Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina

Emma Kailikapuolono Metcalf Beckley Nakuina (March 5, 1847 – April 27, 1929) was an early Hawaiian female judge, curator and cultural writer. Descended from an American sugar planter and a Hawaiian high chiefess, she was educated in Hawaii and California. She served as curator of the Hawaiian National Museum from 1882 to 1887 and as Commissioner of Private Ways and Water Rights from 1892 to 1907. In her role as a government commissioner, she is often regarded as Hawaii's first female judge. During the early 1900s, she became a supporter of the women's suffrage movement in the Territory of Hawaii. Nakuina was also a prolific writer on the topic of Hawaiian culture and folklore and her many literary works include Hawaii, Its People, Their Legends (1904). Early life and family Nakuina was born March 5, 1847, at her family's homestead in Kauaʻala in the Manoa Valley, at what is now the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her father Theophilus Metcalf, originally from Ontario County, New York, arrived in Hawaii on May 19, 1842, and was naturalized as a citizen on March 9, 1846. He worked as a sugar planter and government land surveyor during the Great Mahele. Her mother, Kailikapuolono, was a descendant of the aliʻi lineages of Oahu, which was traditionally associated with the Kūkaniloko Birthstones, where the highest-ranking chiefs of the islands were once born. Her maternal great-grandfather was Nahili, a chief from the island of Hawaii and one of the generals of King Kamehameha I during his conquest of the Hawaiian Islands. Her maternal family was considered to be of the Hawaiian kaukau aliʻi class, or lower ranking chiefs in service to the royal family. Nakuina was educated at Sacred Hearts Academy and Punahou School in Honolulu. She was also privately tutored in many languages by her father including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, German, English, and Hawaiian. In 1866, she was preparing to attend the Young Ladies Seminary (modern day Mills College) in Benicia, California. No records exist of her attendance in the Mills College archives. Her father died on August 6, 1866, while visiting Oakland, possibly in order to settle her into her new school, and she decided to stay in Hawaii instead. At a young age, King Kamehameha IV ordered her to be trained in traditional water rights and customs. On December 3, 1867, she married Frederick William Beckley Sr. (1845–1881), a part-Hawaiian noble like herself.