Kalaniʻōpuʻu left Hawaiʻi Island to his son and the war god to his nephew Kamehameha, and the chiefs who got no land started the war that made Kamehameha king

Abraham Fornander, writing in 1880 from Hawaiian accounts, records that Kalaniʻōpuʻu, ruling chief of Hawaiʻi Island, called a council in Waipiʻo before he died. He proclaimed his son Kiwalaʻō heir to the government and to the kapu. He gave the care of his war god, Kūkāʻilimoku, to his nephew Kamehameha, who was to be subordinate to Kiwalaʻō. Kalaniʻōpuʻu died in 1782. The National Park Service notes that Kiwalaʻō then gave lands to his uncle Keawemauhili and left his half-brother Keōua with nothing. At Hōnaunau, Kiwalaʻō stood on a platform beside the royal burial house and announced the will: the war god and some lands to Kamehameha, the government of the island to himself. The Kona chiefs, who expected to lose their lands to the Hilo and Kaʻū chiefs of Kiwalaʻō's party, said: "Why not have divided the country, three districts to one and three to the other?" and "War would be better." That evening Kiwalaʻō passed the ʻawa cup Kamehameha had prepared to a favourite instead of drinking it, and Kamehameha's counsellor struck the bowl away. At the battle of Mokuʻōhai, a slingstone stunned Kiwalaʻō and the chief Keʻeaumoku cut his throat with a shark-tooth blade. The island split three ways. Kiwalaʻō's infant daughter Keōpūolani fled to Maui. She later married Kamehameha, and her sons became Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III.