"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.

 

 

“Chief of War” scratches the surface of Hawaiian history’s dramatic potential

 True-to-life drama trumps confected spectacle

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

Having written a historical novel about the life of Hawaii’s legendary King Kamehameha and his fight to unify the Hawaiian Islands, I’ve gnashed my teeth over the Apple TV+ miniseries “Chief of War’s” departures from Hawaiian history. But I’m revising my opinion of the show.

In a previous blog post, I took vigorous exception to the dislocation of real people in time and place in “Chief of War’s” first two episodes. Episode three aroused my ire (to the point of being irate) when another historical figure, American ship captain Simon Metcalfe turned up in a place and time I wasn’t expecting him.

Briefly, in episode three of “Chief of War,” Metcalfe’s ship, the Eleanora, is at Zamboanga in “Indonesia” (Spanish Indonesia, AKA the Philippines) simultaneously with John Mears’s Nootka, whose crew plucked Ka‘iana out of the sea off Maui, where neither Ka‘iana nor the Nootka were, historically speaking. In “Chief of War’s” alternative historical reality, Metcalfe’s Eleanora is without its real boatswain, John Young, because in episode two of “Chief of War” Young got lost on Maui and left behind by the Nootka, which historically wasn’t there, and neither was Young because, historically, he was with Metcalfe on the Eleanora—at the Big Island. (Are you following me?)

Aaaanyway, back to Zamboanga. A Nootka crew member named Marley steals Meares’s navigational chart of Hawaii and takes it to Metcalfe, who evidently has never heard of Hawaii and wouldn’t know how to find the islands without it, even though the late Captain James Cook charted the islands years before and every haole mariner and his brother knows where they are by now—and historically Metcalfe and Meares found them without help. Marley tells Metcalfe there be trading treasure there; sandalwood, a commodity the world is eager for because it smells nice, and Hawaii has sandalwood trees galore. Marley also attacks and ties up Ka‘iana’s only friend on the Nootka, a black man, presumably to sell him into slavery.

A Hawaiian woman who’s a proprietress of a bar in Zamboanga befriends Ka‘iana, helps him acquire weapons, and urges Meares to go into the sandalwood trade with her. How and when this entrepreneurial wahine reached the Philippines is anybody’s guess, but as she’s had time to establish herself as a businesswoman it appears she’s been there long enough to have arrived too early, historically speaking.

Meanwhile, there’s not much action back in the islands. The evil Kahekili is building a structure with his enemies’ bones; the Big Island’s mō‘ī (king) Kalani‘ōpu’u, is dying; his son and heir Keōua (Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula), and his nephew Kamehameha don’t like each other (historically, Kalani‘ōpu’u’s eldest son, Kiwala’ō, was his heir); kindly John Young teaches Ka‘ahumanu and other Hawai‘ians English; Ka‘ahumanu marries Kamehameha wearing a wedding gown that looks like it was designed by Dior, Balmain, or Givenchy. (It’s a wonder what Hawaiian seamstresses could do with tapa—bark cloth—back in the day, or maybe the gown was prȇt à porter?)

The preceding historical nit picking is unfair to “Chief of War” creators Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa‘a Sibbett, who evidently know their audience. “Chief of War” may disappoint viewers who expect to see history they already know brought to life, but they’re a minority. Most of “Chief of War’s” viewers are likely unfamiliar with Hawaiians’ history and culture. That includes viewers who’ve been to Hawaii, especially regarding Hawaiian culture. Going to a lū‘au doesn’t cut it.

Telling a Hawaiian story from a Hawaiian point of view, in Hawaiian, for the first time on a screen of any size, Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett are reaching a popular viewing audience while immersing them in Hawaiian culture. Spectacle keeps viewers coming back week after week as the series unfolds: 

A noble hero of Herculean proportions triumphs over adversity; politics forces a beautiful woman into a marriage she doesn’t want, setting up a future, tension-filled romantic triangle; a brutal warlord plots to extend his reign over a gentle, peace-loving populous; white intruders encroach on and threaten to exploit an indigenous people; and there’s fighting, lots of bloody fighting. 

