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.