories Hawaiians—who had no written language—told to transmit their history, genealogies, and religious rituals to successive generations.

The Apple TV+ series “Chief of War” has been lightly tethered to Hawaiian mo‘olelo from the start, when its first two episodes mislocated important historical figures in place and time. But as the series has unfolded, its connection to the Hawaiian people’s mo‘olelo, already tenuous, has become increasingly severed. “Chief of War”—created by Hawaii-born Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett—is substituting kaao for mo‘olelo more frequently.

Take, for example, Kamehameha’s “law of the splintered paddle” (māmalohoe), which he proclaims in episode 6 of “Chief of War,” saying he’ll extend it to everyone, including Keōua Kū’ahu‘ula and subsequently to a haole sea captain in episode 7.

 

According to Hawaiian mo‘olelo, Kamehameha promulgated this law to protect civilians from being assaulted while going about their usual business—farming, fishing, food gathering, or literally just “lying down by the side of the road”—after he paid a humbling price for assaulting some civilians. In “Chief of War” Kamehameha tells his allies he’d slipped away from his council one night and taken a canoe to Puna, where locals who thought he’d come to attack them broke a canoe paddle over his head. That Kamehameha was attacked by commoners who broke a paddle over his head is mo‘olelo. But “Chief of War’s” how, when, and where of it is kaao.

First, the how. The notion that Kamehameha could have paddled a canoe from Kohala to Puna overnight and returned without his council noting it is a kaao requiring an impossible suspension of disbelief for anyone who knows the Big Island’s geography. For example, it takes nearly two hours to travel by car from Puako Bay in South Kohala to Kalapana in the Big Island’s Puna District by way of the Saddle Road, the shortest overland route. By sea it’s an eighty to ninety nautical-mile sail or paddle (source: Windows’ AI-driven Copilot, which I’ve found very useful for spot research). As powerfully built as history’s Kamehameha was, there was no way he could have covered that distance as quickly as “Chief of War” would have it, paddling a Hawaiian outrigger canoe by himself.

Second, the mo‘olelo’s where and when is much more interesting than “Chief of War’s” briefly told kaao would have it. The incident that led to the māmalohoe’s promulgation happened near Laupāhoehoe, north of Hilo on the Hāmakua Coast, on the Big Island’s windward side opposite of leeward-side Kohala. This, after Kamehameha suffered an embarrassing defeat at Hilo in his ongoing struggle to unify the Big Island (he suffered more than one); in this case at the hands of an uncle who ruled the Hilo District. Kamehameha was nursing his wounded ego when he paddled a canoe a relatively short distance down the Hāmakua Coast, in daylight, to attack some peaceful villagers, caught his foot in a lava crevice, and was attacked by the villagers instead.

Kamehameha’s application of the law of the splintered paddle in “Chief of War” is problematic. Kamehameha proclaimed the law to protect peaceful kānaka, civilian commoners. It’s unlikely he would have extended its protection to an ali‘i warrior like his bitter foe Keōa Kū’ahu‘ula. It’s even less likely that Kamehameha would’ve extended the law’s protection to a haole mariner like Simon Metcalfe. He does both in “Chief of War.”

Kamehameha’s application of the law to Metcalfe in “Chief of War” does serve to heighten the tension between Kamehameha and Ka‘iana, who scorns Kamehameha for his reluctance to fight, whether it’s with Keōua or Metcalfe. And goodness knows, the ofttimes-plodding plot of “Chief of War” needs periodic infusions of tension.

Kaao trumps mo‘olelo again in episode 7 of “Chief of War” when American Simon Mefcalfe orders his ship’s cannons loaded with nail-filled cannisters and opens fire on Hawaiian villagers gathered on a beach in Kohala, massacring hundreds of men, women, and children.

Mo‘olelo: Simon Metcalfe really fired his cannons on Hawaiians, killing scores. Kaao: In “Chief of War” Metcalfe’s slaughter of innocents happens on the wrong island and in response to a historically inaccurate provocation.

Briefly, in "Chief of War" Metcalfe’s ship arrives at the Big Island’s Kohala District, where Metcalfe hopes to commence a lucrative trade in sandalwood. Metcalfe’s used a stolen chart to find the Hawaiian Islands, even though Capt. James Cook had charted the islands earlier and every haole mariner and his uncle knows where they are by now.

