page_title: Likelike (wife of Kalanimoku)
section_title: Interactions with foreigners
hierarchical_section_title: Likelike (wife of Kalanimoku) / Interactions with foreigners
caption_attribution_description: English: A depiction by Alphonse Pellion, the artist who accompanied French explorer Louis de Freycinet to the Sandwich Islands (now the Hawaiian Islands) on board the Uranie, of the esteemed Prime Minister Kalanimoku standing in the doorway of one of his houses in the company of his wife Likelike, shown with her right arm raised and about to strike a sheet of kapa. In the foreground is an Olo board, the largest of the Hawaiian wood surfboards. Reserved for royalty, they ranged in size from 1.8 to 8 meters.
context_page_description: Likelike was a high chiefess and member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Before the standardization of the Hawaiian language, her name was sometime written as Rikériki. She was the favorite wife of Prime Minister Kalanimoku, a powerful chief and statesman during the early years of the Hawaiian monarchy, and she would accompany him on his interactions with visiting Western explorers and American missionaries to Hawaii. Likelike and her newborn son Lanihau died shortly after the baby’s birth due to the shock caused by cannons fired to celebrate the royal birth. Her funeral was conducted under traditional Hawaiian customs with the exception of a Christian sermon, which was the first performed on a Hawaiian royal.
context_section_description: In May 1819, King Kamehameha I died, leaving the throne to his son Kamehameha II. In August that year, the French corvette Uranie under Captain Louis de Freycinet visited the Hawaiian Islands during its circumnavigation expedition. When the Uranie landed on Kawaihae, on the island of Hawaii, Likelike accompanied Kalanimoku to his meeting and feast with the explorer. Because of the ʻai kapu (taboo) which prohibited men and women from eating meals together, Likelike was not allowed to dine at the same table with Kalanimoku and the captain, as well as others. She remained on deck eating scraps brought up to her, but after her husband finished and left the table, she took his place at the table with the rest of the diners. Freycinet observed she "made up for the temporary restraint that had been forced upon her by swallowing several glassfuls of brandy one after the other with remarkable gusto". On August 14, Kalanimoku was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith by ship chaplain Abbé de Quélen while anchored off of Lāhainā, Maui, then the capital of Hawaii. It is not noted if Likelike was on board during the ceremony.
  J. Alphonse Pellion, an artist aboard the Uranie, made several engraving sketches of the Hawaiians who visited the ship, including one of Likelike titled Rikériki, femme du chef Kraïmokou (above). He sketched two other chiefesses: Queen Kamāmalu (Kamahamarou), the favorite wife of Kamehameha II, and Keōuawahine (Kéohoua), the wife of Kuakini, Governor of the island of Hawaii. Some of his sketches also depicted traditional signs of mourning such as head shaving and body marking for the recently deceased king.
  Freycinet's wife Rose de Freycinet, who accompanied him on the expedition, gave a brief description of Likelike after meeting her: "This woman is quite young and has a rather pleasant face; she is less corpulent than the other women I have encountered, and the scantiness of her clothing is less shocking."
  After the arrival of the American Protestant missionaries in 1820, Kalanimoku allowed Reverend Elisha Loomis to set up a mission school in Kawaihae on the island of Hawaii where Likelike became a student of the new faith. Loomis's wife Maria Loomis recounted how the chiefess professed her love of the palapala (Bible). Under the reign of the new King Kamehameha II, the court had moved away from his father's former seat of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Island at the end of 1820 and passed by Lāhainā before transitioning to Honolulu, on the island of Oahu in the early part of 1821.
  Leaving Kawaihae, Likelike and Kalanimoku also moved along with the rest of the royal court although the couple would precede the king to Oahu due to Likelike’s pregnancy. According to Loomis, Likelike was reportedly looking forward to continue her missionary education at the mission in Honolulu where Hiram Bingham preached. With much fanfare and cannon fire, the king arrived aboard his new royal yacht Haʻaheo o Hawaiʻi into the port of Honolulu, on February 3, 1821.
caption: J. Alphonse Pellion, Îles Sandwich; Maisons de Kraïmokou, Premier Ministre du Roi; Fabrication des Étoffes, c. 1819. A domestic scene of Likelike beating kapa cloth with her husband standing over her
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