We’ve all seen this movie before. Familiar spectacle is “Chief of War’s” wrapper; inside there’s a cultural encounter of a novel kind. For Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett, cultural respect is the thing.

Hawaiians will judge whether Momoa and Pa‘a Sibbett have given their culture its due. It’s too bad they haven’t given Hawaiian history its due—or couldn’t because of production constraints—because truth being stranger than fiction, true events make for more compelling entertainment than “Chief of War’s” spectacle.

For example, the Englishman John Young was not stranded in Hawaii by accident; he was a victim of circumstances, and the circumstances are intrinsically entertaining:

• Young was captured by the Hawaiians and held against his will by Kamehameha after he rowed ashore at the Big Island’s Kealakekua Bay to hunt game fowl for the Eleanora’s crew.
• Young had to go ashore because Kamehameha, ruler of most of the Big Island, put a kapu (taboo) on the bay, barring his people from trading with the Eleanora, on pain of death.
• Kamehameha wouldn’t let them paddle out to the Eleanora because a few days earlier at another bay, one of his subchief allies had boarded a different haole vessel and slaughtered all but one of its crew.
•  Kamehameha didn’t want the crew or captain of the Eleanora to find out what happened to the other haole ship because he feared the Eleanora’s captain would fire his cannons on the people at Kealakekua in revenge. So, he couldn’t allow Young to return to the Eleanora.
• The subchief who boarded the other ship and killed its crew was seeking revenge.
•  Some days earlier the Eleanora had arrived at the subchief’s village.
•  When the subchief boarded the Eleanora to greet Captain Metcalfe and initiate trading, Metcalfe beat him with a heavy rope.
• The subchief vowed to avenge Metcalfe’s drubbing by attacking the next haole ship to come along.
•  The next ship to come along was the Fair American, captained by Metcalfe's son, who died in the assault.
• The surviving Fair American crewman was Isaac Davis, who later became one of Kamehameha’s two trusted haole advisers; the other being John Young.

Seriously you can’t make this stuff up—real people, real events, and real drama ready-made for visual storytelling. It’s the historical equivalent of instant coffee. Just add dialogue.

The history of Hawaiian unification is bursting with true-to-life drama. I hope “Chief of War's” popular success spurs another filmmaker to unpack all of it.

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.

What’s in a consonant? How missionaries changed Hawaiian

 The language Hawaiians speak today is not their ancestors’ ‘ōlelo 

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

Thanks to “Chief of War,” Jason Momoa’s nine-part series streaming on Apple TV+, a wide viewing audience is learning about the Hawaiian Islands’ unification and the founding of the Kingdom of Hawaii for the first time, notably from the Hawaiians’ point of view and in their language. But the series’ Hawaiian characters are not speaking the ‘ōlelo (Hawaiian language) of Hawaiians in the late-18th century, when “Chief of War” takes place.

Hawaiians had a rich oral tradition but no written language prior to 1820, when the first Congregationalist missionaries arrived from Massachusetts. After gaining fluency in Hawaiian and converting influential chiefs and chiefesses to their brand of Protestantism, the missionaries set out to spread the Word to the up-to-then unlettered masses by teaching them to read it in their own language. To this end, the missionaries embarked on a six-year project to develop a Hawaiian-language lexicon for a Hawaiian-language Bible.

They quickly ran into a problem, however. The Hawaiians’ spoken language was too complex for the written language the missionaries wanted to create. First off, the Hawaiians used too many interchangeable and potentially confusing consonants—B and P; L, R, and D; K, T, and D; W and V.

For example, consider the last pair of consonants, W and V. As the missionaries presumably heard them say it, Hawaiians interchanged “v” for “w” in “Hawaii,” pronouncing it “ha-vy-ee," which they still do. Meanwhile, the missionaries would have heard Hawaiian word for woman pronounced as wahine, which does not rhyme with “machine.” Oops, Hawaiian vowels are pesky. The “i” is pronounced “ee” and instead of being silent, the final “e” is pronounced “eh.” And wahine is pronounced wah-hee-neh.

