VII. PAAO FROM SAMOAKA-MEHA-MEHA is the chief name around which Hawaiian history gathers. It is the nimbus of a cloud of stories, legends and chants. Hawaiians never reckoned history by dates, but by genealogies--as did the Hebrews. They measured time not by the years but by the lives of men; not by the days passed, but by the deeds done. These genealogies formed the most essential part of Hawaiian literature. They proved the royal descent of the high chiefs.
When Ka-meha-meha became king of "The Rainbow Islands," his royal chant took the supreme place. Other genealogies lost their importance except as they blended in that of the great king. He traced his royal blood to Pili, "from a foreign land," and through Pili back to Wa-kea, a Polynesian chief of perhaps the second century; and then
