Hawaiian religion "Along with ancestors and gods, spirits are part of the family of Hawaiians. "There are many kinds of spirits that help for good and many that aid in evil. Some lie and deceive, and some are truthful ... It is a wonderful thing how the spirits ("ʻuhane") of the dead and the ‘angels’ ("anela") of the "ʻaumākua" can possess living persons. Nothing is impossible to god-spirits, "akua"." Kamehameha the Great died in 1819. In the aftermath, two of his wives, Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani, then the two most powerful people in the kingdom, conferred with the "kahuna nui", Hewahewa. They convinced
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands found by N.C. Middlebrooks in 1859. In 1925, the Tanager Expedition travelled to many of the NWHI. The islands were mapped, new species were discovered and described, and the archeological sites on Nihoa and Necker were found. Most of the islands have two names; one in English and one in Hawaiian (indicated in parentheses above). The majority of the Hawaiian names used as alternative to the English ones were created in modern times, the original names that ancient Hawaiians gave to all of these islands that they encountered prior to Western contact are found in various oli (chants) and moʻolelo