Wehewehe Wikiwiki Hawaiian language dictionaries

This man, father of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, was named to commemorate Kamehameha Iʻs escape from death at Pāpaʻi, Puna, now called Kingʻs Landing. Kamehameha leaped from his canoe and went ashore alone to chase a party of fishermen. Two of the frightened men threw (Páki) a shower or spray of stones (kā ehu). When he stepped into a crevice and caught his foot, the two men returned and broke a canoe paddle over his head. One version of the story says that the entrapped Kamehameha picked up a handful of stones and threw them at the retreating fishermen. The stones scarred the trunk of a noni shrub that was pointed out to visitors for years to come. Several years later Kamehameha issued the Law of the Splintered Paddle, māmalahoe (or māmalahoa) kānāwai based on this incident. See māmala hoe.