Englishman John Young—who was left behind on Maui by the Nootka, a ship on which he never sailed, and who did sail on Metcalfe’s Eleanora, until Metcalfe left him behind on the Big Island—mediates between Metcalfe and Kamehameha in Kohala. Ka‘iana warns Kamehameha not to trust the “palefaces” and seeks to somehow force an armed conflict by sneaking onto the Eleanora at night and grabbing Marley, the former Nootka crew member who stole the chart and brought it to Metcalfe. An alarm is raised and a tense, armed standoff ensues until Kamehameha boards the Eleanora, orders Ka‘iana to stand down, and proclaims that his splintered-paddle law applies to a haole like Metcalfe as well as Hawaiians, much to Ka‘iana’s disgust. The following morning, Metcalfe is advised that the locals will supply him with food and water and told he must leave. Angered, Metcalfe sails to a neighboring Kohala bay and slaughters the villagers there. Aside from the massacre, the rest is pure kaao. The mo‘olelo is more interesting.

Metcalfe’s massacre happened at the village of Olowalu on Maui, not at Kohala on the Big Island. Metcalfe was not provoked by Hawaiians’ refusal to trade with him. He was provoked after a day of trading at another village, when Hawaiians stole the Eleanora’s skiff, tied to the ship’s stern, under cover of darkness.

Metcalfe first anchored off Honua‘ula on Maui’s leeward side for trade. After a day of trading successful for Metcalfe and Hawaiians alike, an ali‘i from Olowalu who had come to Honua‘ula to trade paddled out to the ship in the night, cut the skiff’s line to the Eleanora, and towed the skiff back to Olowalu. The Eleanora’s night watchman was asleep in the skiff. When he woke up he began shouting—too late because by then no one on the Eleanora could have heard him. Nevertheless, the ali‘i killed the unfortunate haole to silence him and tossed his body into the sea.

When Metcalfe discovered his skiff and his watchman missing the next morning, he ordered his men to fire the ship’s cannon on Honua‘ula, killing several villagers.  He sent people ashore to take prisoners. Two apprehended villagers were taken to the Eleanora for interrogation. They told Metcalfe the thieves were from Olowalu, up the coast towards Lahaina.

Metcalfe sailed to Olowalu, where the area’s high chiefess, who was the thieving ali‘i’s partner, declared a kapu, forbidding Olowalu villagers from approaching the ship because of what had transpired at Honua‘ula. After three days of pressure from the Olowalu ali‘i, who were eager to trade with the Eleanora, and after Metcalfe sent crewmen ashore to convince the Hawaiians as best they could by signing that Metcalfe meant them no harm, the chiefess lifted the kapu.

The Olowalu villagers loaded their canoes with pigs, fruit, yams, and vegetables, and whatever else they had to trade for haole goods, and soon their canoes surrounded the Eleanora. The ship’s crew pelted refuse at Hawaiians in canoes at the ship’s bow and stern to force them to join the other canoes on the Eleanora’s port and starboard sides. The gathered Hawaiians looked up from their canoes, waiting for Metcalfe’s permission to board the ship. When Metcalfe was sure no more canoes were coming out from shore, he ordered the Eleanora’s crew to open fire on the Hawaiians with muskets and port- and starboard-side cannons. At least 100 Hawaiians were killed instantly and scores more were wounded.

The Olowalu ali‘i who stole Metcalfe skiff wanted the boat for its parts. Having no metal ore or metallurgy, the Hawaiians prized any haole object made of any kind of metal, especially iron nails. Nails had been a common trade currency between haole seamen and Hawaiians since Captain Cook’s visit in 1778-79. The ali‘i and his men stole Metcalfe’s skiff to pry out its nails. They most likely chopped up the skiff’s remains for firewood.

Given the old Hawaiians’ fondness for nails, Metcalfe’s cannonading Hawaiians with nail-loaded canisters in “Chief of War” is a scene of grisly, albeit surely unintended, irony. No kaao, that. 

