The Bishop Museum invited Dr. Keanu Sai to present a history of the kāʻei or sash of Līloa who was King of Hawaiʻi Island in the fifteenth century. Here follows the speech that Dr. Sai gave yesterday at Bishop Museum in celebration of the Hawaiian Kingdom national holiday Restoration Day (Lā Hoʻihoʻi).

It is truly an honor for me to be here with you on this Hawaiian Kingdom national holiday of Restoration Day or Lā Ho‘iho‘i and share with you a bit of history of the kāʻei or sash of Līloa and its direct link as a royal emblem of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Ancient human society was comprised of tribes or bands that were either subsumed or grew into what anthropologists have come to call ancient States, which pre-dates the Westphalian States of the 17th century that was the genesis of current understanding of States under international law today.

Ancient States, which Hommon calls primary States, “are generally believed to have developed in six widely distributed regions of the world: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and Andean South America.” To these regions, Hommon and Kirch add the North Pacific and the emergence of the ancient Hawaiian State from the fifteenth century with “centralized, active leadership based on political power, delegation of such power through a formal bureaucracy, and territorial expansion by conquest warfare.”

According to Kirch, “the Hawaiians had invented divine kingship, a hallmark of archaic states.” Political science and law today distinguishes between the State and its government, but this distinction pertains to the Westphalian States that arose in Europe since 1648, and not the ancient States that Hommon and Kirch refer to.

When Captain James Cook arrived in the islands in 1778, he witnessed a phenomenon not seen in other parts of the Pacific he previously visited. What he observed was a society whose governmental structure was centralized, organized, and disciplined. He wrote, “I have no where in this Sea seen such a number of people assembled at one place.” Kirch concludes, the “combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria bolster the case that the late Hawaiian polities as encountered by Cook and other early European explorers fit conformably with the pattern of primary archaic states known for other regions of the world.”

Captain James King, who served under Cook, provides an eyewitness account of the Chiefs of that time. Captain King admired Hawaiian nobility and described their regal appearance. “These chiefs were men of strong and well-proportioned bodies, and of countenances remarkably pleasing. Kana‘ina especially, whose portrait Mr. Webber has drawn, was one of the finest men I ever saw. He was about six feet high, had regular and expressive features, with lively, dark eyes; his carriage was easy, firm, and graceful.”

Captain King also stated that Kana‘ina “was very inquisitive after our customs and manners; asked after our King; the nature of our government; our numbers; the method of building our ships; our houses; the produce of our country; whether we had wars; with whom; and on what occasions; and in what manner they were carried on; who was our God; many other questions of the same nature, which indicated an understanding of great comprehension.” I should also note that Kana‘ina is my fourth great grandfather who is also known along with another chief for causing the demise of Captain Cook.

Kana‘ina was a direct descendant of Līloa, King of Hawai‘i island in the 15th century. His father being Keawe ‘Opala and his grandfather being Alapa‘i Nui, both kings of Hawai‘i island. Since Pili Ka‘ea, progenitor of the line of Hawai‘i Island Kings, there were two royal emblems, the spittal-vessels called ipu kuha and the crown called the kahili.

Added to these royal emblems in the 15th century was the kā‘ei or sash of Līloa we see here this evening. Līloa ordered the making of the sash whom his son Umialiloa received when he ascended to the throne after defeating his half-brother, Hākau, in battle. The dimensions of the kā‘ei are 4.5 inches wide and 11 feet in length. As with feather capes and cloaks, the kāʻei consists of feathers tied to a netting of olona fiber. The read feathers of the ʻiʻiwi bird and the yellow of the ōʻō bird, along with rows of teeth, it creates an object that is still stunning to behold nearly six centuries after its creation. Carbon dating of feathers that naturally separated itself from the kāʻei ranged from 1406 to 1450 A.D.

The kāʻei eventually came into the possession of Kamehameha the Great, progenitor of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and it can be seen adorned on him as seen on his statue that fronts Ali‘iolani Hale across from the palace.

In 1794, Kamehameha became a part of the British Empire where he continued to be king of a British protectorate. By 1810, Kamehameha consolidated the former kingdoms of Maui and Kauaʻi into one kingdom that came to be known as the Hawaiian Kingdom. After his death in 1819, the ipu kuha, the kahili and the kāʻei descended to Kamehameha II. And after the death of Kamehameha II in 1824 these royal emblems descended to Kamehameha III.

In 1840, Kamehameha III transformed the Hawaiian Kingdom into a constitutional monarchy while still owing allegiance to the British Crown. Based on claims by the British Consul Richard Charlton that the rights of British subjects were being violated by the Hawaiian government, a British warship, HBMS Carysfort, under the command of Captain Lord Paulet, entered Honolulu harbor on February 10, 1843. Paulet eventually seized control of the Hawaiian government on February 25th after threatening to level Honolulu with cannon fire. Kamehameha III was forced to surrender the kingdom but did so under written protest and pending the outcome of the mission of his diplomats that were dispatched to the United States and Europe the previous year to seek recognition of Hawaiian independence.

News of Paulet’s action reached Admiral Richard Thomas of the British Admiralty, and he sailed from the Chilean port of Valparaiso and arrived in Honolulu on July 25, 1843. After a meeting with Kamehameha III, Admiral Thomas determined that Charlton’s complaints did not warrant a British takeover and ordered the restoration of the Hawaiian government, which took place in a grand ceremony on July 31, 1843, at a place that has come to be known today as Thomas Square. At a thanksgiving service after the ceremony, Kamehameha III proclaimed before a large crowd, ua mau ke ea o ka ‘āina i ka pono (the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness). The King’s statement became the national motto. July 31st also became a national holiday in the Hawaiian Kingdom, and it is why we are here today at the Bishop Museum.

