KOLOA – Several hundred people braved chilly north winds as they gathered at the Prince Kuhio Park at Hoai Bay to pay tribute to Prince Kuhio Kalanianaole Pi‘ikoi during the annual Prince Kuhio Commemorative Services, Saturday.
“Even if I’m the only one here to say ‘mahalo,’ this is the Royal Order’s way to thanking the Prince for all he’s accomplished,” Warren Perry, one of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, Chapter 3, Kaumuali‘i, said.
But, Perry was not alone as representatives from numerous Hawaiian organizations and agencies turned out with their ho‘okupu at the site which is the birthplace of Prince Kuhio.
Prince Kuhio was born at Hoai, Kualu in the Koloa District of Kaua‘i in 1871, and the Saturday service marked the 130th anniversary of his birth.
He was the youngest of three sons of Kauai High Chief David Kahalepouli Pi‘ikoi and Princess Kinoiki Kekaulike, a sister of Queen Kapiolani.
Prince Kuhio was the great grandson of King Kaumuali‘i, the last king of Kaua‘i, and was educated at Royal and Punahou Schools where he excelled at football and track.
It is reported that he was the last ali‘i, or monarch, trained in the higher art of Hawaiian wrestling called lua, and was a master of its holds.
He left the Islands to expand his education at St. Matthew’s College in San Mateo, California, surfed waves in Santa Cruz making him and a fellow student probably the first surfers in California and later attended the Royal Agricultural College in England.
When the Hawaiian Monarchy was overthrown in 1893, Prince Kuhio joined the revolutionaries and tried to restore the monarchy. He was arrested, charged with treason, and imprisoned for a year before being pardoned when the Queen Lili‘uokalani surrendered to leaders of the Republic of Hawaii.
Prince Kuhio then married Elizabeth Kahanu Ka‘auwai, the daughter of a Maui chief, and left the Islands, traveling in Europe and South Africa, vowing never to return to a Hawai‘i that appeared inhospitable to Hawaiians.
Eventually, the Prince got homesick and he and his wife returned in 1901, determined to do what he could to save and serve the Hawaiian people.
From 1902 until his death in 1922, he was elected as the nonvoting delegate from Hawai‘i to Congress.
Some of his major accomplishments in Congress were a $27 million appropriation for dredging and construction of Pearl Harbor, the establishment of the Makapu‘u Point Lighthouse, the Territorial building in Honolulu, the Hilo wharf, the Hawai‘i Volcano National Park, the Kilauea National Park, getting a hospital built at the Kalaupapa Settlement for lepers, and creating county government with elected officials.
His greatest contribution to the Hawaiian people was the establishment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission which continues to provide homesites to native Hawaiians across the Islands.
It was Prince Kuhio’s dream to save the rapidly declining Hawaiian race from extinction. After Lili‘uokalani passed away in 1917, those of pure Hawaiian blood numbered about 25,000, down from the estimated 300,000 when Capt. James Cook arrived in 1778.
In 1919, realizing that Hawai‘i needed a stronger position in Congress, Prince Kuhio introduced the first bill requesting Hawai‘i be admitted to the United States as a fullfledged state.
In an effort to further perpetuate and rehabilitate the Hawaiian people and their culture, Prince Kuhio helped form the first Hawaiian Civic Club in 1918, a movement that now boasts 49 distinct organizations in Kaua‘i and across Hawai‘i and the United States.
In an e-mail from Congressman Ed Case that Perry read to the audience, Case acknowledged the achievements of the Prince, adding that it was his honor to serve in the same halls that bear the Prince’s footsteps.
The presentation of a ho‘okupu of flower, lei and plants was followed by words of acknowledgment as well as the singing of a traditional ho‘okupu mele as group after group queued to make their presentations at the statue erected just yards from where stones mark the hale hanau where the Prince was born.
Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) and dfujimoto@pulitzer.net.