If they’d come up with their own written lexicon, the Hawaiians likely would’ve kept and interchanged the  “v” and “w.” Moreover, the old Hawaiians actually pronounced “Hawaii” “oh-vy-ee.” The consonant-loving missionaries were loath to start any word with a vowel, thus “o” had to go.

To simplify their Hawaiian-language lexicon, and perhaps to reduce the printing costs of Hawaiian Bibles, the missionaries dropped the interchangeable consonants B, R, D, and V, leaving the Hawaiians with P, L, K, and W. Hawaiian as the missionaries wrote it and 19th-century Hawaiians learned to read and write it—becoming the world’s most literate people at the time—is the Hawaiian we mostly hear today.

The British naval explorer Capt. James Cook, who “discovered” (stumbled across) the Hawaiian Islands in 1778-79, heard Hawaiian and wrote it in his journals as Hawaiians spoke it. For example, Cook wrote of a Hawaiian ruler named “Terryaboo” (Teh-ree-ya-boo), and a subchief named “Tamahamaha” (Ta-mah-hah-mah-ha). In the missionaries’ lexicon, “t” becomes “k” and “r” becomes “l”, “Terryaboo” becomes Kalani‘ōpu‘u (Kah-lah-nee-oh-pu-u), and “Tamahamaha” becomes Kamehameha (Ka-meh-ha-meh-ha). Kamehameha is, of course, the Hawaiian who united the Hawaiian Islands and became the Islands’ first king; Kalani‘ōpu‘u was his uncle and ruler of the Big Island when Cook arrived. Turns out, Cook got Hawaiians’ names right—to a T.

I was deep into the first draft of OnceThere Was Fire, my novel about the life of Kamehameha and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands, before I learned from a park ranger at the Big Island’s Pu‘uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park that missionaries had altered the Hawaiians’ language. (Hōnaunau is a must-see stop on any Big Island historical tour.) I approached the ranger, told him about my novel, and asked him if I needed to change all the characters’ names. To my relief he assured me that today’s Hawaiian is what it is and not to worry about it.

That said, I’ll leave off with one caveat for viewers of “Chief of War”: The true (pre-missionary) name of the series’ hero wasn’t Ka‘iana; it was Ta‘iana.

Postscript: What’s in a name?

If you’re wondering why the Hawaiians are called “Hawaiians,” speak “Hawaiian,” or why their island chain is named the “Hawaiian Islands,” or America’s 50th state is called “Hawaii,” look for the answer to Kamehameha (AKA, The Conqueror), who united the islands. Kamehameha was born on the island of Hawai‘i (the Big Island) and began his successful campaign to unify (subjugate) all the other islands there. If Kamehameha had hailed from Maui, or if his fiercest enemy—Kahekili, the ruler of Maui—had conquered all the islands instead of  Kamehameha, the chain would likely be identified on today’s maps as the “Maui Islands,” the islanders would be “Mauians,” and their language would be “Mauian.”

Before the Hawaiian Islands were called the Hawaiian Islands, they were known as the “Sandwich Islands,” thanks to their aforesaid “discoverer,” Captain Cook. Cook named the islands after his patron, the Earl of Sandwich, an English nobleman who had the brilliant idea of slapping a piece of meat between two slices of bread. Hawaiians called their islands the Sandwich Islands until 1840, when the preamble to the Kingdom’s first constitution referred to the archipelago as the Hawaiian Islands. And they’ve been the Hawaiian Islands ever since.

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” takes promiscuous historical liberties in first episodes

 Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

 (Spoiler alert: You may not want to read this blog post if you haven’t watched the series yet.)

 Anyone familiar with Hawaiian history and hoping to see it well portrayed, however dramatically adapted, is likely to be disappointed by the first two episodes of “Chief of War,” Jason Momoa’s nine-episode series on Apple TV+.   

 Fiction

Episode one finds Ka‘iana, having deserted Kahekili’s army on Maui in disgust over the latter’s bloodlust, living peacefully as a simple, shark-roping fisherman on Kaua‘i. 