 

 

 

  

Hawaii's Kamehameha Schools is under attack

As “Chief of War” stirs popular interest in Hawaiian culture, a right-wing group launches assault on  Kamehameha Schools' admissions policy favoring native Hawaiians

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

(This blog post originally stated incorrectly that SFFA filed suit against Kamehameha Schools on Sept. 3 in U.S. District Court in Hawaii, based on a misunderstanding of a report by SCOTUS.blog. SCOTUS.blog reported on Sept. 3 that SFFA was preparing a suit. SFFA filed its suit on Oct. 20. I apologize for the error, but not for jumping the gun.)

I received a disturbing notice from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs recently: A Virginia-based outfit, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), is challenging the admissions policy of Kamehameha Schools. 

SFFA's challenge is a redo of an earlier challenge to Kamehameha Schools' admission policy—Doe v. Kamehameha Schools—that was argued and lost by its plaintiffs in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court nine years ago.

SFFA claims that “over 20,000 parents, students and others” have joined its membership “to help restore color-blind principles to our nations’ schools, colleges and universities” since its founding in 2014.

SFFA has successfully sued Harvard University and the University of North Carolina over their admissions policies. SFFA is looking for families whose children have been rejected for admission to Kamehameha Schools.

SFFA says it's challenging privately funded Kamehameha Schools because Kamehameha Schools’ “preference [for applicants of native-Hawaiian ancestry] is so strong that it is essentially impossible for a non-Native Hawaiian student to be admitted to Kamehameha.” SFFA states that Kamehameha Schools’ “focus on ancestry, rather than merit or need, is neither fair nor legal, and we are committed to ending Kamehameha’s unlawful admissions policies in court.”

Kamehameha Schools does indeed give “preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry to the extent permitted by law.” Applicants who can prove to have at least one kanaka maoli (pure Hawaiian) ancestor can qualify for preferential treatment. Kamehameha Schools additionally reserves twenty-five percent of “new spaces” for orphan and indigent applicants who demonstrate they can be “academically successful.”

Kamehameha Schools’ present-day admissions policy is in keeping with its history of ensuring educational opportunities for Native Hawaiians since its founding by a bequest from the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop in 1887. Pauahi Bishop was a great-granddaughter of Hawaii’s King Kamehameha I, who unified the Hawaiian Islands and founded the Kingdom of Hawaii.

SFFA’s attempt to prevent a venerable, privately endowed and funded Hawaiian educational institution from fulfilling its mission on its own historic terms is audacious. Worse than that, it’s duplicitous.

According to the 2020 census, 21.8 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents are self-identified native Hawaiians. And according to the Hawaii Department of Education, approximately 41,577 students in Hawaii’s public schools identified as Native Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian during the 2020–2021 school year, accounting for about 23.7 percent of the total public school enrollment of 174,704 students. 

Kamehameha Schools serves approximately 6,000 students across three K-12 campuses and more than 30 pre-schools—meaning that there are about seven Native Hawaiian students enrolled in public schools for every Native Hawaiian student in Kamehameha Schools classrooms. Because that ratio is so lopsided, there’s no way Kamehameha Schools can accommodate all Native Hawaiian applicants, let alone non-Native Hawaiian students; not under its preferential admissions policy.

Meanwhile, acting allegedly on behalf of a majority of Hawaii’s population, Students for Fair Admissions and their attorneys are contesting a Kamehameha Schools admissions policy that benefits a minority of a minority of a minority of Hawaii’s general population, general student population and Native Hawaiian student population. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

Students for Fair Admissions was founded in 2014 by conservative, self-described “legal strategist” Edward Blum. Blum, who specializes in orchestrating challenges to race-conscious policies in education and voting rights, is not a lawyer. He’s a professional organizer of lawsuits against educational and other institutions. SFFA is one of several non-profit organizations Blum’s established to bring legal challenges based on one form or another of alleged preferential discrimination, most often based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Blum’s other organizations are the Project on Fair Representation and the American Alliance for Equal Rights. Blum’s non-profit groups are reportedly funded by conservative donors and legal foundations. Since they’re non-profits, they don’t have to disclose their donors.

They do have to disclose their budgets. In 2023, according to their IRS 990 forms, SFFA paid Blum $48,000 annually and Project for Fair Representation paid him $150,000—this latter when Project for Fair Representation ran a $106,841deficit. Blum is also a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he likely draws another salary. AEI pays its fellows between $88,000 and $144,000 annually; average annual salary at AEI is $112,674. (Nice work, if you can get it.)

