Nā Pū’ali Kia’i and Ke Aupuni Hawaiʻi

Nā Pū’ali Kia’i and Ke Aupuni Hawaiʻi Nā Pū’ali Kia’i, a noncombatant military unit, was re-commissioned by a Mo'i in 2022 to restore the Royal Guard.

Unlike the ceremonial unit at Iolani Palace, Nā Pū’ali Kia’i honors the legacy of the Hawaiian monarchy and the values of Ke Aupuni Hawai’i.

07/31/2026

Queen Liliʻuokalani stood in one of the most painful moments of our history with courage and restraint.

She yielded under protest to protect her people from bloodshed.

Her story teaches us that truth can be strong, disciplined, and full of aloha.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zh50HAlkbkA

When we talk about the overthrow, we are not talking about something small.We are talking about law being twisted.  We a...
07/30/2026

When we talk about the overthrow, we are not talking about something small.

We are talking about law being twisted.

We are talking about land becoming business.
We are talking about foreign money and political pressure.

We are talking about a Queen who chose restraint to protect her people from bloodshed.
Queen Liliʻuokalani did not surrender her nation willingly. She yielded under protest because she expected justice to be restored.

That part matters.

Our Queen showed discipline. She showed intelligence. She showed aloha for her people even in one of the most painful moments of our history.

So when we tell this story, we do not tell it with hate. We tell it with truth.
Because truth is part of healing.

07/30/2026

I need to say this from my heart.

This page was never created to prove that I am more Hawaiian than anyone else, or to blame anyone living today. It was never created to perform culture, claim perfection, or pretend I know everything. It began because I was writing my own ʻohana book for my daughter, and I needed to understand what was happening in Hawaiʻi during the lives of my ancestors.

My Akiona line begins with my great-great-grandfather who came from Shanghai, China before the overthrow, when Hawaiʻi was still the Hawaiian Kingdom. And my Pamaiaulu line goes back generations of kanaka life. I wanted to understand that world. I wanted to know what Hawaiʻi was before the version I was taught on the continent. Growing up in Oregon and California, I was taught Hawaiʻi was the 50th state, Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, and almost nothing about the Kingdom, the overthrow, the treaties, the petitions, the laws, or the people who lived through it.

So I started researching. Then I started sharing. I had no idea this page would reach the people it has reached.

I know I do not speak ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi fluently. I have never claimed that I do. I know AI art is not the same as real Kanaka artists, real kūpuna, real faces, or real voices. I have never claimed that either. These tools are helping me organize years of notes, create chapter images, and make the history easier for people to follow while I keep learning and correcting. After Sunday, I will pause the videos until I can find the right ʻōlelo speaker or voice to help carry that part with more care. But I will continue releasing the images, the chapters, and the moʻolelo until the books are complete.

This page is interactive because I want to learn. If something I researched is slightly wrong, I want to correct it before I pass it down. I grew up being taught history through one lens, often a white American lens, and I know how damaging that can be. I am also part white. I am French, German, Irish, Cherokee, Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, and Portuguese. I am all of me. I grew up going to powwows in Oregon. I grew up being put in school plays as the “Native” child because I was brown with black hair. I grew up not fully understanding all the histories living inside my own body.

That is why I will not let anyone tell me I am not enough. Not Hawaiian enough. Not local enough. Not fluent enough. Not educated enough. Not traditional enough. Not anything enough. I am learning because I care. I am sharing because my naʻau tells me to. I am writing because my ancestors have not stopped speaking to me.

And today reminded me even more why I refuse to disappear. My daughter found out something no 9yr old should have to encounter, and I was not physically there at the hospital with her. I was on FaceTime because that very hospital is tied to trauma I am still healing from. But I will not let another person’s violation steal my presence from my daughter ever again. I will be there. I will show up. I will keep writing. I will keep mothering. I will keep healing. I will keep telling the truth.
I am a mother. I am an artist. I am a caregiver. I am an Oregonian. I am a Californian. I am Hawaiian. I am all of my ancestors, all of my experiences, all of my mistakes, all of my healing, and all of my becoming.

I am not doing this for approval. I am doing this because love, history, ʻohana, and truth are calling me forward.

Peace and aloha.

07/30/2026

The Hawaiian Kingdom was not a myth.

It was a recognized nation with law, records, newspapers, diplomacy, and treaties.
Our kūpuna wrote. They petitioned. They protested. They documented the truth.

