Wai-nani: High Chiefess of Hawai’i: Her Epic Journey

Linda Ballou
Star Publish (2008)
ISBN 9781932993882
Reviewed by Danelle Drake for Reader Views (1/09)

 

When I was a very little girl I dreamed of being a princess.  Now as I am heading toward the big 50, married with children, after reading “Wai-nani: High Chiefess of Hawai’i: Her Epic Journey,” once again I am dreaming of being a princess.  Or to be more precise, I want to be Wai-nani; I want to swim with the dolphins, I want people to cower to my beauty, I want…..

As a child Wai-nani lived life on the edge.  She challenged the law of the land where the male race was superior.  She could do all her brothers could do and did not enjoy being told she would not.  Her friendship with the dolphin Eku, and his sultry mate Laka, was her rescue when she needed companionship.  Her father, the chief, had come to his wit’s end with the unwelcome behavior Wai-nani displayed so he made a challenge for the men of the village.  Whoever won the challenge would become Wai-nani’s husband thus ending her rowdy ways.  Wai-nani feared being married to just about everyone, but felt that if her brother won the contest their union would produce an ali’s ruler of the highest blood caste.  Did she want to be married to her brother, or any loveless warrior for that matter?  Standing on the beach contemplating her fate, she untied the knot of her pa’u letting it drop to her ankles, glanced at her father and ran into the crashing waves to Eku.  She “cast her fate like a fisherman’s net upon the sea.”

Written like pure poetry, you will become entranced with the story of Wai-nani and amazed at the beauty of the history of the Hawaiian woman.  I could not put the book down.  “Wai-nani: High Chiefess of Hawai’i: Her Epic Journey” by Linda Ballou is one of those magical books you take with you for a steamy hot bath soak and emerge when the water is ice cold and your body is shriveled up like a raisin.  I will pass this book on to my daughters as a story of encouragement and breaking free.  In the preface of the book the reader is asked: “Was Ka’ahumanu (of whom the story is based on) a forerunner to the modern woman and a daring, liberator, or was she a traitor to her times?”  Could she be both?

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