Policy changes are the primary goal of Blum’s groups. In 2014, Blum’s newly constituted SFFA challenged Harvard and the University of North Carolina’s admissions policies, arguing they discriminated against white and Asian applicants. SFFA ultimately won its case big time in the Supreme Court, whose favorable ruling in 2023 effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions.

That victory came with a multimillion-dollar exclamation point for SFFA when UNC settled with Blum’s group for $4.8 million, of which $3.9 million went to legal fees and $900,000 went to “expenses.” To date, Harvard has not settled with SFFA.

In Doe v. Kamehameha Schools he U.S. Ninth Circuit Court sitting en banc (with all its judges) upheld the school’s preferential admissions policy in a 12-4 ruling. But in the wake of the six-to-three conservative-dominated Supreme Court’s decision in the UNC and Harvard cases two years ago, SFFA ’s chances of winning a suit against Kamehameha Schools’ admission policy appear promising.

Kamehameha Schools is potentially a settlement-rich target for Blum’s SFFA and the group's attorneys. With a budget backed by a $15.2 billion endowment, including financial assets of $10.5 billion and $4.7 billion in commercial real estate, Kamehameha Schools’ operating budget for FY 23-24 was $460 million, including: $240 million to support its K-12 campuses and pre-school programs; $90 million for scholarships, outreach programs and partnerships with Hawaiian-serving organizations; $60 million for management of 365,000 acres of ancestral lands; and $70 million for support services and administration.

Financially, SFFA has been the most successful of Blum’s groups. In 2023 SFFA had revenues of $3.25 million, $1.74 million in expenses, and $1.51 million in net income. With resources like that, Students for Fair Admissions appears well fixed to finance the latest case against Kamehameha Schools all the way to a favorable Supreme Court, while potentially subjecting Kamehameha Schools to serious financial stress as it seeks to defend itself.

Forgive my cynicism for wondering if that isn’t a goal of SFFA's lawsuit, which seems bent on denying a beloved 135-year-old educational institution—devoted from its inception to uplifting native Hawaiians and their culture—the right to its own future.

Stephen Shender is the author of  Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii, about the life of  Kamehameha and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands.

"Chief of War" goes downhill in episode five, and that's a good thing

No snow job; Hawaiians really, really sledded without it

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

In the fifth episode of “Chief of War,” Ka‘iana returns to Hawaii with his load of muskets, landing in the Kohala district on the Big Island, where he offers the district’s ali‘i moku (chieftain) Kamehameha his services. He’s not welcomed by Kamehameha’s council, who distrust him because of his previous alliance with Maui’s ruler Kahekili. Ka‘iana says he’s trying to “atone” for that. Kamehameha challenges him to a hōlua (sled) race, saying he’ll “let the gods” decide if Ka‘iana should join his council.

The ensuing hōlua race is at once the most thrilling and historically authentic scene in “Chief of War” to date. Thrilling, because Momoa and Hawaiian actor Kaina Makua (who plays Kamehameha) really rode handcrafted replica hōlua sleds down a track that would thrill an advanced snow skier; and authentic because Hawaiians of Kamehameha’s day did this for sport. Of course, the Hawaiians of the time didn’t have safety lines like Momoa and Makua, and they didn’t race to win their gods’ favor, but still…

When I was growing up in Chicago, I spent many happy winter-weekend afternoons joining other kids snow-sledding down a small hill in nearby Lincoln Park. So when I was  researching Once There Was Fire, my historical novel about the life of Kamehameha, I was excited to learn that Hawaiians sledded year-round without ice or snow. I was so entranced by the old Hawaiians’ sledding that I had to put a hōlua race between Kamehameha and his brother in my book. Unfortunately, when the time came to cut my draft manuscript down to a more readable (and portable) size my editor prevailed on me to lose the race.