When we study those records, we are not making a new story. We are uncovering what was already there.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/50fnkM7rgDE

What if we stood together?Not just as people with opinions.Not just as people carrying pain.Not just as people arguing i...
07/29/2026

What if we stood together?

Not just as people with opinions.
Not just as people carrying pain.
Not just as people arguing in comment sections.

But as a lāhui willing to gather the truth with discipline, aloha, pono, and kuleana.

What if every moʻolelo mattered?
What if every family record mattered?
What if every treaty, constitution, newspaper article, land document, genealogy, legal argument, oral history, photograph, map, letter, and memory was brought forward with care?
What if our kūpuna left us more than grief?
What if they left us evidence?
What if the path back to recognition is not one loud voice, but many steady voices moving together?

Right now, we are doing the work of gathering, learning, organizing, teaching, questioning, and documenting. We are going chapter by chapter, post by post, conversation by conversation, because restoration cannot be built on emotion alone. It has to be built on truth, records, law, history, unity, and the will of the people.
If the Hawaiian Kingdom was recognized by nations before, then the question becomes: what must be gathered, protected, verified, organized, and presented so that recognition can be pursued again?

That work needs all of us.

Some people carry genealogy.
Some carry ʻāina knowledge.
Some carry ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.
Some carry legal knowledge.
Some carry treaty history.
Some carry family stories.
Some carry maps and documents.
Some carry cultural practice.
Some carry military experience.
Some carry administrative skills.
Some carry technology.
Some carry art, music, film, and storytelling.
Some carry prayer.
Some carry the ability to teach keiki.
Some carry the ability to calm a room when emotions rise.

All of it matters.

Because a nation is not restored by one person claiming power.

A nation is restored when the people remember who they are, gather what was hidden, protect what remains, and move with enough unity that the world can no longer pretend not to see us.
So the question is not only, “Can Hawaiʻi be recognized again?”

The question is:

Are we willing to become organized enough, disciplined enough, honest enough, and united enough to make recognition possible?
Are we willing to gather the truth instead of fighting over fragments?

Are we willing to listen to each other?
Are we willing to correct ourselves when we are wrong?

Are we willing to honor every island, every ʻohana, every moʻolelo, every kupuna, every keiki, and every voice that comes forward in aloha?

This page is one small part of that work.

We are not claiming to have everything.
We are asking: what can you bring?
Bring your knowledge.
Bring your records.

Bring your corrections.
Bring your questions.
Bring your genealogy.
Bring your family stories.
Bring your skills.
Bring your discipline.
Bring your aloha.
Bring your pono.
Bring your kuleana.

Because maybe the future of Hawaiʻi is not waiting for one person to save it.

Maybe it is waiting for the lāhui to remember that we were never powerless when we stood together.

The Hawaiian Kingdom was not a myth. It was not a dream. It was a recognized nation with law, leadership, diplomacy, lit...
07/29/2026

The Hawaiian Kingdom was not a myth. It was not a dream. It was a recognized nation with law, leadership, diplomacy, literacy, treaties, newspapers, courts, and a people who understood the importance of records.

That is why documentation matters.

Our kūpuna wrote. They petitioned. They protested. They kept newspapers. They recorded genealogy. They defended the Kingdom with words, law, and diplomacy.

Today, when we study those records, we are not creating a new story. We are uncovering the story that was already there.

The more we learn, the harder it becomes for anyone to say we were simply “given” something better.

Kanaka already had a nation.
Kanaka already had identity.
Kanaka already had intelligence.
Kanaka already had ea.

07/29/2026

Book XIII is here.

Hawaiian Wars, Unification, and the Cost of Nationhood is one of the hardest moʻolelo to tell with honesty, because it asks us to hold more than one truth at the same time.

Hawaiʻi was not a postcard.

Hawaiʻi was not weak. Hawaiʻi was not without governance, law, faith, strategy, warriors, aliʻi, diplomacy, or deep political intelligence.

Before the Kingdom stood on the world stage, our islands carried moku, aliʻi lines, sacred responsibility, battle, grief, survival, and the heavy work of becoming one nation.

This book does not glorify war, and it does not hide from it. It honors the people who lived through those choices in their own era, under their own pressures, with the laws, beliefs, dangers, and responsibilities of their time.

