Excerpt from Hawaiian Antiquities: Moolelo Hawaii
It is a commentary on the fleeting character of fame and human distinction that, even at this short remove from the life of one of Hawaii's most distinguished sons, it is with no little difficulty that one can obtain correct data as to the details of his career; it is also an index of the rapidity with which the plough-share of evolution has obliterated old landmarks.
The materials from which this sketch of David Malo's life is pieced together have been derived from many sources, both oral and written, as will be indicated in the course of the narrative.
Malo was the son of Aoao and his wife Heone, and was born at the seaside town of Keauhou, North Kona, Hawaii, not many miles distant from the historic bay of Kealakeakua, where Captain Cook, only a few years before, had come to his death. The exact year of his birth cannot be fixed, but it was about 1793, the period of Vancouver's second visit to the islands. It was the time of a breathing spell in the struggle for military and political supremacy over the entire group in which the chief actors were Kahekili, the old war-horse and veteran of Maui, Kalanikupule, his son, the weak and ill-fated king of Oahu. and Kamehameha, the oncoming conqueror of the group.
Aoao, the father, was attached as a follower in some capacity to the court and army of Kamehameha and moved west with the tide of invasion; but I have found no evidence that his travels took him so far as Oahu, which was the western limit of his master's operations.
During his early life Malo was connected with the high chief Kuakini (Governor Adams), who was a brother of Queen Kaahu-manu, and it was during this period specially that he was placed in an environment the most favorable to forming an intimate acquaintance with the history, traditions, legends and myths of old Hawaii, as well as with the meles, pules and olis that belong to the hula and that form so important and prominent a feature in the poesy and unwritten literature of Hawaii.
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