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Updated: May 22, 2025
When Cook died, in 1779, the little children of Kanuha's children had been born. When I spoke of Alapai to my old savage, he told me that it seemed to him a matter of yesterday; of Cook, it was a thing of to-day. From these facts it may be believed that Kanuha was not less than one hundred and sixteen years old when I met him on this occasion.
While eating the poi with full fingers, Kanuha assured me that he had lived under King Alapai, and had been his runner, as well as the courier of Kalaniopuu, his successor. So great had been Kanuha's strength in his youth that, at the command of his chiefs, he had in a single day accomplished the distance from Hoopuloa to Hilo, more than forty French leagues.
I sketched, at this very Hoopuloa, the portrait of an old woman, still vigorous, Meawahine, who told any who would hear her that her breasts were completely developed when her chief gave her as wife to the celebrated English navigator. Old Kanuha was the senior of all these centenaries.
His only garment was a shirt of striped calico. A sort of veneration with which his countrymen seemed to me to regard him only increased the desire I at first felt to become acquainted with the old islander. When I learned his name and extraordinary age, I turned toward Kanuha, extending my hand. This attention flattered him, and disposed him favorably toward me.
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