We are releasing one chapter per day on Facebook and YouTube so this can stay interactive. That means everyone has space to learn, ask, teach, reflect, and add knowledge with aloha and pono.

This is not lazy work. This is years of research, prayer, mourning, discipline, and kuleana. It is our way of carrying moʻolelo forward without disrespecting the ancestors, the ʻāina, or the people still learning beside us.

Every voice matters.

Watch the Book XIII teaser and walk into the next part of the moʻolelo with us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdIOB6A2-_4

Chris Meyer Aloha everyone. Since many people have asked about the Hawaiian words we use on this page, we wanted to shar...
07/29/2026

Chris Meyer Aloha everyone. Since many people have asked about the Hawaiian words we use on this page, we wanted to share a simple glossary. We are still learning too, and we welcome respectful guidance from fluent ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi speakers, kūpuna, kumu, and community members.

ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi: Hawaiian language

Aloha: Love, compassion, greeting, presence, breath of life

Aloha ʻāina: Love of the land; patriotism rooted in care for ʻāina

ʻĀina: Land; that which feeds and sustains us

Pono: Righteousness, balance, moral correctness, doing what is right

Kuleana: Responsibility, privilege, duty, what one is entrusted to care for

Mālama: To care for, protect, preserve, tend

Mālama ʻāina: To care for and protect the land

Moʻolelo: Story, history, tradition, account

Manaʻo: Thought, opinion, idea, belief, reflection

ʻIke: Knowledge, understanding, insight

Naʻau: Gut, inner knowing, heart-mind, deep feeling

P**e: Prayer

Mana: Spiritual power, authority, sacred energy

Lāhui: Nation, people, collective community

Ea: Life, breath, sovereignty, rising, self-determination

Keiki: Child or children

Moʻopuna: Grandchild, descendant

ʻOhana: Family, extended family, connected community

Kūpuna: Elders, ancestors, grandparents

Kumu: Teacher, source, foundation

Kanaka: Person, human being

Kanaka Maoli: Native Hawaiian person; Indigenous Hawaiian

Kānaka: People, humans, Native Hawaiian people depending on context

Kiaʻi: Guardian, protector, one who watches over

Nā Pūʻali Kiaʻi: The guardian forces or protective groups

Aupuni: Government, nation, kingdom, realm

Ke Aupuni Hawaiʻi: The Hawaiian government/Kingdom/Nation, depending on context

Aliʻi: Chief, chiefly class, royalty

Makaʻāinana: Common people, people of the land

Ahupuaʻa: Traditional land division running from mountain to sea

Moku: District, island, region

Wai: Fresh water

Kai: Sea, ocean water

Mauna: Mountain

Kalo: Taro, sacred elder sibling in Hawaiian genealogy

Pueo: Hawaiian owl, often honored by some ʻohana as ʻaumākua

ʻAumākua: Ancestral guardian or family protector

Akua: God, deity, divine being

Kupua: Supernatural being, culture hero, shapeshifter, extraordinary figure

Heiau: Sacred temple or place of worship

Kapu: Sacred restriction, prohibition, protected status

Iwi kūpuna: Ancestral bones/remains

Wahi pana: Sacred, storied, or legendary place

Oli: Chant

Mele: Song, chant, poem

Hula: Hawaiian dance and sacred storytelling practice

Moʻokūʻauhau: Genealogy

Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea: Restoration Day, remembering the restoration of Hawaiian Kingdom sovereignty in 1843

Lā Kūʻokoʻa: Hawaiian Independence Day, recognizing international acknowledgment of Hawaiian independence in 1843

Mahalo: Thank you, gratitude

Mahalo nui: Thank you very much

Me ke aloha pumehana: With warm aloha

Honi honi: Kisses, affection, loving greeting

E ola: May it live

E ola mau: May it live forever

E ola mau ka lāhui: May the nation/people live on forever

Language carries memory. When we use ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, we do our best to use it with respect, humility, and care. If we make mistakes, we welcome correction because this page is about learning together. Every word is part of the moʻolelo. Every correction helps us move closer to pono.

07/29/2026

Aloha ʻāina is more than love for land.

It is relationship.
It is responsibility.
It is action.

From mauka to makai, water connects the mountain, the kalo, the fishpond, the reef, and the people.

When the ʻāina heals, the people begin to heal too.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ewBB4j12im0

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89-359 Mokiawe Street
Waianae, HI
96792

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