My source for hōlua racing details and many other aspects of 18th-century Hawaiian culture was Hawaiian Antiquities, Mo‘olelo Hawai‘i by David Malo (Bishop Museum, 1951). Malo was a native Hawaiian born at Keauhou on the Big Island, roughly two years before Kamehameha’s climactic battle on O‘ahu for control of all the islands except Kaua‘i in 1795. Malo was a young man when the first Congregationalist missionaries reached Hawaii in 1820 and he learned to speak, read, and write English in a missionary school. He collected his people’s stories and recorded them in Hawaiian. His work, and the work others who added to it, was translated and published in English in 1898.

In Hawaiian Antiquities Malo describes “sliding downhill on the hōlua sled” as “a sport greatly in vogue among chiefs and people, and on the issue of which they were very fond of making bets, when the fit took them….The bets having been arranged, the racers took their stations at the head of the track; the man who was ranged in front gave his sled a push to start and mount it, whereupon his competitor, who was to his rear, likewise started his sled and followed after. He who made the longest run was the victor. In case both contestants traveled the length of the course [i.e., neither fell off their sled], it was a dead heat and did not decide the victor.” In that case, Malo says, victory went to the competitor who had “the best run.” He doesn’t say who the judges were; or what Hawaiians, who didn’t have coinage or currency, bet on these races.

The Hawaiians didn’t just slide down any hill. They constructed tracks for their sleds. “Rocks were first laid down,” writes Malo, “then earth was put on and beaten hard; lastly the whole was layered with grass, and this was the track for the hōlua sled to run on.” “Chief of War’s” producers built a hōlua track, based on historical descriptions, for episode five.

The Hawaiians built their tracks to last. On the Big Island, you can see a real hōlua track at the Kaloko-Honokōhau National HistoricPark, off Highway 19 just north of Kailua-Kona.

Kamehameha steals the show

The best thing about “Chief of War” to date is native-Hawaiian educator, taro farmer, and first-time actor Kaina Makua’s casting as Kamehameha. Makua, one of three “Chief of War” actors who speak Hawaiian, brings an expressiveness to his role, especially when delivering his Hawaiian-language lines, that the cast’s non-Hawaiian speakers, including Jason Momoa, lack. Moreover, Makua’s Kamehameha is true to history’s picture of him—a firm, thoughtful leader with a common touch; a warrior initially reluctant to fight, but ready to give battle if a fight comes to him.

A fight is coming to Makua’s Kamehameha. At the end of episode five, Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula leads an unprovoked nighttime raid on Kamehameha’s village and sets fire to the village’s thatched-roofed long house. The conflagration marks the beginning of “Chief of War’s” buildup to its season finale in episode nine, when Kamehameha and Ka‘iana will face off against Keōua in a bloody battle on a Kohala lava field (already much ballyhooed in advance publicity, so no spoiler alert there). Assuming “Chief of War” keeps faith with Hawaiian history, that battle will be a climactic fight between Kamehameha and Keōua for undisputed rule of the Big Island. Unification of the rest of the islands under Kamehameha’s rule will have to wait until another season of “Chief of War.”

A jarring moment in episode five and a historical fact check

Episode five’s connection to Hawaiian history is jarringly disrupted when, after speaking Ō‘lelo Hawai‘i—Hawaiian—almost exclusively through “Chief of War’s” first four episodes, Hawaiian characters suddenly start speaking English—to each other. Presumably, they owe their newfound English fluency to John Young, who’s been running English classes for the Hawaiians since he was marooned in Hawaii several years earlier. (This, while Young’s simultaneously learning to speak Hawaiian himself.) 

I suppose this is acceptable as dramatic license, but do these Hawaiians really need to speak English among themselves? They don’t, of course. It’s certainly convenient however for viewers who’ve become tired of reading subtitles by episode five.

Factually, it’s entirely implausible. At this point in Hawaiian history only Ka‘iana, who’s returned from the Far East after a lengthy sojourn and a roundtrip on two different ships with English-speaking crews (the Nootka and the Iphigenia), has had the time and opportunity to learn English—by virtue of exposure alone. Meanwhile, John Young, who’s only just arrived in Hawaii at about the same time as Ka‘iana’s return, hasn’t had time to learn Hawaiian, let alone teach English to a single Hawaiian.

In any event, late-18th century Hawaii’s general population did not speak English. Hawaiians didn’t begin to gain English fluency until well after the first Congregationalist missionaries arrived in 1820. The missionaries taught Hawaiians to read in their own language (using a phonetic alphabet that differed from Hawaiian as it was then spoken). Hawaiians achieved the world’s highest literacy rate, in their own language, by 1840; English did not become a primary language in the Hawaiian Islands until the mid- to late-19th century.

