Manono II

Manono II (died 1819) was a Hawaiian chiefess and member of the royal family during the Kingdom of Hawaii. She along with her second husband Keaoua Kekuaokalani died fighting for the Hawaiian religion after Kamehameha II abolished the kapu system. Biography Manono's father was Kekuamanoha, and her mother was Kalola-a-Kumukoʻa, the wife of Kamehameha before his victory at the Battle of Mokuʻōhai. Through her father she was a granddaughter of Kekaulike, the King or Moʻi of Maui. From her mother's side, she was the great-granddaughter of King Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku of Hawaiʻi. Her half-siblings from her father's first marriage were Kalanimoku, Boki, and Wahinepio. She was the cousin of Kaʻahumanu, Kalākua Kaheiheimālie, and Namahana Piʻia, Kuakini, Governor of Hawaiʻi; and Keʻeaumoku II. Around 1809, while still in her youth, Manono was chosen along with her cousin Kekāuluohi by Kamehameha I "to warm his old age" thus becoming the old king's last two wives. The two young chiefesses were deemed his wahine pālama, a term that denote their special status and rank which required them to live in a sacred enclosure of lama wood. "Lama" was the Hawaiian name for endemic ebony trees of genus Diospyros sandwicensis that were used in religious ceremonies. Oral tradition attested that Kamehameha's last child, a daughter named Kapapauai, was born from one of his wahine pālama, either Manono's or Kekāuluohi's. She would later marry High Chief Keaoua Kekuaokalani, a nephew of the Kamehameha I. Kekuaokalani's maternal grandmother was her namesake Manono I, a daughter of Alapainui and Kamakaimoku. Kekuaokalani inherited the guardianship of the Hawaiian god of war, Kūkaʻilimoku after Kamehameha's death. After Kamehameha I's death, on May 8, 1819, Liholiho succeeded as King Kamehameha II. Influenced by powerful female chiefs such as Kaʻahumanu and his mother Keōpūolani, the young king abolished the kapu system that had governed life Hawaiian society for centuries. Henceforth, men and women could eat together, women could eat formerly forbidden foods, and official worship at the stone platform temples, or heiaus, was discontinued. This event is called the ʻAi Noa, or free eating. In response to Liholiho's actions, Kekuaokalani put himself forward as the defender of the kapu system and old religion, amassing a formidable force in the village of Kaʻawaloa.