Kamehameha III’s diplomats eventually succeeded in achieving recognition of Hawaiian independence. On November 28, 1843, both Great Britain and France, at the Court of London, jointly recognized the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State. The United States followed the next year on July 6, 1844. In the nineteenth century, the Hawaiian Kingdom was one of only forty-four independent States that comprised the family of nations. Today the United Nations is comprised of 196 independent States.

The Hawaiian Kingdom became one of the most progressive countries in the world with land reform, universal health care for native Hawaiians at no cost at Queen’s hospital, and universal education for the population at common schools, secondary schools and colleges. Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the father of modern China, and who received his education at Iolani College and Punahou between 1879 and 1883, told a reporter when he returned to Hawai‘i, “This is my Hawaii. Here I was brought up and educated; and it was here that I came to know what modern, civilized governments are like and what they mean.”

After the death of Kamehameha III on December 15, 1854, his wife, the Queen consort Kalama, inherited the kāʻei. When she passed away on September 20, 1870, her mother’s brother and adopted father, High Chief Charles Kana‘ina, father of King Lunalilo, inherited the kāʻei.

On March 13, 1877, Charles Kana‘ina died and probate proceeding ensued until 1882. At one of the auctions of the estate in 1877, Lucy Peabody, who would later become a Lady in Waiting to Queen Lili‘uokalani, stated that King Kālakaua retrieved the kāʻei before it could be auctioned. Thus, the kāʻei became a royal emblem of not just the Kamehameha Dynasty but also the Kālakaua Dynasty.

The following month, on April 10, 1877, Kālakaua received approval from the Nobles of the Legislative Assembly that Princess Lili‘uokalani would be his heir apparent. After the death of the King in 1891, Princess Lili‘uokalani became Queen Lili‘uokalani.

Preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian independence, a dire situation would take place reminiscent of the British takeover in 1843. On January 16, 1893, U.S. resident Minister John Stevens ordered the landing of marines that eventually led to the takeover of the Hawaiian government the following day. Of note is that the Queen did not surrender to the insurgency but rather to the United States and called upon the President to investigate the actions taken by their resident Minister and the Admiral that landed of U.S. troops.

After President Cleveland conducted a presidential investigation he told the Congress on December 18, 1893, “And so it happened that on the 16th day of January, 1893, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, a detachment of marines from the United States steamer Boston, with two pieces of artillery, landed at Honolulu. The men upwards of 160 in all, were supplied with double cartridge belts filled with ammunition and with haversacks and canteens, and were accompanied by a hospital corps with stretchers and medical supplies. This military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself and act of war.”

President Cleveland also reported, “It has been the boast of our Government that it seeks to do justice in all things without regard to the strength or weakness of those with whom it deals. I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality, that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one, and that even by indirection a strong power may with impunity despoil a weak one of its territory. By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of a feeble but friendly and confiding people has been overthrown. President Cleveland concluded that “A substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair.”

The President entered into a treaty with the Queen to restore her to the office of Monarch, but because of political wrangling in the Congress and the lust for Pearl Harbor, the agreement was not carried out. Five years later, on July 7, 1898, at the height of the Spanish-American War, President McKinley signed into American law a joint resolution for annexing the Hawaiian Islands. In 1910, Queen Lili‘uokalani, with the kāʻei in her possession, provided it to the Bishop Museum.

However, the story of the kāʻei, being one of the royal emblems of the Hawaiian Kingdom, is not finished. ‘A‘ole pau.

According to international law, the United States military overthrow of the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 did not affect the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State. Nor did the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the Congress affect the Hawaiian State because a congressional joint resolution is a legislative act that can only operate within United States territory. In other words, American laws have no effect beyond the borders of the United States.

The United States could only have a acquired the Hawaiian Kingdom’s sovereignty by a treaty. There is no treaty. Only American laws being unlawfully imposed throughout Hawaiian territory. The United States could no more enact law annexing Hawai‘i in 1898 than it could enact a law today annexing Canada, Mexico or Cuba. It is absurd to think otherwise.

In 1997, the Hawaiian government was restored as a Regency under Hawaiian constitutional law and the legal doctrine of necessity. And in 1999, an international dispute was submitted for arbitration at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands called Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom. The United States and other countries established the Permanent Court in 1899 to resolve international disputes that States may have with each other, or disputes between a State and an international organization, or a dispute between a State and private entity. In other words, the Permanent Court is only authorized to create an arbitration tribunal if one of the parties to the dispute is a State under international law.

On the Permanent Court’s website it describes the case as “Lance Paul Larsen, a resident of Hawaii, brought a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom by its Council of Regency on the grounds that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of: (a) its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, as well as the principles of international law laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 and (b) the principles of international comity, for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.”

Before the Permanent Court could form the arbitration tribunal to resolve this dispute it had to confirm that the Hawaiian Kingdom continues to exist as a State since the nineteenth century despite the overthrow of its government in 1893 and despite the American annexation in 1898. The Permanent Court did just that and it also recognized that the Council of Regency is its government. And more importantly, the United States did not protest or object to the Permanent Court’s recognition of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In fact, the United States, through its embassy in the Netherlands, entered into an agreement with the Hawaiian Kingdom so that it could have access to all records and pleadings of the case.

Today is not just to celebrate Restoration Day or La Ho‘iho‘i, but it is also to celebrate that a sequence of events has begun today for the State of Hawai‘i to begin to comply with the international law of occupation, which will eventually bring 131 years of an unlawful and prolonged occupation of a sovereign and independent State to an end.

Despite over a century of revisionist history, the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign State is grounded in the very same principles that the United States and every other State have relied on for their own legal existence. The Hawaiian Kingdom is a magnificent story of perseverance and continuity.

Mahalo.