Hawaiians really did go mano-a-fin with killer sharks

 “Chief of War” mostly got it right

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

In the first scene of the first episode of “Chief of War,” the series’ hero, Ka‘iana (Jason Momoa), dives into the sea from a double-hulled sail canoe to rope and kill a niuhi, a man-eating shark, after his companions chum the water with ‘awa, an intoxicant, to inebriate the animal. As implausible as this might seem, it’s not a Hollywood CGI fever dream. Through “Chief of War’s” first four episodes it’s the series’ most historically credible scene.

According to native-Hawaiian writer Stephen L. Desha, Hawaiians went mano-a-fin with sharks and killed them. Desha conserved Hawaiian oral history in columns he wrote for readers of Hawaiian-language newspapers in the first quarter of the 20th century. His columns were later translated into English and compiled in a book, Kamehameha and His Warrior Kekūhaupi‘o (Kamehameha Schools Press, 2000). Kekūhaupi‘o was Kamehameha’s martial arts trainer; his kahu.

Desha learned about Hawaiian shark-hunting methods from his “wife's grandfather who was one of those who fished for niuhi on the purplish-blue seas of Kāne.” Desha recounted the old man’s account of shark baiting as he heard it:

In the red dawning [said Desha’s wife’s grandfather] my foster father ordered two men to immerse the bait [the flesh of a butchered pig], then some men with sharpened sticks…began to pierce the putrid bundles, releasing stinking juices and grease to spread over the surface of the sea.

— From Kamehameha and His Warrior Kekūhaupi‘o

Unlike Ka‘iana’s crew in “Chief of War” These real-life Hawaiian fishermen did not use ‘awa to slow the reflexes of their man-eating shark. But ‘awa, a sacred drink derived from a pepper plant, was ritually employed by Hawaiian shark hunters, as in “Chief of War.”

Drawing on the old man’s recollections, Desha spins his story of Kekūhaupi‘o’s fight with a man-eater. In Desha’s telling, Kekūhaupi‘o’s companions chum the water with stinking bundles of rotting sow meat wrapped in kalo (taro) and kī (ti) leaves to lure the shark to the canoe and dull its senses.

 Kekūhaupi‘o’s kahu cautions him to remain on the canoe until the shark grows sluggish from gulping “greasy” sea water:

“E Kekūhaupi‘o e, don’t be too hasty…when I tell you to leap, attempt to dive under this fish which is following our canoe, but not just at this moment, as the sea has not cleared. Wait a little and let the shark swallow the grease from the bundles.”

—From Kamehameha and His Warrior Kekūhaupi‘o

Kekūhaupi‘o waits as instructed, dives under the shark and spears it, killing it before it can turn on him.

Kekūhaupi‘o had watched the shark gulping baited sea water knowing very well the place to thrust his short spear and that if his thrust should be awkward his opponent would have time to turn quickly on him….on hearing his teacher’s order he dove straight to the shark’s side giving it no time to turn.

—From Kamehameha and His Warrior Kekūhaupi‘o

In my novel, it’s Kamehameha, coached by Kekūhaupi‘o, who dives into greasy water to kill a shark.

Kamehameha slipped into the water with a short ihe spear tied to his wrist. He filled his lungs, doubled over, and slid beneath the water’s surface. Intent on the pig meat, the shark did not notice him. From a fathom below the canoe’s hull, Kamehameha turned back and kicked hard, angling up toward the shark, now a dark shadow against the water’s bright surface. Sensing Kamehameha’s presence at last, the great predator turned toward him.

—From Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii

Regarding the virtues of greasy pig meat versus ‘awa for sedating sharks, a writer of historical fiction gets to choose, and putrid pig flesh makes for more pungent prose than ‘awa.

Historical choices in “Chief of War” episode 4

Ka‘iana concludes his adventure in Zamboanga by releasing hundreds of Asian men, women, and children from slave pens while searching for and rescuing Tony, his black crewman friend from the Nootka, while incidentally starting a fire that engulfs the town’s gritty slave-trade quarter. Historically, there’s not much to unpack from this wholly imaginative sequence.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in the Big Island’s Ka‘ū District, where “Chief of War” creators have made some historical and cultural choices.

