The Unlikely Odyssey Of Prince Jonah Kuhio …Born and raised in nobility and imprisoned after the overthrow of the monarchy, Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole had an outsized impact on modern Hawaii.
He was an unusual child and he lived a most unusual life.
He is the only person in American history to have had two essentially conflicting titles — royal prince and democratically elected congressman. Even in Washington, D.C., in the halls of the nation’s capital, in a country known for its uneasy relationship with monarchy, he was known as The Prince.
His full name was Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Piikoi — each element of which had an association with a proud history that lingers today.
And he did more to shape modern Hawaiian history than any other person.
His Biblical first name, Jonah, came to seem almost prescient. It recalls the scriptural story of a man who survived a terrifying brush with disaster and death, was swallowed by a monster, and emerged with a mission to save his people.
His last name, Piikoi, dropped away over time and he became known as Kuhio, partly because President Teddy Roosevelt struggled to pronounce the word Kalanianaole.
Now his names adorn the streets and highways of Hawaii — from Kalanianaole Highway, which links Kaimuki to Kailua, to Kuhio Avenue, which serves as the spine of Waikiki, to Piikoi Street in central Honolulu, the passage from Ala Moana to Makiki. His beachfront home in Waikiki, Pualeilani, became Kuhio Beach Park.