Requiring Ka‘iana’s continued service in his quest to conquer O‘ahu, Kahekili sends his warriors to find him and summon him back by the following morning, or else. After somehow crossing 230 to 250 miles of ocean between Kaua‘i and Maui overnight in a sail canoe, Ka‘iana agrees to fight for Kahekili again. Returning to O‘ahu with a fleet, he spearheads a successful invasion amid graphic and copious bloodshed and many bared male butt cheeks. Kahekili arrives in time to gratuitously order the slaughter of unarmed civilians and O‘ahu’s boy king, who are sheltering in a holy place of refuge (a pu‘uhonua in Hawaiian). Ka‘iana is filled with disgust anew. At night, he and his family steal away, this time to Maui.

In episode two, Kahekili’s warriors pursue Ka‘iana to Maui. Ka‘iana hides his family in Maui’s ’Iao Valley and takes off, leading a score of pursuers away from them.

Meanwhile, a group of haole come ashore from their ship to gather provisions for their continued voyage to China. One of Kahekili’s men crosses paths with a crewman, kills him and takes his pistol. Ka‘iana comes upon this fellow, kills him, takes the pistol and, encountering the other haole seamen in the bush, returns the pistol to them, earning their good will.

Ka‘iana continues his flight and is injured in a melee when Kahekili’s warriors overtake him, but he manages crawl away and hide in a cave where he’s subsequently found and nursed back to health by the ali‘i princess Ka‘ahumanu, meeting him for the first time.  

Ka‘ahumanu and Ka‘iana part ways, Ka‘ahumanu to travel to the nearby Big Island where she’s been betrothed by her father to an unnamed chief, against her will, and Ka‘iana to continue leading Kahekili’s warriors away from the ’Iao Valley.

This time Kahekili’s warriors corner Ka‘iana at the edge of steep cliff at the ocean’s edge and in the ensuing fight he disappears over the side with one of his attackers. Ka‘ahumanu and her entourage are about to depart for the Big Island in their double-hulled sail canoe when a crewman from the haole ship staggers up the beach crying he’s lost. Ka‘ahumanu orders her people to take the bedraggled haole with them. Meanwhile Ka‘iana wakes up aboard the haole ship and is last seen staring at Maui as it recedes in the ship’s wake.

Facts

None of the 19th-century Hawaiian sources on which I relied while researching Once There Was Fire, my novel about the life of Hawaii’s Kamehameha, mentioned a connection between Ka‘iana and Kahekili on Maui prior to their alliance on O‘ahu. The pair could have been together on Maui before moving on to O‘ahu. But everything else about Ka‘iana’s whereabouts in “Chief of War’s” first episode is sheer bunkum. 

As detailed in a previousblog post: Ka‘iana fled from O‘ahu to Kaua‘i after picking the wrong side in a rebellion against Kahekili. After Ka‘iana irritated Kaua‘i’s queen-consort, he left Kaua‘i on the Nootka, a British ship captained by John Meares and bound for China. “Chief of War’s” misplacement of Ka‘iana in episode one leads to some serious historical problems in episode two.

In episode two Ka‘ahumanu’s encounter with Ka'iana in a cave on Maui couldn’t have happened because Ka‘iana wasn’t there. Moreover, Ka‘ahumanu was more likely on the Big Island with her mother and father. Ka'iana met Ka‘ahumanu on the Big Island after he’d returned from China several years later, when she was already one of Kamehameha’s wives.

Captain Meares did not fish Ka'iana out of the sea after he fell off a cliff on Maui because neither of them were there. Ka‘iana boarded Meares’s ship under his own power at Kaua'i, where the Nootka had stopped for provisioning.

Meanwhile, who was that lost haole sailor whom Ka'ahumanu took aboard her sail canoe as she left Maui (where she probably wasn’t in the first place) for the Big Island? My bet's on John Young an English seaman who fell into Kamehameha’s hands about the time of Ka‘iana’s return from China. If confirmed in a later episode of “Chief of War,” that’s a historical mashup three or four times over: Ka'ahumanu wasn't on Maui, and John Young did not get left behind on Maui by the Nootka (Meare's ship), because (1) the Nootka stopped at Kaua'i, not Maui, and (2) because Young was left behind on the Big Island, not Maui, by a different vessel, the Eleanora captained by a nasty haole named Simon Metcalfe.

What a tangled history we weave when first we screw up who was where when!