The story:

Kalani‘ōpu’u, the Big Island’s ruler, has died. He’s named his son Keōua (Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula) to rule after him. Kalani‘ōpu’u’s nephew, Kamehameha, swears to follow Keōua, but that’s not enough for Keōua. He’s furious when he learns Kalani‘ōpu’u has entrusted Kamehameha with his war god, Kūkā‘ilimoku. Keōua wants to rule and keep the god, a grinning feathered idol on a pole. He calls Kamehameha a “low-born” “bastard” son of Poiwa (Keku‘iapoiwa) who’s not fit to take the god into his keeping. Keōua is so angry about this, he knocks out one of his own teeth to show the assembled chiefs how mad he is. Kamehameha is unmoved. He says he must honor his uncle’s dying wish and takes the god back to his fiefdom in Kohala, where he installs it in a temple and announces he will not fight Keōua unless Keōua attacks him first.

The history:

Historically, Kalani‘ōpu’u did not choose Keōua to succeed him. Prior to his death in the Ka’ū District circa 1782, Kalani‘ōpu‘u named his oldest son Kiwala‘o his heir and made his nephew Kamehameha the war god’s keeper—an arrangement Kalani‘ōpu’u hoped would forestall a fight between the two cousins after he died. When Kamehameha and Kiwala‘o eventually fought, they clashed over land distributions, not the idol. The fight between the two cousins was resolved by the slaying of Kiwala‘o at Moku‘ōhai (where Ka‘ahumanu’s father killed him).

The victory left Kamehameha in control of the Big Island’s Kohala and Kona districts. Keōua, who sided with his older brother Kiwala‘o against Kamehameha at Moku‘ōhai, controlled the Ka‘ū District. (A third chief—an uncle of Kamehameha, Kiwala‘o, and Keōua—ruled the Hilo and Puna districts and a portion of the Hamakua Coast on the Big Island’s windward side.)

Kamehameha and Keōua were still fighting for control of the Big Island—Keōua had previously dispatched their mutual uncle—when Ka‘iana turned up there with a load of muskets years after the battle of Moku‘ōhai. Offering his services to Kamehameha, Ka‘iana became an important ally in the former’s fight with Keōua for control over the rest of the Big Island. History will be served when Ka‘iana joins Kamehameha in opposing Keōua in a future episode of “Chief of War” (a clash that is almost certainly coming). But the series’ creators will have short-circuited history to get there.

Culture:

I appreciate the care “Chief of War” creators have taken to portray Hawaiian culture for a popular audience. But at the risk of stepping out of my “lane” as a haole, I’ll point out a couple of discordant cultural notes in episode four.

First, Keōua’s do-it-yourself tooth “extraction”—Hawaiians of Kamehameha’s and Ka‘iana’s day knocked out their own teeth out of grief, not in anger as Keōua does in episode four. Hawaiians considered it proof of anguished mourning. Kamehameha famously knocked out one of his teeth when his first lover died.

Second, Keōua’s insulting reference to Kamehameha’s parentage—Keōua calls Kamehameha Keku‘iapoiwa’s “bastard” offspring. In fact, no Hawaiian child could be born a bastard in Kamehameha’s day. The Hawaiians of his time had no marriage sacrament and there was no such thing as birth out of wedlock. Moreover, Hawaiian men and women were equally free to take lovers even when they partnered with others. A case in point: As a very young man, Kamehameha had an affair with one of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s wives, with the inevitable biological result. Kalani‘ōpu‘u adopted and raised Kamehameha’s child. As for Kamehameha’s “bastard” birth, his mother, Keku‘iapoiwa, was rumored to have had an affair with Kahekili, Maui’s future ruler. Her partner, Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s brother Keōua (not be confused with Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s son Keōua), accepted Kamehameha as his own child.

Hawaiian villages really raised children back in the day.

Do you have comments, objections, concerns, thoughts about this and other posts on this blog? I’d love to hear from you. Well, from anybody for that matter.  

Stephen Shender is the author of  Once There Was Fire, A Novel of Old Hawaii about the life of  Kamehameha and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands.