► Goo Shin Seeks a Fortune in Hawaii

Hawaii Star Bulletin
June 29, 1953
Clarice B. Taylor's Tales About Hawaii

GOO SHIN SEEKS A FORTUNE IN HAWAII

No. 13, Hidden Alii

     Goo Shin was a boy of Canton in the 1830s when American trading vessels came into the crowded harbor with loads of fragrant sandalwood from the "Sandwhich Islands," which we call the Hawaiian Islands.

     Goo Shin learned that the sandalwood made fabulous fortunes for the foreign devils who ran the ships for the merchants who resold the sandalwood. He dreamed of being a sandalwood merchant and growing wealthy.

     When the boy was 10 or 12, he shipped (spelled exactly to article) aboard one of the foreign devil's ships and sailed for Hawaii. He thought he, too, would learn how the foreign devil found the sandalwood and that he too would buy it to resell to China.

     When he got to Hawaii about 1840, Goo Shin found that the sandalwood trade no longer existed. Hawaii's mountains had been denuded of sandalwood in the middle of 1830s and there was none to be had by a poor Chinese boy.

NAME IS CHANGED

     Since he could not be a sandalwood merchant, Goo Shin turned his hand to doing anything he could find. It was easy to make a living in Hawaii for the harbors teemed with whaling ships and the villages were busy catering to the thousands of whalers on shore leave.

     Goo Shin had a terrible time with his Chinese name . he couldn't get the Hawaiians or the haole sailors to pronounce it correctly. The Hawaiians called him Akuna and the haoles followed the Hawaiians. Akuna was much easier to say than Goo Shin, so he gave up trying to go with his real name and became Akuna.

     Sometimes the name was spelled Akona and sometimes Akuna. It didn't make much difference to Goo Shin.

AKUNA MARRIES

     In the early 1860s, Akuna became acquainted with the Hawaiian family of Piianaia and his wife Kina who had two daughters, Kalilioku and Ulaloha. The Piianaia were high born alii but they were kind to the lonely Chinese.

     Eventually Akuna got up the courage to ask Piianaia for his daughter, Kalilioku. He brought presents to the girl and her parents and he promised to take good care of her.

     Akuna said he planned to become a farmer on the Island of Lanai where he heard there where only a few Hawaiians living and there was plenty of room for a resourceful Chinese.

     And so it happened that Kalilioku Piianaia became Mrs. Akuna and moved to Lanai about 1865 and it was there that a second child, a boy, was born to them in 1868. He was named Abraham Piianaia (article spelling "Pianaia") Akuna.

Next: King Intervenes

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Source:https://familysearch.org/patron/v2/TH-300-43958-0-84/dist.pdf?ctx=ArtCtxPublic

► Piianaia Family, Queen's Relatives

Hawaii Star Bulletin
June 27, 1953
Clarice B. Taylor's Tales About Hawaii

Piianaia Family, Queen's Relatives

No. 11, Hidden Alii

     When Fanny Malulani Kaho'alii, daughter of the hidden alii, met Abraham St. Chad Piianaia, she became acquainted with another branch of Queen Emma's family.

     Abraham St. Chad Piianaia was a junior member of the senior branch of the family which reckoned its geneology straight back to the kings who ruled the Big Island between the 11th and 18th centuries.

     The name Piianaia has two meanings. Literally, it means "the season when the mullet break from the water." Sybolically, it means "the men who follow the beautiful women."  The name is also the answer to the Hawaiian riddle, "men or fish."

KAMEHAMEHA'S NEPHEW

     The first modern Piianaia was a son born to Keliimaikai, full brother of Kamehameha I, and his wife Nunehiwaokalani. Piianaia was a half brother of Kekuaokalani, last defender of the ancient faith and Kaoanaeha, wife of John Young and grandmother of Queen Emma.

     Most important was the fact that he was a paternal nephew of Kamehameha I; his grandfather Keoua being the father of Kamehameha. 

     The geneolgy of the first Piianaia's mother Nunehiwaokalani has been lost, but her name tells us she was the daughter of a high priest. Her name means that at the time fo her birth their were whisperings of scandal and that her family was not afraid of scandal.

     They name the child "the whisperings" and so dared the scandal-mongers to talk openly about her.

     Piianaia had two daughters by a wife Kina whose real name was Kekupuo-i-kamai-kalani (The offspring of Kamai). The daughters were Kalilioku and Ulaloha.

THE FAMILY

     Abraham St. Chad Piianaia was the second of Kalilioku's six children. His brothers and sisters were:Ulualoha (Offspring of Love) who was named for her childless aunt Ulualoha; Alexandria Kalilioku, called Alania. Kiakiakoi (Master Priest of an Order of Physicians); Keliihooluhi (The Weary and Overburdened Chief); and Kamoonohu (God of the Nohu, a small fish living in sea rocks).

     Kalilioku was an old family name meaning "The Pride of Kalilimoku." Several members of the family had been guardians of the national war god Kukalilimoku. The name was given either a boy or a girl in each generation of the family.

     No one outsde the family could use the name.

Next: Chinese husband.

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Source: https://familysearch.org/patron/v2/TH-300-43958-0-84/dist.pdf?ctx=ArtCtxPublic