She was named after her aunt Kekuʻiapoiwa Nui, the wife of King Kekaulike of Maui. Her father was High ChiefHaae, the son of Chiefess Kalanikauleleiaiwi and High Chief Kauaua-a-Mahi of the Mahi family of the Kohala district of Hawaii island, and brother of Alapainui. Her mother was Princess Kekelakekeokalani-a-Keawe, daughter of the same Kalanikauleleiaiwi and Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku, king of Hawaii. Her mother had been sought after by many who wished to marry into the Keawe line. She was the niece of Alapainui through both her father and mother. She married the High Chief Keōua to whom she had been betrothed since childhood. Through her double grandmother Kalanikauleleiaiwi, Keōua's own paternal grandmother, she was the double cousin of Keōua. When her uncle was staying at Kohala superintending the collection of his fleet and warriors from the different districts of the island preparatory to the invasion of Maui, in the month of Ikuwa Kamehameha was born probably in November 1758. He had his birth ceremony at the Mookini Heiau, an ancient temple which is preserved in Kohala Historical Sites State Monument. Many stories are told about the birth of Kamehameha. One says that when Kekuʻiapoiwa was pregnant with Kamehameha, she had a craving for the eyeball of a chief. She was given the eyeball of a man-eating shark and the priests prophesied that this meant the child would be a rebel and a killer of chiefs. Alapainui, the old ruler of the island of Hawaii, secretly made plans to have the newborn infant killed. Kekuʻiapoiwa's time came on a stormy night in the Kohala district, when a strange star with a tail of white fire appeared in the western sky. This could have been Halley's Comet which appeared near the end of 1758. According to one legend, the baby was passed through a hole in the side of Kekuiapoiwa's thatched hut to a local Kohala chief named Naeole, who carried the child to safety at Awini on the island's north coast. By the time the infant in Naeole's care was five, Alapainui had accepted him back into his household. After Kamehameha, Kekuʻiapoiwa bore a second son, Keliimaikai. A few years later, Keōua died in Hilo, and the family moved with Alapainui to an area near Kawaihae, where she married a chief of the Kona districtKamanawa. She had one daughter, Piʻipiʻi Kalanikaulihiwakama, from this second husband, who would later become an important military ally of Kamehameha, who was both step son and cousin through several relationships. Piʻipiʻi became first the wife of Keholoikalani, the father of her son Kanihonui, and later she married Kaikioewa, who she had a daughter Kuwahine with.
